Video Vednesday: To-read/Amazon Wishlist hack

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=14324515&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0

(on an iPhone/iPad/non-Flash-friendly device? Click here to watch on Vimeo, I think.)

In an effort to wrangle my ever-growing list of books I'd like to read, I've played with everything from hard-copy lists in pocket notebooks to Evernote, with a thousand .txt files in between.

My ideal list is:

1. easiest to use on my computer (since I'm here most of the time)
2. portable, so I can consult it when I find myself in an indie or used bookstore, grappling with overwhelm
3. digital (because my handwriting sucks, and because it is easier to copy stuff digitally)
4. updatable from multiple devices (i.e., is something I can sync between a handheld device and my computer, which is technically portable but which is such a hassle to haul around, I avoid it where I can)
5. provides a way to sort by genre, author, etc
6. contains a reminder of how I came to find this book (i.e., reco) and/or other context

The hack I describe in the video uses Amazon's Wishlist function and their browser add-on, the Universal Wishlist tool. It's easiest to describe how easy it is by showing it (hence, the video), but basically, you plug the title of the book you like and "Amazon" into your browser's search field, then click on the inevitable Amazon link that comes up. Instead of adding to your wishlist then and there, you click on the Universal Wishlist add-on, which brings up a little dialogue box that includes a space for comments. In this comments field, you add whatever context and/or reco reminders you like.

This is really a few steps away from my ideal book-saving tool. I'm hoping that someone makes my perfect iPhone app: one that would let me add context or other note, include a cover graphic, sort, sync and work offline. This way, I do have a list of books I can consult in the store, but it's dependent on network coverage, plus I have no access to my notes. I used text lists for a long time, but I realized at some point that I remember things visually, and text leaves out too much information to be helpful.

As always, comments are appreciated, I'm increasingly interested in refining my quickie-video skills, as evidence points to a not-small chunk of the population who, for some completely baffling-to-me reason, enjoy getting their information via video. (And this is not a fishing expedition for compliments, I know that there's something nice about getting to know the bloggers you "know" via video and audio as well as text; it's just that when it comes to learning stuff, I find myself impatient with even the best video screencasts, for the most part.)

Oh, and if my perfect book-collecting iPhone app exists already, PLEASE let me know. I'm tempted to partner with someone to build one, but I'd be a sad sack liar if I added a big project like that to my plate right now.

xxx
c

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #19

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffantabulous things I find stumbling around the web during the week here, but which I post on one of the many other Internet outlets I stop by (or tweet at) during my travels. More about the genesis here.

What can you make with an iPad? Only the world's coolest cover of "Eye of the Tiger." [Facebook-ed, via daring fireball]

If you're one of those seven people who reads here because you actually dig and want to learn more about communicating, you might enjoy this excellent round-up of marketing and copywriting books. [delicious-ed]

Speaking of tigers, a particular Chinese one has its eye on my pal Chris Guillebeau's upcoming book. [Flickr-faved]

"Believe me, no one likes to read blog posts about people who are smug about how they have solved all the problems of the world. I mean, look, you either are winning a Nobel Prize or you do not have any answers." This, and so much more on Putting It Out There, is why I love Penelope Trunk.  [Tumbld]

Danny Miller's fantabulous (with a twist!) tribute to the late Patricia Neal. [Google-Reader-ed]

xxx
c

Image by williac via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

<a href="">

Video Vednesday: 52 books! 52 books! (and a hack)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnZuuVnO7o0&w=480&h=385]

I did it!

Earlier this week, I finished reading my 52^nd book for the year. As I confess in the video above, as well as on the goal-tracking page itself, I started several of these books before 2010, some well before, which is one of the reasons I decided to take on this reading thing as a goal. Tired of unfinished business, I was. It's inevitable when Overly-Busy Syndrome collides with Eyes-Bigger-Than-Stomach Disease; there are too many things you want to read, and always new ones, and never enough time. (Now, when I put down a book unfinished, I do it consciously, this book is not for me, and I'm not going to read any more of it. Next!)

The video is especially blathery considering I am sharing the world's simplest how-to. I seem to be constitutionally incapable of creating an improvised video shorter than 2 minutes. On the other hand, I'm so damned excited about finishing 52 books in less than a year, something I'm sure I haven't done since my 20s, or maybe even college, that I'm giving myself a pass. This ONCE. Then, back to it.

