As a counter to the video on new writers I give you Tobias Buckell on it being about the journey, not the destination (which I think the main argument in the video was the over focus on the destination). As a related comment, there's a line in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance about why they took the trip to Bozeman on motorcycles instead of flying there, which would have been faster. I don't remember the main quote, but it was something about wanting his kid to realize that it's about the journey. If they flew there, Bozeman would have just been a destination easily reached. Instead, by traveling there on motorcycles Bozeman becomes a goal, but one you spend most of the time in arriving and leaving there and not being there. It makes the being there time more magical.
And related to that, here's a post by Jim Hines over at SF Novelists about "overnight success."
And another SF Novelists post about leanring to love grammar. This ties in to a discussion I had last night where the person I was talking with mentioned how they edit lots of text subordinates create, which was strange to them because they never really liked English in school and doesn't know all those fancy words. Well, you really don't need to know them. You do, however, have to know how the English language (or whatever language you're writing in) goes together. That may be a complete zen-like understanding or a highly technical competency. It doesn't matter which.
Eric pretty much sums up why when I realized the Republican Party had betrayed it's own core values and I left seeing the fight they've been experiencing for the past decade (that is the fight over the social conservatives control of the agenda and platform) that I reregistered as a Democrat instead of an Independent (as most people in my position did, which is why the Independent vote most often swings conservative).
And finally a semi-political link. Richard Dawkins reads his hate mail. (Warning: video contains vulgarity which is NSFW)
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