The Pythagorean Storyteller: October 2012

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

117 ~on writing

10 NO-BULLSHIT TIPS ON WRITING from David Ogilvy

“People who think well,

write well”

1. Read the Roman-Raphaelson book on writing. Read it three times.

2. Write the way you talk. Naturally.

3. Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.

4. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.

5. Never write more than two pages on any subject.

6. Check your quotations.

7. Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning—and then edit it.

8. If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.

9. Before you send your letter or your memo, make sure it is crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.

10.If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION,

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

116 ~on perseverance

KEEP OTHER PEOPLE’S OPINION OUT OF YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS

PER▪SE▪VER▪ANCE Noun

Steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc, especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.

Watch this video of Jonathan Adler:

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION,

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Monday, October 29, 2012

115 ~on books

MY IDEAL BOOKSHELF

Credit: Amazon

The books that we choose to keep can say a lot about who we are and how we see ourselves. My Ideal Bookshelf

In my ideal bookshelf, there'll always be my novels I say Who, What, and Where! and Deconstructing INFATUATION.

Watch this video:

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Friday, October 26, 2012

114 ~on creativity

OVERCOMING CREATIVE BLOCK IN 10 EASY STEPS

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

113 ~on books

THURSDAY LINKS: IT SCARES THE HELL OUT OF ME

Scary stories for Halloween: Granny’s Grinning by Robert Shearman. Book Blogs. TheGuardian.

Scary stories for Halloween: A distant episode by Paul Bowles. Book Blogs. TheGuardian.

Scary stories for Halloween. The colour out of space by HP Lovecraft. Book Blogs. TheGuardian.

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

112 ~on words

THE BIRTH OF A WORD

Credit: the Heated Forest

“GaGAGAGAGAGA gaga gaga gaga guga guga guga wada gaga gugawader guga guga water water water water water water water water water water.”

MIT researcher Deb Roy wanted to understand how his infant son learned language—so he wired up his house with videocameras to catch every moment (with exceptions) of his son’s life, then parsed 90,000 hours of home video to watch “gaaaa” slowwly turn into “water.” Astonishing, data-rich research with deep implications for how we learn.

Watch the video:

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

111 ~on words

UNTRANSLATABLE WORDS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Tartle (Scottish).- The act of hesitating while introducing someone because you’ve forgotten their name.

Cafuné (Brazilian Portuguese).- The act of tenderly running one’s fingers through someone’s hair.

Torschlusspanik (German).- Translated literally this word means “gate-closing panic,” but its contextual meaning refers to ‘the fear of diminishing opportunities as one ages.'

Wabi-Sabi (Japanese).- Much has been writing on this Japanese concept, but in a sentence, one might be able to understand it as ‘a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.'

Dépaysement (French).- The feeling that comes from not being in one’s home country.

For the full list, click here: 20 awesomely untranslatable words from around the world.

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Monday, October 22, 2012

110 ~on writers

SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER

Watch the video:

If it doesn’t come bursting out of you

In spite of everything,

Don’t do it.

Unless it comes unasked out of your

Heart and your mind and your mouth

And your gut,

Don’t do it.

If you have to sit for hours

Staring at your computer screen

Or hunched over your typewriter

Searching for words,

Don’t do it.

If you’re doing it for money or fame,

Don’t do it.

If you’re doing it because you want

Women in your bed,

Don’t do it.

If you have to sit there and

Rewrite it again and again,

Don’t do it.

If it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,

Don’t do it.

If you’re trying to write like somebody else,

Forget about it.

If you have to wait for it to roar out of you,

Then wait patiently.

If it never does roar out of you,

Do something else.

If you first have to read it to your wife

Or your girlfriend or your boyfriend

Or your parents or to anybody at all,

You’re not ready.

Don’t be like so many writers,

Don’t be like so many thousands of

People who call themselves writers,

Don’t be dull and boring and

Pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-

Love.

The libraries of the world have

Yawned themselves to sleep

Over your kind.

Don’t add to that

Don’t do it.

Unless it comes out of

Your soul like a rocket,

Unless being still would

Drive you to madness or

Suicide or murder,

Don’t do it.

Unless the sun inside you is

Burning your gut,

Don’t do it.

When it is truly time,

And if you have been chosen,

It will do it by

Itself and it will keep on doing it

Until you die or it dies in you.

There is no other way.

And there never was.

—Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Friday, October 19, 2012

109 ~on writing

NEIL GAIMAN’S 8 RULES OF WRITING

Photo Credit: Justin McManus

1. Write.

2. Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.

3. Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.

4. Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.

5. Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

6. Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.

7. Laugh at your own jokes.

8. The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s defnitely true for writing). So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION
a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

108 ~book news

THURSDAY LINKS: THE DIGITAL ERA

Kindle Paperwhite. Daring Farewall by John Gruber.

Q&A on Copyright With an Attorney. Jane Friedman.

Twitter Fiction: Your 140 Character Stories. Books Blog. TheGuardian.

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION
a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

107 ~on statistics

A WORD ON STATISTICS

Out of every hundred people,

Those who always know better:

Fifty-two.

Unsure of every step:

Almost all the rest.

Ready to help,

If it doesn’t take long:

Forty-nine.

Always good,

Because they cannot be otherwise:

Four—well, maybe five.

Able to admire without envy:

Eighteen.

Led to error

By youth (which passes):

Sixty, plus or minus.

Those not to be messed with:

Four-and-forty.

Living in constant fear

Of someone or something:

Seventy-seven.

Capable of happiness:

Twenty-some-odd at most.

Harmless alone

Turning savage in crowds:

More than half, for sure.

Cruel

When forced by circumstances:

It’s better not to know,

Not even approximately.

Wise in hindsight:

Not many more

Than wise in foresight.

Getting nothing out of life except things:

Thirty

(though I would like to be wrong).

Balled up in pain

And without a flashlight in the dark:

Eighty-three, sooner or later.

Those who are just:

Quite a few, thirty-five.

But if it takes effort to understand:

Three.

Worthy of empathy:

Ninety-nine.

Mortal:

One hundred out of one hundred—

A figure that has never varied yet.

A Word On Statistics, by Wislawa Szymborska.

Translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak.

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION
a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.