I’VE GOT AN UNCONTROLLABLE URGE: Thought it might be fun–and perhaps useful for me as a writer–to list the things I keep doing, over and over, in stories.

1. overuse of words: I don’t think I’ve written a story without using “pale” or (especially!) “blank” at least once. I blame Harold Bloom for the latter–go read his chapter on Emily Dickinson in The Western Canon, right now! I know one of the reasons I like “Grosse Pointe Blank” is that last word in the title.

I do think I’ve gotten a handle on my overuse of “attenuated” though.

2. I associate generosity, especially material generosity, with lying. The two characters who do this most obviously are Jamie Cantalamessa and Justin Harlowe, but I know in my mental templates of characters I make this connection frequently. I think it has something to do with attempting to meet others’ needs and expectations. I note that Jamie and Justin are both youngest children (as am I); Ratty (also a youngest child) at one point speculated that youngest children are more likely to be instinctive liars, and I think that’s right. She suggested it might be because we entered into a family world, a political structure if you like (cf. SRD’s comment that you need to have at least three children, “so there can be factionalism”), which we had no part in creating and which it was easier to work around than to reshape. I’d welcome other thoughts on this stuff, as birth order is one of my (many…) obsessions.

3. None of my characters ever drink gin. That’s because I can’t help tasting any food or drink I describe, and I really hate the taste of gin. (“Gin! gin! a glass of gin!/And all the demons therewithin!”)

4. For some reason, I’ve twice written the “Sorry I’m late”/”You’re not late–I’m early” exchange. And the early person is always the villain of the piece. This is one of those things that make me suspect I really don’t understand how my own mind works.

5. I write about the sea, or large bodies of water, all the time–weirdly often, given that D.C. is, like, landlocked. The sea is almost always bad: It’s generally somehow linked to relativism, or to abdication of responsibility. “Kissable Pictures” is an exception, as is a story I haven’t posted, “Nicorette,” in which Rehoboth Beach plays a supporting role.