Here's the trick, written-out-style, for my fellow non-video types:

At some point before I start my daily reading (40pp!), I decide on a natural stopping point around 40pp out, sometimes a little shorter, sometimes a little longer, depending on the book and my mood. Then I place a sticky note on that page, sticking up about 1/4", so that I know when it's time to stop.

I find this helps me let go of page count (as much as a nutcase obsessive type can) and focus on the book itself. Before, when I used other methods, I got all caught up in my underwear: if I used my right index finger, it got uncomfortable; if I used a second bookmark, it tended to lift the last few pages before my stopping point, which took me out of reading; and if I used my brain, well, we won't go there. Very ugly.

Hopefully, this little hack will be of use to you. If not, well, you can just congratulate me on (finally) doing the right thing again. Woo-hoo, indeed!

xxx
c

P.S. The book I'm holding up is Influence, Robert Cialdini's classic work on persuasion, which I'll be reviewing soon. As I mention in the video, I'd picked it up at a book sale right before I heard Jonathan Fields talk about it on his segment of the World-Changing Writing Workshop. It's every bit as much of a must-read as Jonathan said, and it's fascinating and FUN to read, as well. So there you go. Stay tuned!

Book review: My Misspent Youth

I came to Meghan Daum's writing backwards, or sideways, or at least, highly out of order, my fault, entirely.

While she was living in Manhattan, getting published in The New Yorker, I was going off the deep end in Los Angeles, and had let my subscription lapse. By the time she'd moved to Los Angeles and landed her gig as a columnist for the L.A. Times, I was obsessed with moving to hicksville, and (again), had let my subscription lapse. (Well, the weekday one, anyway.)

Finally, this spring, I spied an interview with Daum and another writer in a publication I still subscribe to, the excellent and ever-lively New York magazine. Said piece was clearly part of a P.R. push to accompany the birthing of her latest book; in a stroke of something-or-other, someone had gotten the idea to have Daum and another lady author interviewed together by a third lady author. Oh, the lady authors!

I am leery of stunts in general, as they bring up the phantom stench of all the sleazy things I've done in the name of advertising, and this particular stunt was, well, stunty. But the oddest thing happened. Quietly, gracefully, in the midst of this flack-driven circus act, Daum somehow managed to rise above it all and assert her brilliance, using nothing more than her extraordinary gift with words and her non-crazy perspective.

This piqued my interest, onto the to-read list she went.

Her second book, a novel, turned up first. It is smart and funny, with some sharp characterizations and surprising plot twists. Then her most recent book popped into view, literally, on the same shelf my now-friend Brooks' did. It's a quite-nice memoir on the longing for roots and the inevitable discovery that there's no goddamn "there" there, something I not only relate to, but could write a book on myself.

Finally, on a recent Bart's run, My Misspent Youth appeared before me. It is Daum's first book, a collection of essays from her salad days as a young writer and editor living in New York, and it blew my doors off. All of a sudden, or rather, bit by bit, with strings of long-dormant nerve cells lighting up like Christmas lights, the references to Joan Didion made sense. The superficial similarity, yes, the stories are New York-centric, involving dreams of living the life of a Manhattanite as much as her subsequent (and slightly more grim) reality.

The real Didion-like comparison goes much, much deeper, though. Because, like Didion's for a certain kind of (crazy) person, Daum's is the kind of writing you find by accident that makes you believe in Divine intervention. There you are, living your stupid life, a little despondent and starting to lose it because really, really there is no one out there but you thinking these crazy thoughts, who is disturbed by things other people seem to find completely normal, when suddenly, there is this gift from an angel, these batches of words that whisper, "No, no, you're fine, and see? Here's the curtain, and there's the funny little man madly pulling levers behind it." This is writing that's startling and clear and still deeply, deeply human. There is horror nestled in there, but it's always flanked by humor, as it's supposed to be. There is no coyness, no winking, no pandering; there is no muddiness, no equivocating, no pedantry. There is just sharp, clear insight and humanity channeled onto every page. AND HUMOR. Did I mention humor?

It's extraordinary. And for those of us who feel a little crazy most of the time, it might be very comforting, as well.

