Tag Archives: writer resources

Bloggers’ Block

writerReal writers claim that they’re successful if they write a predetermined number of words per day before they quit. This is often split between whatever book or other project they are working on, and the cash cow writing. Cash cow writing includes the brochures, instruction booklets, magazine articles, or whatever that they’ve been able to attract; this type of writing provides a baseline income and makes the more creative writing possible without the need to starve.

Of course, if someone commissions a writer to produce a document extolling the virtues of Acme Tire Tread Enhancer (patent pending), there are usually some fairly explicit expectations as to what the writing will include. The creative works, on the other hand, are far more nebulous. It’s a sad fact that most writers have started a project, invested substantial time and effort only to realize that it either needs to be completely redone or abandoned altogether.

Bummer.

On the other hand, bloggers, or this blogger at least, can sit down and decide to write about nothing (as in not writing that day) or to write about nothing (as in some meaningless extemporania) or, on occasion to write something meaningful, pithy and inspiring.

Today is obviously a day of extemporaneousness.

Seeking Unindicted Co-conspirators

Now that I have your attention…

time_printingpress

If you study ancient history and old texts, you may have heard of a novel written in 1969 that was deliberately written to be as awful as possible. Each chapter was written by a different author.

It was awful.

Any good writing was edited out to make it even more awful.

It contained a lot of sex.

It became a best seller.

The authors disclosed the hoax.

It sold many more copies because the hoax made it even more intriguing.

Now I have no desire to write something awful, but I thought it might be fun for me to start a story, introducing the characters and the general scene, then pass that on to another author to write the next chapter, etc.

Each chapter would be published on this blog, although any authors who agree to participate could either link to this blog and/or publish the entire work on their own blog. I figure each “chapter” would be about 300 – 1000 words, just to make it easy.

If you’re interested, let me know either by comment or by e-mail (steve@sfnowak.com). I’d like to line up who’s interested first so we’d know how many chapters we’d be writing.

If you’re a regular reader but not interested in personally contributing, you could cheer others on and convince them to volunteer.

On the other hand, if you’re a regular reader and have no interest in this whatsoever, not even in the slightest, here’s the thought for the day…

You get up in the morning and stop at Starbucks for a coffee and see the inevitable tip jar. You catch the subway to work and pass a street musician playing, his guitar case open in front of him to collect tips. Maybe you’re in the service or retired military, so you shop at the Commissary; there are signs that remind you that the people who bag the groceries work only for tips. At dinner you tip the waitperson. Since you had a few adult beverages, you take a cab home, and tip to cab driver. You stay at a hotel and you tip the chambermaid.

Given the current state of affairs would it surprise you to find a tip jar at your doctor’s or lawyer’s office?

How much of a tip would you leave?

Now, comparatively speaking, don’t you wish you had been more interested in contributing a chapter to the story?

Communications Progress

In this day when we can instantaneously tweet in 140 characters or less (LOL) are we really communicating better?

First, I think we’ve forgotten how to use punctuation. I mean some “people” seem to “think” that quotation marks are some kind of “magic” sign whether on the page or in the “virtual” world.

Then, of course, you have those who think that comma’s must be used immediately before the final S in any word. “Please remove shoe’s” etc. I think example’s like these show people’s willingnes’s to rely on generalism’s.

In the interest of political correctness we use the plural pronoun “they” so that using the masculine singular pronoun “he” is not dis-inclusive. This leads to such sayings as:

“Them who hesitates is lost”

I guess it was inevitable. People probably bemoaned the loss of colonial speech when “thee” gave way to “you” and wives no longer referred to their husbands as “Mr. So-sand-so.”

We’ve successfully bid goodbye to the grape scissors and salad knife at the dinner table. In fact, we’ve pretty much said goodbye to the dinner table, except as a place to stack things. So too will we say goodbye in the not too distant future to current punctuation.

IMHO #thatsthewayitis