Chapter 24 is available now!

Welcome to the February 2022 edition of author David Claiborne’s newsletter, a monthly publication about groundhogs, Philistines, and puns.

What do you call a groundhog’s clothing?
–> hog togs <–



The movie Groundhog Day is a pretty inspirational movie. For those not in the know, it stars Bill Murray playing an ambitious reporter stuck on a human interest gig covering Punxsutawney (yeah, I had to look up how to spell it too) Phil on Groundhog Day. He finds himself stuck in a time loop of sorts, repeating Groundhog Day endlessly with no evident escape. At first, he takes advantage of the situation to commit all sorts of sin, then he spirals into depression and tries to kill himself several times, only to awaken anew to the same day again and again.

What do you call a groundhog’s laundry?
–> hog wash <–

I’m really selling this as an inspirational movie, aren’t I?
The inspiration comes when he shifts his mindset and decides to take advantage of his curse of immortality. He starts helping people around town. He memorizes everyone else’s day and is able to prevent several accidents and otherwise play the benefactor. He befriends a drifter and tries to save his life. He learns to play piano.

What do you call a groundhog’s cloud?
–> hog fog <–

It’s a movie I used to cite as inspiration when trying to inspire others, particularly my staff. Would you like to learn to play piano? Write a novel? Learn Spanish? Is it too hard? You don’t know where to start? Takes too much time? How long does it take? What if it takes ten years? How old are you anyway?

What do you call a groundhog’s firewood?
–> hog logs <–

The way I see it, if you want to accomplish something that takes a lot of work, you can either complain that it’ll take too long and end up looking back in ten years saying, “I wish I had learned piano/written that novel/could speak Spanish;” or you can start today, and ten years from now look back and say, “It feels pretty good to say that I can do that thing.” Chances are also pretty good that after 10 years you’ll be no slouch at it either.

What do you call the stump where a groundhog sits?
–> a ground log <–

Speaking of writing, one of the tasks of a writer is to read what others wrote so you can learn and improve your writing. My wife and I were cleaning out bookshelves in the basement and I came across a paperback of The Three Musketeers. I try to always be reading a book, so I decided to make it my next one. It is a classic after all and should be on everyone’s list of must-read books. So they say.
And I don’t like it one bit.
Call me a Philistine, but I can barely stand Alexandre Dumas’ writing style. Part of it may be that writing today values economy of the word, whereas Dumas takes twenty pages to say what could be said in three, with each sentence taking up veritable paragraphs of flowery language. Part of it may be that Dumas was writing for a serial publication and had incentive to stretch out his tale over as many issues as he dared, leading to the extraneous verbiage.

What happens if the groundhog’s ground log sees its shadow?
–> You get six more weeks of splinters <–

At the end of the day, I still don’t like it.
It’s tiresome to read, and you could easily finish entire pages and find that nothing had happened, or that you don’t remember what happened because of it.
See? I did learn something about writing by reading someone else’s work. Sometimes it’s for the better, sometimes for the worse.

Various

The manuscript for Planet Mission: Part Two should be in the hands of an editor by the time you read this. I gave that poor bedraggled professional three months to finish editing, but they’ll probably have it back to me well before then, because professionals are bedraggled for a reason. That’s a long way of saying I’m still on track for a summer publication date.
My wife finished reading the manuscript for The Halo Sound and hated it as all first drafts must be hated, so that one’s got some more work to be done.
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My first-born shares a birthday with Groundhog Day, and a Chief’s Superbowl victory. Happy birthday, son!
In closing, please remember that he who would make a pun would pick a pocket. Obeying the Good Lord’s command to turn the other cheek, return aught for what you have received.

David