If you are not a little crazy, you might not get the big deal. You might be shocked, even offended, by a few of the pieces. Trust me, if you want to be a writer, those are the ones you should read twice. (Ira Glass very rightly kept a copy of Daum's essay "Variations on Grief" handy for years, to hand out to people inquiring as to who the strong, new voices were these days.) The truth is not comfortable, but it is the truth, and if you can open your heart to it, amazing things start to happen.

So, yes, enjoy the memoir. Read the novel on the beach during what's left of this summer. But me, I'd start with My Misspent Youth, and carve out the time to read it properly, slowly. It is a wonder of a book.

xxx
c

• Buy My Misspent Youth by Meghan Daum on Amazon
• Visit Meghan Daum's website
• Ass-kicker ★★★★★ interview with Daum and Joan Didion

Photo of Meghan Daum by Laura Kleinhenz.

Disclosure! Links to the book(s) in the above post are Amazon affiliate links. This means if you click on them and buy something, I receive an affiliate commission. Which I hope you do: while small, it helps keep me in books to review. More on this disclosure stuff at publisher Michael Hyatt's excellent blog, from whence I lifted (and smooshed around a little) this boilerplate text.

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #18

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffantabulous things I find stumbling around the web during the week here, but which I post on one of the many other Internet outlets I stop by (or tweet at) during my travels. More about the genesis here.

By now, you've heard of workingman's hero, airline attendent Steven Slater, who told an a-hole customer where he could go, grabbed two beers from the galley and skedaddled via the inflatable emergency ramp. But have you heard the anthem? (Warning: contains swears! But you're used to that kind of thing around here!) [Facebook-ed, via daring fireball]

Mike Tyson has walked through the fire and has something to tell you about it. Not that he'd put it that way, he's actually been through the fire, you see. [delicious-ed, via Ben Casnocha]

How to be alone. [YouTube-d, via everybody everywhere]

Any veteran of the music biz who's still around and kicking and FUNNY knows a thing or two about a thing or two. Bob Lefsetz writes about all the smart things he knows, like the fame/artistry schism in music, and when it shifted, in his daily newsletter.  [Tumbld]

If I were still designing, I think I might just replace my landing page copy with this brilliant piece by Mike Monteiro on when, why and how you should purchase design services. [Tweeted]

xxx
c

Image by williac via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

<a href="">

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! (Political Edition) #17

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffantabulous things I find stumbling around the web during the week here, but which I post on one of the many other Internet outlets I stop by (or tweet at) during my travels. More about the genesis here.

In case you don't live in California or spend any time on Twitter or Facebook or any other kind of news outlet, the scurrilous civil rights violation that is Proposition 8 was overturned by U.S. District Judge Vaughan Walker, my new personal hero. [Facebook-ed; bonus fave link: most hilarious/sad reactions]

Speaking of hilarious and sad, here are a bunch of actual reactions, measured! with science!, of dudes to styles of feminine comportment. [delicious-ed, via Jezebel]

As long as we're talking about stupid reactions to good things like personal freedom and agency, enjoy this hi-larious graph I found. [Tumbld]

And if you don't think you should concern yourself with personal freedoms and agency because you're not gay or you don't have ovaries, the late George Carlin has a rant for you. [ [YouTube-d, via everyone and his brother on Facebook]

Okay. I know I've already shared one video. But just so we don't end on a completely cranky political note, here's the happiest version of "Mrs. Robinson" evar. [YouTube-d, via Kristian Hoffman]

(Next week, I'll get back to posting goofy stuff. Probably. Maybe. Oh, who knows, right?)

xxx
c

Image by williac via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

<a href="">

Book review: Walking on Water

Because, like you, I'm trapped in my own body with its own quirky patterns and assimilated buffet of experiences, I forget, perhaps like you, perhaps not, that not everyone is like me. That, for instance, there are people who dislike school and reading and even learning.

What is useful, then, is to have someone with better understanding, perspective and experience to unpack the whole "I Hate Learning" thing. What is unbelievably useful is when said person can, in the parlance of George Clinton, tear the roof off the motherfucker in the process, which is just what Derrick Jensen does in his compulsively readable, unapologetically critical book on learning as a radical act, Walking On Water: Reading, Writing and Revolution.

