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It was a cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Minus two. So it was only eleven. Because it was silly that the clocks would strike 13, since there are only twelve numbers. Unless you consider military time. But I don't think very many military clocks "strike" thirteen. They more or less just reach it without any frivolous fanfare. Of course even the military is suspect of the occasional bout of fanfare when the need arises. There are even such things as military bands and some other pretty odd situations.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. It was April and the clocks were striking thirteen. I mean eleven. You know, the word Eleven looks a lot like Elven, even though that is an entirely different matter. For those of you who don't know, Elven refers to Elves, as in an Elven archer or an Elven bow. Hmmm those both have to do with archery. That's really not surprising, since elves are generally categorized as woodsmen close to nature, and bows are very much made of natural stuff, like cord and wood. Of course, Elves are also well versed in mystic ancient magics, and then usually stuff related to the woods. Of course, one must not forget the Elves that make cookies that are oh so soft and chewy. Mmmmmmm.

Oh, right, as I was saying, it was a cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen. Eleven. The clocks were striking eleven. Of course I should point out that this is not April first. I mean, I wouldn't want you expecting some sort of skullduggery or mischief in this story, as you will find none. Although it would do a good job of explaining why the clocks were striking thirteen. That would of course be that some kind of prankster decided to add a few gongs to the end of the chime. That reminds me of another amusing anecdote, you see there was a man who just inherited his grandmother's clock. For a few months he kept it and it kept wonderful time, but after a while it developed a problem. Whenever it chimed there was always a few more chimes than there should be. He kept taking it to specialists to see what the problem was, but they would always admit they couldn't find any problem and that the clock worked just fine. It was driving him mad. He couldn't figure out what it was. Then, one day he had his parrot out on his shoulder and the clock struck three. It chimed once, twice, three times, four times, five times. But, the man finally realized what was wrong, for the last two times the chimes came not from his clock, but his parrot.

So there you have it. It was the parrot that was broken all along, not the clock. Hmm? What? April?

OH! Right. It was a cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen. Of course, not every day in April is cold, but it was an especially cold spring this year. And no, I don't know what year it was. I'm pretty sure it was in the eighties, but beyond that I can't be certain. You know how it is, sometimes it's best to leave some of the details to the imagination of your readers. But not too much either, since then the story might not make any sense whatsoever. It takes a keen intellect to strike the mark between "boring stating of facts" and "abstract nonsense". I've known more than a few books that did an excellent job of stating the facts in a most boring way. Of course this is actually a very bad thing, you see it's irony, which is another useful tool for good writing. Speaking of writing, I might as well mention that it's a good idea to get a goal in your head about what exactly you want to write. If you don't do this, you end up in well, I don't rightly know, but it probably is pretty weird looking, and probably pretty confusing for a reader expecting an actual plot and climax and such when all they get is a big pile of facts with no discernible reason.

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