Tillie Olsen passed away this week at the age of 94.  Her book Silences helped me feel better about the periods of time that I don't write.  Here is Mediabistro.com's writeup:

Many literary and publishing types are paying their respects this week to Tillie Olsen, who died Monday at the age of 94. Julie Bosman's obituary of her in the New York Times points out that Olsen's short stories, books and essays lent a heartfelt voice to the struggles of women and working-class people, while Hillel Italie's AP writeup sums up what made Olsen's work tick: "for her characters, the open road did not lead to freedom, but only to the next job."

In addition to writing, Olsen taught at various universities throughout the 1960s and 70s, including MIT, Stanford and the University of Massachusetts, and beginning in the early 1970s, she was an adviser to the Feminist Press. At her suggestion the press began reprinting feminist classics that had been lost, starting with Rebecca Harding Davis's LIFE IN THE IRON MILLS. Over the years, Olsen recommended many of the books the Feminist Press reprinted. She is survived by four daughters, a sister, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

I always give my husband 3 or 4 novels at Christmas.  The bad simile in the first sentence of one thriller put him off from reading it.  Here's the sentence—"The storm blew up late in the afternoon, tight gray clouds hustling over the lake like dirty, balled-up sweat socks spilling from a basket."  Now whenever he comes across a bad simile, he reads it aloud to me.  "Beads of sweat poured out his pores like popcorn."  "The house was small and squat like a constipated man."  Uhm, where was the editor for these gems?  They are all well-known and very successful authors, so I guess editors let them slide, but they shouldn't have.  I'm a fan of similes.  They riddle my first draft like Swiss cheese (told you I liked them).   But, by the second draft many of them loose their luster.  Before I spare a simile the red pen, I ask myself the following questions:

-->[if !supportLists]-->1)      Does this make sense?  A house can't look constipated and if it does then I want more of a description of the house because that is something to see.  Do sweat socks hustle when they spill from a basket?  I'm not sure they do. -->[endif]-->

-->[if !supportLists]-->2)      Does it make the sentence better?  If I were editing famous and rich author's first sentence, I would've done this-- The storm blew up late in the afternoon, it's tight gray clouds hustling over the lake.  We still get the image of a fast-moving storm, and we didn't laugh about the socks.  I cut this simile from my manuscript—"Boxes were stacked precariously in the corner like Lincoln logs."  We've all seen moving boxes stacked too high, so I put the period after corner.  The simile should clarify the scene and give the reader details that would otherwise be lacking.  If your sentence is just as strong without the simile, you may want to consider cutting it.  -->[endif]-->

-->[if !supportLists]-->3)      Am I saying this in an original way?  If you say, "Fred's temper was a volatile as a volcano" you aren't saying anything new, so why have it?  (And volcanoes only go off every few hundred years, so how volatile are they?)  I'd rather see "Fred's bad temper was legendary" or "Fred has a bad temper." Than a cliché or a bad simile.  Even better, show us Fred's bad temper. -->[endif]-->

I probably won't post next week because I will be in Charlotte for my MFA residency, but I will try.  If my agent gets back to me with any good news, I promise to make a post.