Jensen is a longtime writer and avid, almost zealous learner, both in the traditional sense (he's got two "legit" degrees) and the Emersonian one (he's done stretches as a beekeeper and a writing instructor of men pulling stretches). His belief is that no one hates learning, but almost everyone hates school, and that one follows the other because schools are set up not to help us learn, but to do the opposite: to turn off our brains, the better to turn us into docile implements of the industrial machine. He argues his case well, which is to say, both thoroughly and entertainingly, but the book is about much, much more. It's designed to wake you up from your slumber and reacquaint you with your birthright, that love of learning the teachers tried to bore out of you, as well as to give you the tools to write, write, write what has been locked up in your heart.

If the book soars in one particular place, it is here. Like many books on writing, it presents plenty of what I've come to learn are called "writing prompts," exercises that purport to unstick you long enough to get out of your head and onto the page. (They're not bulleted, so you have to look for them, but they're there.) Mostly what it has, though, are examples of people reclaiming their love of learning by getting in touch with their stories, and of changing their lives in the process. It is writing, and reading, and learning, which are inextricably intertwined with real writing, as revolution, and it is awesome and inspiring to behold.

I should mention that Walking On Water was recommended to me by Michelle Jones, the bundle of energy, heart and inspiration behind TEDxTacoma, who is easily one of my favorite ten people I've met over the past five years (and brother, I've met a LOT of people in these five years). Michelle's signature course at her former place of employment, University of Puget Sound, was called "Passion-Based Leadership;" among other things, she stressed the importance of modeling right behavior and using one's gifts to unbuckle the world from the leech-machine we've attached to it. Which is to say, this is a radical book; it is an Eat the Red Pill kind of book, and there is no going back once you've read it.

I think that's a good thing, and I can't imagine the kind of person who wouldn't love this book to pieces. Or rather, I can, but that's not a person I want to spend any time thinking about. Not right now. Not while there's a revolution to prepare for.

This, then, is my pitch: reading Walking On Water will not make you a better writer. No book will, and that's a big part of Jensen's point. To do it, you've got to do it, as all the great how-to books say, but to do it UP you've got to upend things. You need radical change.

So what this book will do is bring your attention to where you are currently surrendering your attention, and then ask you: Hey! Is this really where you want to be? It will inspire and yes, instruct you with some truly fundamental rules of the road. (Come on: the first five rules of writing are "Don't bore the reader"? That's radical shit, baby.) It will challenge you to examine yourself, and to begin the process of excavating that self, if you haven't already. Hell, it will challenge you to look at just about everything, and while that may initially upset you about a lot of things, it will ultimately help you find the joy in many more.

UPDATE: Just viewed this fantastic 3-minute clip of George Carlin doing a bad-ass, stand-up version of this same message. If you can't deal with a whole book just yet, start here. It's on Facebook, for now (which means you'll need to be logged in to view it.) As the original poster noted, it's a big rip on the Powers That Be, so who knows how long before someone finds some (bullsh*t) reason for taking it down. (Here it is on YouTube, too, again, for now.)

xxx
c

• Buy Walking on Water by Derrick Jensen on Amazon
• Visit Derrick Jensen's website

Disclosure! Links to the books in the post above are Amazon affiliate links. This means if you click on them and buy something, I receive an affiliate commission. Which I hope you do: it helps keep me in books to review. More on this disclosure stuff at publisher Michael Hyatt's excellent blog, from whence I lifted (and smooshed around a little) this boilerplate text.

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #16

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffantabulous things I find stumbling around the web during the week here, but which I post on one of the many other Internet outlets I stop by (or tweet at) during my travels. More about the genesis here.

Flags of the nations, in food! (This one's for you, Jodi.) [Facebook-ed].

If you've wondered what this here Kickstarter thing is all about, look no further than Mr. Craig Mod's excellent writeup.   [delicious-ed]

Terry Richardson shoots Los Angeles. [Tumbld]

One of my fave small fries I met via the interwebs, doing an excellent impersonation of an adorable elf. [Flickr-faved]

And my favorite link from the past week as Coudal Guest Editor, my last: clueless idiot gives "gift" to his ex on her wedding day; Lizzie Skurnick tells him where he can put it.

xxx
c

P.S. Bonus extra link I found VIA Coudal: the world's greatest story involving a screenwriter, a prostitute and the law. So not what you think, it will blow your mind. (And even if it doesn't, the writing will.)

