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My drug of choice is writing––writing, art, reading, inspiration, books, creativity, process, craft, blogging, grammar, linguistics, and did I mention writing?

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Saturday Potpourri

I'm not going to do a real State of the Blog this week since I am at con.  There are some interesting things happening and coming, but I'll wait until I'm home and resettled into my routine to open those cans of worms.

So let's go right to the potpourri, though I'm afraid it won't be quite as spectacular as usual since I am away from my desktop with all my saved images and categorized bookmarks...

The World's Best Ever tackles 33 ways to stay creative.  I think this list should be called 33 things you might TRY to see if they work for you, but that probably wouldn't get them so many hits from Google searches.  Some of them are strangely redundant like carrying a notebook and writing down things you think of.  Some just seem like they were tossed on there (Foreign Films?  Read a page of the dictionary?) to reach the number 33.  Not that those things couldn't be creative, but I wouldn't consider them as fundamental to staying creative as getting lots of rest.

Ghostwriter Dad talks a lot about blogging, so I read him a lot now that I've got this new, shiny blog project I'm doing.  Here are 10 Grammar Rules You Should Ignore.  Be careful though....I'm not sure G.W. Dad mentions it, but in highly formal writing four of these rules should be embossed on your desk and at least 3 more are almost always good advice unless you're really sure what you're doing.

I'm not a prescriptivist (except when someone says all babies are miracles, but not all grilled cheese sandwiches are), but this is an interesting article about 8 words you might be using incorrectly.  I think half of these are persnickety people being persnickety, and they should learn to relax, but if you're going to use those words, you better know the history.

The reason you write the book that you want to read (or short story...or poetry...or creative non-fiction...or whatever) is because readers just don't agree.  This rocking article by the New York Review of Books talks about Why Readers Disagree using lots of nerdy (read: awesome) psychological analysis and stuff, and it's a slammin read if you have a few minutes.

Creative Writing Made Easy.  I'm posting this mostly by way of pointing and laughing.  I suppose as with every continuum of quality in art, there are some people who are dedicated to the painstaking quest to create something of quality and others metaphorically painting with watercolors and remarking how easy it all is.

[Do you want to be featured in potpourri along with a few words from me about how awesome you are?  Do you know a great writing link that I should share? Please send it to me at chris.brecheen@gmail.com, and I will post it along with a shout out singing your praises (unless, of course, you don't want one).  There are four caveats to this.  Please read them before you send me stuff.  If I've posted anything that you feel is "yours" (or "your client's" --eeep!) please just tell me what you would like me to do.  Most everything here that doesn't have an embedding code within its source is some kind of meme, so it would be quite difficult for me to do proper attribution.]


2 comments:

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