Terrazzo

Another great meta-post about writing in the same vein as my recent find from Andy Ihnatko. This excerpt is by Michael Schechter:

Writing In The Margins:

So often we think of writing as this pristine thing. Something precious, something that requires a special place and a special time. This is crap. Writing is getting words out of your head and on to some media. No matter what, no matter how, no matter where. Don’t get me wrong, some writing is better than others, but the gist of how it’s done is fairly universal.

(Via Eddie of Practically Efficient)

Ihnatko is so good. Writers, read this article. Here’s a piece of it for you.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS WRITERS’ BLOCK. – Andy Ihnatko’s Celestial Waste of Bandwidth (BETA):

As a writer, you are never “blocked.”

Here, let me say it again, with more markup tags:

As a writer, you are never “blocked.”

The fact that you’re not actually writing doesn’t mean that you’re not actually working. You’re also working when you’re thinking. Figure out what the problems are and solve them. Solve them in a half-assed way if you have to; slap enough duct tape over the problem that you can proceed to the next step. Go back later and improve it in the editing process.

Or! Just put the whole thing aside. Just for now. Even in the worst, most frustrating situation, you’re not “blocked.” You just can’t make any progress on this one thing.

So write something else.

James makes a great point…

Minimal Output : James Shelley:

It seems that we have a lot to say about minimalism these days.

…and leaves his readers with Solomon’s wisdom.

Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue. —Proverbs 17:28

N.B. - Don’t you think Solomon would have loved Twitter?

(Via James Shelley)

This is the second time I recall following links to this article in recent weeks. As a writer with OCD tendencies, it disturbs me. For now, I’m sticking with the AP Style I used for years.

Logical punctuation: Should we start placing commas outside quotation marks? - By Ben Yagoda - Slate Magazine:

For at least two centuries, it has been standard practice in the United States to place commas and periods inside of quotation marks. This rule still holds for professionally edited prose: what you’ll find in Slate, the New York Times, the Washington Post—almost any place adhering to Modern Language Association (MLA) or AP guidelines. But in copy-editor-free zones—the Web and emails, student papers, business memos—with increasing frequency, commas and periods find themselves on the outside of quotation marks, looking in. A punctuation paradigm is shifting.

(Latest hat tip to John @Gruber)

Merlin nails it again.

Like Hammers - kung fu grippe:

I LOVE full-screen writing and I LOVE full-screen (ugh: “distraction-free”) writing apps. I not only use one or another of these almost every day, but (not to seem immodest), I’d like to think that I’ve had a role, how ever small, in encouraging a LOT of people in general—and writers in particular—to explore any tool usage that keeps them focused on The Work, and UN-focused on everything else. 

The Weight of a Good Notebook « The Bygone Bureau:

I’m probably not too different from the other notebook snobs that you’ve known and mocked over the years. My trouble is that I can never bring myself to write in my notebooks.

This little eccentricity has never stopped me from buying notebooks; there’s a shelf on my second-best bookcase bowing under their weight as I type this.

This hilarious article may be so funny to me because it hits so close to home. I have had my share of pretty notebooks that remained empty because if I was going to mar those pages with ink it needed to be something worth remembering, which so is not the case.

If you buy a notebook, write in it. Scribble away. Doodle in the margins. Go wild! I promise you won’t regret it, and I promise you will regret it if you don’t.

Hours of audio footage and transcripts from discussions with William Faulkner have been published online by the University of Virginia where the author was a writer in residence in 1957. The university also maintains Faulkner’s manuscripts and private papers in its special collections.

The site is worthy of investigation for literature fans, especially those fans who are most interested writing from the South. I first learned about the site in an email from the magazine Garden & Gun.

I found The New Republic after following a link to an article about writers and publishing on the magazine’s website.

The content not only seems to be excellent, the design of the site is exquisite with a clean layout and nice typography. Well done and well worth checking out.

This is absolutely one of the best literary magazines on the market. Here is a little of what the New York Times had to say about the latest issue, the annual Southern Food Edition:

Looking at all these, and reading all that prose, gets us drawling, slows us down. Might be time for a drive around in the dusk. We’ll raise a can of beer out of the driver’s side window to Larry Brown, to Barry Hannah, to the whole notion of a South worth writing about, and eating.

You can read the rest of the brief article over at the (damn yankee) NYT Web site. Come on. It’ll just take a second, and ain’t it worth it?

(Via Oxford American Magazine on Twitter)