Image by williac via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

<a href="">

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #15

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffantabulous things I find stumbling around the web during the week here, but which I post on one of the many other Internet outlets I stop by (or tweet at) during my travels. More about the genesis here.

Incredibly (and surprisingly) heartwarming video involving Jewel, karaoke and a little good-hearted trickery. [Facebook-ed, via Gretchen Rubin].

If you don't think a piece about sexism in art can be wildly entertaining AND illuminating AND thought-provoking, you're not reading enough Jill.   [delicious-ed]

My new-favorite quote about writing, and kinda-sorta-prettymuch what I want to do for the next 50 years of my life. [Tumbld]

Fantastic Flickr set of classic albums reinterpreted as Pelican books. [Stumbled, via KERNSPIRACY] [Flickr-faved]

Tarp surfing. It's a thing. [YouTube-d, via The Rumpus]

xxx c

P.S. I'm posting tons more awesome stuff to the Coudal feed through the end of next week. No, really, they said I was good!

Image by williac via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Book review: On Writing Well

If I were a better writer, I'd be able to do justice to On Writing Well, William Zinsser's own brilliant writing on writing.

Or maybe I should say, if I were the writer I dreamed of being back when I first dreamed of being a writer, I could write the review I had somewhere in the back of my head: that perfect review that made the book come alive, that explained it perfectly, in words that danced around on the page in fancy clothes, as I'd always imagined my words doing when I finally got my word-choreographer chops.

Here's what Zinsser might say to that: Why don't you just tell them what the book is about, and what you got out of it? (Only, you know, he'd do it better. Because he's WILLIAM ZINSSER.)

Fine. Here's what I got out of it:

1. Writing is rewriting. You knew that, right? Even though most of us who write mostly on our blogs mostly don't. Like me, if you couldn't tell. Well, it is. Writing is rewriting. And some of what may be most useful to you about this book are the before/after examples. This man is ruthless with his darlings. Slaughtered, incinerated bodies everywhere.

2. Most good writing is good, simple writing. Very easy to get tangled up in your fancy pants, fancypants. Again, the book is rife with examples of good, simple writing. Which, to bring us neatly back to Point the First, is the result of plenty o' rewriting.

3. The writing that looks the easiest is often the hardest to pull off. Dialogue that sounds realistic. Humor that's actually humorous. Anything short.

4. Any subject can be interesting if it's written about well. Unfortunately, most people who know a lot about a thing don't know much about writing. If this is you, this is your book!

5. Anyone can learn to write well (enough). Mostly, writing is about listening and cutting and getting the hell out of the way of your story. The essays in this book will teach you how to do this.

There's a reason this book warranted a 25th anniversary edition. It's one of the best how-to manuals on writing out I can imagine, and I dream big. If you're a writer, or want to be, you should read this book; if you're serious about it, you should read it once a year.

xxx
c

• Buy On Writing Well by William Zinsser on Amazon
• Read my review of Zinsser's equally awesome book on memoir, Writing About Your Life
• Read William Zinsser's regular column on the American Scholar website

Disclosure! Links to the books in the post above are Amazon affiliate links. This means if you click on them and buy something, I receive an affiliate commission. Which I hope you do: it helps keep me in books to review. More on this disclosure stuff at publisher Michael Hyatt's excellent blog, from whence I lifted (and smooshed around a little) this boilerplate text.

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #14

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffantabulous things I find stumbling around the web during the week here, but which I post on one of the many other Internet outlets I stop by (or tweet at) during my travels. More about the genesis here.

Can't stomach Mad Mel's disturbing rants on their own? Try this mashup with kittens! NSFW, of course. [Facebook-ed, via David Avallone].

Great Idea for Book Reviews #247: ask a writer to describe the last great book they read.  [delicious-ed, plus a "via"  shoutout in perpetuity to The GirlPie for introducing me to The Rumpus a ways back]

Two songs heavily reliant on the vernacular use of "baby." They could not be more different from each other, yet they are both undeniably catchy. [Tumbld]

One of the great things about summer? The joy of blue popsicles. [Flickr-faved]

If you're fond of the "oh, god, why am I stuck here and how the hell do I move ON?" posts that tend to pop up here on Mondays, you will lurve this simple, illuminating bit of wisdom on just that. [Tweeted, which almost never happens, so you know it's good]

xxx
c

P.S. I will persist in reminding you until July goes bye-bye that I'm guest-editing the links feed at Coudal all month long!

