Writing and feeling stuck at a certain point? Mary Robinette Kowal gives some good examples of how to get past that. Many writers I know have some form of [insert something cool here]. It gets you past that sticking point and keeps you from getting distracted from the flow of the story.
Charting the phylogeny of Little Red Riding Hood. It's been long common for folklorists to do this kind of thing, but this is the first, I think, of using tools developed for genetic studies to trace the origins of folk tales. (Grokked from Tor.com)
The secrets of finding an agent.
Terrifying kids from vintage advertisements. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
"A logo is as important as any other business decision. Know your designer. Due diligence is required." Yes, this. I'm not sure if I've talked about it lately, but one of the reasons I'm rebooting instead of trying to develop my freelance work comes from looking at those freelance auction sites. Seriously cheap people out there. So this logo cost the cafe $25, and left them hanging for several hundreds in merchandise and opened them up to an infringement suit that would cost them thousands. This isn't saying "reputable" designers aren't also guilty of this. Or as an example of another way this happens, people in my class were real keen to have me use someone else's artwork and it "would be okay if we just put their name on it." Um, no. No it's not. And for being in a new career that having a conviction is a career ending event, you'd think they'd be a little more cautious. Also, new website to follow, LogoThief.
Quetzalcoatlus northropi. Yea, let's see Duck Dynasty deal with a lizard-stork the size of a giraffe. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
Nurses at War. Yes, this. (Grokked from Janiece)
The DIY Burial Movement. There was a time in the US when we didn't have funeral parlors. In many places in the US, families handle their dead all by themselves. Here in rural Ohio there are thousands of small cemeteries (both family plots and common burial grounds). IIRC, in Ohio, there are laws about home burial. I might have to brush up on those. Funerals are for the living. The dead don't care much for them. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
The long con of "prosperity" evangelists. There's a reason why a lot of the scams and dodgy financial deals occur in religious communities. One, there is a trust for fellow "Christians" (and yes, I do mean those quotes there), and two, most Christians like to both hide their fault at being duped and have an ingrained "forgiveness" function (but mostly they're avoiding the embarrassment). (Grokked from the Slactivist)
The drowned towns of the St. Lawrence Sea Way. Ah, engineering on a grand scale. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
Christian relics. One of the cooler displays in the old Cleveland Museum of Art were the reliquaries. I haven't been to the fully reopened museum, yet, but I hope they have those (and the illuminated manuscripts) on display. A few of them still have the relics.
"Walmart employees not only need food stamps to get by, Walmart is the largest place where those food stamps are redeemed. It’s a cycle that grinds employees (and communities) relentlessly down, while driving Walmart revenues just as consistently up." (Grokked from Morgan J Locke)
"Earl Sampson has been stopped and questioned by Miami Gardens police 258 times in four years… Miami Gardens police have arrested Sampson 62 times for one offense: trespassing… But Sampson isn’t loitering. He works as a clerk at the Quickstop." To serve and protect… you're doing it wrong. (Grokked from the Slactivist, I think)
Freeze-dried whackaloon quotient goes up. Note to Websters, apparently "the masses" equates to less than 100, and being a group made up of 30 other groups, all those groups could only send 3 or so people (the fact that most of them are the exact same people who created different groups to raise more money form the same small group of donors who give to these causes, well, we'll skip over that part). But I'm not willing to laugh these people off the stage. These are dangerous idiots who are playing with fire. I wonder what will happen when they're refused admittance at Independence Hall? I predict this will not end well. (Grokked from the Slactivist and Jay Lake)
Tweet of my heart: @DJRotaryRachel Not saying your kid is a brat but I just saw an Oompa Loompa blow into a pitch pipe.
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