A line from a wordsmith

Sometimes, when you're reading, you come across a line that jumps out at you. From a recent novel:
My shoulder hit it this time and didn't break the glass, but I felt something go pop in my arm, and the whole limb seemed to light up with abrupt awareness of pain

As soon as I came across it, I was seduced by the turn of phrase. At some point in the near future, I shall steal that line, um, "be inspired by that line" and write:
... and her whole bottom seemed to light up with abrupt awareness of pain.

I just can't decide if it's a switch crashing down or a paddle striking home that will inspire that line.

Oh - the line? From a Jim Butcher novel. He writes Film Noir style urban fantasy, focusing on a wizard who works as a detective. The poor fellow usually gets bounced around a lot during the books.

Goodgulf

A good line, I trust you will use it well. In the meantime, I think I will look up the novels of Jim Butcher.

The Dresden series is a really good group of fantasy fiction. DON'T WATCH the TV show! It's horrible!

The first book is called Stormfront, if you want a place to start.

But be warned - there is no spanking in it. It's got nothing on topic. The closed thing to on topic happens when the hero (on the run from the law) ends up hiding in a treehouse at friend's place. The friend's daughter gets home from school, goes to the treehouse, and on seeing the hand cuffs asks if they're police handcuffs or fun ones.

The hero sputters, wondering what she could know about 'fun ones', when she tells him to turn his back so she can change. Yes, she's using the treehouse to change from the "I wear these clothes at school to fit in" back into the "I left the house wearing these clothes that mom approves of". Then she gets some of her dad's tools and they get the cuffs of him, agreeing that she didn't see him with the handcuffs on if he didn't see what she wears at school.

Goodgulf

Switch or cane. Not sure why, it just feels right.

I do it all the time. And it's not phrases actually, it's plot ideas, MacGuffins, the way dialog rolls out, lots of things. When I read now, I pay attention, not only to what is going on in a book, but how the author is telling the story. I might read a paragraph and ask myself, "now why was that so effective?" and go back and deconstruct it. So I'm now doing for fun what legions of high school English teachers had to beat me into submission to do. Oh, the irony.

Isn't it wonderful?

I love finding gems like that. Sometimes they're in poetry. I'm currently enraptured of Khalil Gibran's On Pain, which has nothing to do with spanking and is actually moving and very nearly mystical, but contains this passage as well:

There is something very powerful there about submission and acceptance and pain as something much more than just a physical sensation, but a) I can't think of how to turn it into a story right now and b) it feels wrong to turn something transcendental into (as someone puts it) spanko porn. (But I'll get over that latter, so, suggestions welcome!)

He's entitled to his opinion, but personally I prefer to take a couple of paracetamols. It reminds me of something I read once

"We see not with the eye, nor with the brain, but with the whole body."

At first I thought it was very profound, but after thinking about it for a while I decided it was nonsense. After all, if you have a leg amputated it doesn't affect your vision, so far as I know.

Ah - there's your problem right there. You're confusing "seeing" with "vision".

"The Mississippi delta was shining like a National guitar" My favourite Paul Simon lyric. Beautiful!