Image by williac via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Show me yer rig! (Gmail tags edition)

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=13318319&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

Show me yer rig! (Gmail labels edition) from communicatrix on Vimeo.

This week's edition is a followup to the screencast on using filters in Gmail: showing a bit of where I'm filtering those tags to, in other words, taxonomy.

Because I didn't want to make the video overly long, I'm including screencaps of the bulk of my tags in gmail, along with some of my rules and reasoning behind them.

Here are the prized, above-the-fold tags:

Here are the tags just under the fold:

And here are the tags just below them:

There are a few more below that, but they're really just variations on a theme. Basically, I keep the stuff I don't want to see but want to keep at the very bottom of my long list of tags by using a system of more or les 'x's and colons. (Did I say "semi-colons" in the video? Enh. You know what I mean.)

I have a feeling this might be on the outside edge of usefulness for someone who reads this blog, but hey, I'm still kinda-sorta trying stuff out in these videos. So let me know what you think: good, bad, ugly.

And hey! At least they're getting shorter, right?

xxx
c

P.S. New newsletter went out today. You're subscribed, right?

Show me yer rig! (Gmail filters edition)

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=12937871&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

See it bigger on Vimeo.

Joining its brethren, the screencasts on Google Reader and gCal, is a little (too long of a) video on one specific thing I really like about gmail, its filters.

Pretty much every email program has filters of some kind built in, but I like how easy gmail makes it to set them up, especially once you start making use of keyboard shortcuts (and a cheat sheet can help with that).

The specific hack I added is a top-level (i.e., above-the-fold) label named, reasonably enough, "add to filter." (I mistakenly call the label a filter in the screencast, but it's definitely a label. You create labels, which you can use to help you with filtering.) When bacn-y email shows up in my inbox and I don't have time to deal with it right then, I grab it and move it to the "add to filter" label. I then clean that out once or twice a month, creating filters for stuff I want to funnel somewhere, or sometimes just unsubscribing to something on the spot. I definitely suffer from eyes-bigger-than-stomach syndrome when it comes to bacn.

You don't even have to watch the video if video ain't your thing. My main point here is to draw attention to the advantage of taking time to do one small thing (automate your email sorting) if it helps free up time and headspace to do big things (work, nap, etc.).

Although if there was enough interest, I could do an additional, longer video or post about gmail workflow, with screen captures on the taxonomy I'm using with labels, which has helped me tame the beast. But maybe not. Email is a really personal thing. Plus, isn't everyone sick of talking about it? And haven't most of you given up on email for anything useful or fun and just gone to Twitter and Facebook?

I know I get enough dang "emails" in Facebook.

As usual, comments, criticisms and observations welcome, especially those that will help me improve. And questions? Of course!

xxx
c

Book review: Holy Land

We are studying style in our weekly writing workshop, how we use everything from humor to commas to sentence construction (or lack thereof) to express things, and how those things add up to what we might call a "voice."

Brenda, our fearless-leader/teacher/tour-guide also has us doing exercises that bring our attention to the style of other writers, literally deconstructing their work line by line, paragraph by paragraph, to see how they craft worlds, lure us into stories, and guide our focus.

Like most new things, it's a maddening exercise at first. I stumble through essays so clean and deftly executed they seem born that way, like little literary Venuses on the half-shell. I know it's a lie, of course; no one escapes the painful and humiliating tedium of Anne Lamott's famed Shitty First Draft. Still, despite my best efforts at keeping this (and that wonderful Beverly Sills quote about there being no shortcuts to any place worth going) at the forefront of my thinking, I am always quite sure that when I sit down, it should be different. And immediately, if not sooner.

Here's who might cure you and me and anyone else within earshot of that notion: D.J. Waldie, thoughtful chronicler of Things Southern-Californian, with emphasis on that which was created out of something only to erase the thing from which it sprung. In Holy Land, his memoir of a suburban boyhood in Lakewood, California, he alternately describes what it was like growing up in one of the many manufactured towns that began popping up outside of slightly older outposts like Los Angeles and, in his case, Long Beach after the Second World War, and chronicles the inception and building of the town itself.

