Welcome

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

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Potpourri

State of the Blog-  The big news was 5,000 page views this last week.  Woo hoo!  I've also picked up enough readers that starting to put up polls might be useful to get feedback on which features work and which don't.

June was down from May, but that's because I stopped writing regular updates on weekends. The fastest, easiest way to get hits is to post updates daily, but you get into a quality/quantity signal/noise issue, and the burn out factor can be pretty high.  Hopefully I'm taking W.A.W. towards more "short controlled bursts."

I wrote out ahead of myself last week, and that's the only way to fly.  The writing was better, the editing was better, and the pressure to write and post was far less.  Unfortunately, I cannibalized my lead time when I went to Texas to see my mom, so I have to start over on that.  Once I have a week or two of lead time, I will work on putting some fiction up here.

Big things are coming.

Potpourri-

That's a whole lot of whup ass to risk ignoring.















This is an amazing Ted that cuts to the core of connection, empathy, and compassion.  This isn't about art particularly, but it is about all the things upon which art and humanities are based.  Her ideas about being seen leading to vulnerability are particularly poignant to young writers struggling against tidal waves of rejections when they first try to be seen. I knew I would love it in the first two minutes when she said: "Maybe stories are just data with a soul."

Vulnerability as the birthplace of creativity: powerful stuff.

It makes me think of how many writers say when you're writing the best stuff of your artistic career, your heart will be pounding because you are afraid.

I could watch this twice a day and be a better artist for it.







These are years old, but always good for a laugh.  The Worst Analogies Ever Written in a High School Essay.




Grammar rules you can ignore.  Those are my favorite kind!




Pixar has 22 rules of storytelling that are absolutely brilliant.  You may find Pixar's storytelling to be a little formulaic, but most people need to learn the basics before they think themselves above it.
[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 is some kind of meme, so it would be quite difficult for me to do proper attribution.]


3 comments:

  1. Grammar rules link is broken :(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. Let's see if I can fix that....

      Delete
    2. That should do the trick. Thanks for letting me know. :)

      Delete