I started blogging a decade ago because I like blogging. Writing's a kind of lonely thing to do and I liked the idea of demystifying the process because I loved it as a kid and teenager and as somebody who wanted desperately to write.

Trees there were, old as trees can be, huge and grasping with hearts black as sin. Strange trees that some said walked in the night.

Virginia is the place, where, technologically speaking, they will burn people at the stake for possessing such things as toasters.

Spider venom comes in many forms. It can often take a long while to discover the full effects of the bite. Naturalists have pondered this for years: there are spiders whose bite can cause the place bitten to rot and to die, sometimes more than a year after it was bitten. As to why spiders do this, the answer is simple. It's because spiders think this is funny, and they don't want you ever to forget them.

Childhood memories are sometimes covered and obscured beneath the things that come later, like childhood toys forgotten at the bottom of a crammed adult closet, but they are never lost for good.

I'll find you. Don't worry. Just be on your own and I'll find you.

He had noticed that events were cowards: they didn't occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once.