Unlike the by-now convention of switching back and forth between stories, chapter by chapter, something James McBride did beautifully to create context and build suspense in his memoir, The Color of Water, and that James Michener did thoughtfully in The Source, so you could skip over the tedious modern-day love story, Waldie writes in what I can only call fragments, because my literary vocabulary is so limited. (I'm working on it, I'm working on it.) He loops from personal recounting of the modern-day life in this same town he grew up in, Waldie lives in the same house his parents bought freshly built, and works for the city government, to historical documentation to childhood impressions and so forth, delicately switching from lens to lens until magically, this strange and complex something that sprang from "nothing" starts coming into focus.

You can get all kinds of glimpses into what this crazy place is like, of course, and from all kinds of angles: Chandler and Cain, Bukowski and Fante, and poor old Nathaniel West, to name a few of the few I've read. Of them all, Joan Didion's writing comes the closest to this kind of oblique, restrained, meticulously constructed narrative (she's a big fan, by the way, if her glowing blurb is to be believed). It's work that clearly required a lot of work to make it look like it didn't; it's un-showy yet elegant, and always evocative.

Holy Land restores your faith in the value of rewriting, and the precision it brings. Not to mention it's a helluva good read...

xxx
c

• Buy Holy Land by D.J. Waldie on Amazon
• Visit D.J. Waldie's blog, "Where We Are," on KCET.org

Legalese, etc! Links to the books in the post above are Amazon affiliate links: if you click on them and buy something, I get Amazon dollars. Which is great, as it helps keep me in books to review. More on this disclosure stuff at publisher Michael Hyatt's excellent blog, from whence I lifted (and smooshed around a little) this boilerplate text.

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #12

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffantabulous things I find stumbling around the web during the week here, but which I post on one of the many other Internet outlets I stop by (or tweet at) during my travels. More about the genesis here.

Sometimes, the Internet is just about efficient delivery of a good fart joke. [Facebook-ed].

My love for destuckification Pirate Queen Havi Brown knows no bounds. This piece on boundaries (we has them! or is trying!) is a good primer on why.  [delicious-ed]

"I am Eloise. I am 23." [re-Tweeted]

If you want to see how real art is made, and in insane quantities, read this interview immediately. [Tumbld, via The Daily Rumpus]

For the Up! fans out there. [Flickr-faved]

xxx
c

Image by williac via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Show me yer rig! (Evernote + Instapaper edition)

[vimeo 12774516 w=475 h=297]

Haven't done one of these how-to screencasts in a while, and this one is reeeeeeally simple, so it's very possible you've thought of it long ago and have been using it for ages and are all, "Gee, Colleen, it must be hard, getting old and losing all that processing power."

However, I stumbled upon this solution for simplifying clipping stuff to Evernote, my fave catch-all/squirreling-away tool. If you're already slick with the mouse, this will likely be more hassle than it's worth, but if you're like me and are not so good with the mouse/trackpad when it comes to highlighting content, you will LURVE it, I swear.

Some notes! Because there are always notes after wrassling with video:

• It is not a 2-minute video; it's a 2:42-minute video. I recorded this thing no less than SEVEN times trying to get it under 2:00; like a postmodern Blaise Pascal, I just didn't have the time to make the thing any shorter.
• My numeric dyslexia has spread to independent clauses. At about 1:20 in, I say "I want to save the URL and clip the page, just in case." What I meant was to flip those things: you have to clip the page if you want the content to appear in Evernote; you do not have to have the URL, but I like to keep it, just in case. There's a nifty little arrow button next to the URLs in every Evernote note that will take you straight to the full page in a jiffy. Sweet!
• Shareaholic really deserves its own shoutout. It's a fantastic social sharing tool for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc. browsers that lets you easily clip things to Evernote, as well as share content in an insane number of places. Literally, you'd go insane doing that much sharing. Fortunately, it's customizable: mine has links to gmail, Twitter, Facebook, delicious, Evernote and Tumblr, which is already borderline insane. You can also choose your fave flavor of link-shortening service (I use bit.ly, mostly), so you can get shortened, trackable links for all the stuff you're sharing, if you're into that sort of thing.
• Ignore what I said about emailing, you can totally leave a comment, and I would love that. I have comment moderation turned on now, so depending on how diligent I'm being with my other work, it may take some time for it to appear, but unless you're being a sh*thead in your comment, it will appear. (And yeah, I do need a clear commenting policy. It's on the list!)

