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The trick — and it’s imperfect and can take a while, but — is simply to write something else. Don’t let your hands go cold. Don’t let yourself stop thinking. Shift to something different.
[…]
It’s about letting your backbrain chew on the problems while your frontbrain is amused by the new and shiny things.
[…]
Write something else. Anything else. Either you’ll solve the problem in the background, or get the taste back for what you’re stuck on — or, guess what, maybe that whole thing was dead and you were just shoving electrodes up it to make it twitch in an awful semblance of life the whole time.
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Backpack: Graphic Novelist 2.3
Do you, or would you like to, write scripts for graphic novels/comic books/webcomics? Graphic Novelist can help you do that. It’s a simple TextMate bundle to help you write scripts for a sequential art format.
Installed.
Now, all I need is something like talent and the vaguest idea what the heck to make a comic about.
Onward!
- Raymond Chandler cut his typing paper in half. He’d type until he made a bad word choice or botched a bit of dialogue, then he’d rip the sheet out of his typewriter and start again. Eventually he’d have a half page of fiction he could stand. Then he’d move forward—very, very slowly—to the next half-page of his novel.
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Raising Some Concerns
Apple in particularused a state-of-the-art sales operation that some say is unique, but is raising some concerns.
Okay. I’ll bite.
- (First, I think you’re missing a space there somewhere.)
- “state-of-the-art” - Really? Wow. Can you be sure it’s solely “state-of-the-art” and not also “cutting edge” or “best of breed?” Because, those are all probably really good things, too.
- “some say” - Ooo. “Some?” And, it’s something they “say?” Excellent sourcing! I’m a huge fan of “some.” I love when some “say” things.
- “unique” - Oh, I’ll bet it’s “unique.” I’ll bet it’s literally unique.
I’ll bet it’s literally uniquely unique. - “raising some concerns” - Aha! Well, perhaps one reason that some say the uniqueness of this sales operation is so state-of-the-art has something to do with its powers of intransitive levitation.
Oooooo…loooooook! The concerns! They’re riiiiiising!
Anyway. How about this:
Apple’s novel approach to courting educators has increased sales, but drawn criticism from watchdog groups.
Not perfect. But, a little clearer.
And, as some say, cliches, buzzwords, and generalities muddy the clarity that defines this state-of-the-art sales operation that some have called, “writing.”
Skullfucking clarity raises some concerns.
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Like Hammers
Perhaps, a final word on FSM.
Excerpted from an email responding to a very nice person who makes a lovely-looking writing app.
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Don’t worry too much about security. You will eventually have a deep security when you begin to do what you want.
Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones
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I often tell my students to throw out their thesauruses. The fancy sounding words they substitute for regular ones often have wide-ranging connotations, sometimes derived from something as simple as the word’s component phonemes.
I.
It might also be useful to advise them to throw out their dictionaries, periodic tables, and atlases. Geez. Especially those atlases.
I mean, what real cartographer uses an atlas?
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Introducing “ū—”: A Distraction-Free Writing Environment
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PORTLAND, OR - The Ourobouros Fun Factory, LLC is proud to announce a revolutionary new tool for serious artists doing serious work. It’s a distraction-free writing environment that we call “ū—” (pron. “YOOOoooouuuuu…”). And, it’s going to change the way you think about thinking about maybe writing some day forever.
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Truly: “classic.”
Because, finally, you can announce your theoretical avocation by owning and wearing the very same baseball cap worn by Plutarch, Ovid, Aristophanes, and Heraclitus.1
Seriously. If you’ve ever wrestled with the complex and often difficult process of discovery confronting anyone who wishes to write often and well, consider that you may have neglected to buy a fucking hat.
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As you know, Parmenides preferred to write while wearing the yellowed laurel of grapevines and olive branches that his father had fashioned for him as a toddler—positing that, like all matter, sartorial decisions are, by their nature, eternally unchangeable (viz. ὡς οὐκ ἐστίν). ↩
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Day 11 of the zero draft reboot. Daytum says it’s Miller Time.
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Appreciating Donald Murray
(a/k/a, “Quit trying to make pigs out of sausage.”)
This used copy of Writing for Your Readers cost me US$2.97 used on Amazon Marketplace. So, imagine my surprise yesterday, when it arrived and I opened it to discover it’s autographed by Don Murray. With a funny little self-portrait doodle and all!
Made my day. Plus, it seems like a good omen, right?
Context:
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Top 1 Habits of Amazing Writers
- They write.
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Writing and Rejection.
Also, you want a great high? Get a great rejection letter from a place like Esquire. I did and do and I save them all.
Somewhere, deep in our garage, I think I still have my first rejection from The Atlantic (ca. 1990). Blue embossed type on heavy card stock, if memory serves. Classy. Distinguished. Albeit, not signed.
