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Awesome “Best of” Vacation Post

25 Aug

The internet never rests, but I do. I’m taking off the last two weeks of the summer to enjoy the weather, get my son ready for kindergarten and eat ribs.

I will be moderating comments (and chiming in occasionally) so don’t let me hold you back.

In case you’re new here (or need some reminding of all the good works we’ve done) here are five popular posts that will demonstrate what we’re all about:

Five Common Writing Mistakes That My Students Make That I Still Make (and You Probably Make Too)

How Do I Start My Writing Career?

Five Thoughts from a Short-short Fiction Contest Judge

The First Ten Books in Little, Brown’s Spring ’09 Catalog

Getting Published Without Querying

Awesome Weekend Quote

21 Aug

I’m not a big motivational quote guy, but I thought this gem from Buckminster Fuller was too good not to share:

“When I’m working on a problem I never think about beauty. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”

Have a fine weekend!

On Deadline: Help Me Wolvy!

1 Jul

writing-advice-from-wolverine

Now THIS is a Senior Project

15 Jun

Congratulations to Savannah College of Art and Design senior Bang-yao Liu.

You are one ’09 grad who has nothing to worry about.

My Stepfather’s Wild Incurvation

11 Jun

While doing my monthly ego search (go ahead and make your frequency jokes) I stumbled across the following link:

Download free HEAD CASE: How I Almost Lost My Mind Trying To Understand My Brain

Having never heard of the reputable-sounding 4ebooks.org (my bad) I clicked through and found this delightful marriage of attempted digital piracy and spam gibberish:

Dennis Cass, “Head Case: How I Almost Lost My Mind Trying to Understand My Brain”
HarperCollins | 2007-03-01 | ISBN: 0060594721 | 224 pages | PDF | 1,5 MB

Infiltrating the concern of neuroscience, Dennis Cass offers up his possess mentality to “research,” subjecting his nous and embody to automobile shocks, mind-numbing tending experiments, cigarettes, pronounce tests of his possess devising, and the comedy of Bill Maher. Like a slightly off-kilter martyr Plimpton, Cass, in his adventurous exploits, reveals the intricacies of fear, attention, stress, reward, and knowingness from the exclusive out. Along the way, he weaves in the news of his stepfather’s wild incurvation and take addiction, in constituent to his possess problems–which are many. Cass attacks the person of the manlike mentality with humorist and candor, motion favourite power into something distinctly human. Head Case is an clamant feature for anyone who has ever wondered, “Why am I who I am?”

I’m trying to imagine the person who has the technical savvy to sell stolen encrypted computer files, but is unable rip off the sales copy from the HarperCollins website.

Do they have some kind of Soviet-era laptop whose cut-and-paste function introduces error?

Was it dictated by a crack addict . . . to an opium addict?

Or am I just jealous about not having the chops to describe my own work as a “clamant feature?”

Don’t Be a Pageant Mom

9 Jun

Screengrab from HBO documentary "Living Dolls"

Screengrab from the HBO documentary "Living Dolls"

While I understand the sentiment, I’ve always felt that the old writing saw “kill your darlings” suffered from being both overly macho (Ooh, you big bad killer you) and poorly timed (Why not help prevent me from making darlings in the first place?).

Now look at the picture above.

Don’t we all have a story tucked in a drawer somewhere that reads like this poor kid looks?

You’re the boss of your work. You can make it be anything you want it to be. You are in COMPLETE CONTROL.

But don’t be a pageant mom, okay?

Call for Questions and New People

4 Jun

1. The DCWYTBMA question hopper is almost empty.

Won’t you help fill it back up?

2. I’m woefully off pace for my goal of helping 100 NEW PEOPLE this year.

Won’t you help me re-empacen myself by referring a friend?

3. The New Yorker has a piece on the creative writing workshop.

Won’t you read it and share your passionate/contradictory opinions about it?

4. People in the past were prescient fools.

Won’t you join me in laughing at/admiring them?

Thanks and take care.

Back Tuesday Links for You

20 May

Taking a short break. In the meantime:

This Is Your Wake-Up Call: 12 Steps to Better Book Publishing by Jonathan Karp, editor-in-chief of the awesome Twelve imprint. If you are interested in writing a book you will want to read this.

Mark Reiter and Richard Sandomir wrote a book called THE FINAL FOUR OF EVERYTHING. To help promote the book, they created a delightful website that allows you to make your own custom tournament bracket for whatever your heart desires.

Here’s mine:

David Bowie vs. Nature

Finally, in the Little Changes Create Big Effects Department, I present . . . Disturbing Strokes:

For my U.S. readers have a fine Memorial Day weekend. Everyone else have a fine regular weekend. For those of you who work nontraditional hours, enjoy your Thursday-Monday work/play time cluster.

See you next week!

Wolf Loves Pork

15 May

Have a greet weekend everyone!

For Your Week Ends

8 May

Wonderful piece in Slate about the history of the Klingon language.

The article is written by author (and friend of DCWYTBMA) Arika Okrent. I had the privilege of seeing pages of her upcoming book IN THE LAND OF INVENTED LANGUAGES and sense big things.

The book has a great hook, fine writing, and facts that astound and amaze. Plus, I predict that every public radio producer in America is going to fall all over themselves to have her on the air. Stay tuned.

Also, fans of British comedy must needs check out THE MIGHTY BOOSH Sunday nights on Adult Swim. I couldn’t even begin to describe it and sense that perhaps its creators might have the same problem:

[Sadly, YouTube won't let me embed this amazing video for the Bouncy Castle Crimp]

Have a fine weekend and good luck working on your first crimp!

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