If you hate watching video, here's the tip, in a nutshell: rather than highlighting text and content you want to clip to Evernote, use the Instapaper Text bookmarklet to convert it to clean text before clipping. That's it!

As always, and especially while I'm on the steep, upward curve of this video-learning thing, comments as to what was and wasn't helpful, distracting, fun, evil-ish, are particularly welcome.

And because I'm anticipating the question, no, I haven't made it yet. BECAUSE I SPENT A BAZILLION HOURS TRYING TO GET THIS UNDER 2 MINUTES!

Life is easy; video is hard...

xxx
c

• Evernote, a Swiss-Army-knife of saving and collecting tools (free; subscribe for extra features)
• Instapaper, program that strips  and lets you read articles later (free, online and iPhone app; $5 for iPhone app with extra features)
• Instapaper Text bookmarklet (scroll down to find) Javascript tool that strips visual nuisances from web pages for your reading pleasure; just drag from the page to your browser's toolbar (free!; Mac users, also try Safari Reader, available in Safari 5)
• Google Chrome Super-fast browser for PC, Mac and Linux.
• Shareaholic Fantastic social sharing tool for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc. browsers.

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #11

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffantabulous things I find stumbling around the web during the week here, but which I post on one of the many other Internet outlets I stop by (or tweet at) during my travels. More about the genesis here.

If that whole God thing the Jesus-come-latelys shoved into the Pledge of Allegiance makes you uncomfortable, but you feel funny explaining to earnest folk just why, let Porky do it for you. [Facebook-ed].

That relationships require work is a no-brainer. That they may not be worth it is, well, oddly freeing.  [delicious-ed, via Ben Casnocha]

A delightful ode to punctuation. [Stumbled]

As I said when I posted it to Tumblr, how bad can the Apocalypse be if we get to be Hobbits? [Tumbld, via Dave Pollard]

While I can take or leave marriage, I do love me a sexy wedding. [Flickr-faved]

xxx
c

Image by williac via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Video Vednesday: Reducing visual clutter

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sONzwx5waZM&w=480&h=385]

Kinda-sorta getting the hang of these babies, I think. For instance, this one only took eleventy-six hours to export to YouTube instead of eleventy-seven. Which is not bad for a 90-year-old.

Some notes! Because dammit, floating a video out there without text feels naked-like:

• I absolutely could not find the place where Martha Stewart talks about removing labels, but I'm 99% certain it was an ancient issue of her magazine. Mostly because it has to have been 10 years (at least!) since I read her magazine. Which was a great magazine, but pretty p0rny for a non-crafty schlub like me.
• I did, however, turn up this awesome post on Apartment Therapy about re-labeling the crap in your house, which would probably be a fun, puttery, "my brain is dead but I need to do something" kind of activity. And there are links to etching, which is both dangerous and cool!
• I say "anyway" a lot. If I was still going to Toastmasters, they could probably cure me of that in a month. If anyone has any non-Toastmasters ways of curing myself, by all means, let 'er rip. Although just my embarrassment over saying it so much may cure me. Anyway! Anyway! Anyway!

And because these Wednesday posts have turned into a great place for me to ask questions and get answers:

• What one thing, if any, would make this site easier for you to use? (I have a list as long as both my arms, one leg and a foot, but I need to start somewhere.)

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

xxx
c

IMPORTANT ADDENDUM! While I am barely responsible for myself and not at all responsible for anyone else, it would be irresponsible of me not to note that you should probably limit your label-ripping zeal to benign, i.e., non-hazardous, non-medicinal, items. And if, like me, you are a nutty bargain shopper, make sure you clearly label any spray or other containers you offload your cleaning supplies into. Safety first, please!

Book review: Olive Kitteridge

There is a phrase my friend and writing mentor Brenda often uses to describe the totality of what we are, and why we repel each other, and of course why we find each other so compelling: "messy humans."

It is a phrase I like because the words themselves taste like the phenomenon they describe: a scrambly tumble of emotions, quirks, fine and dreadful impulses, noble and heinous actions all swooped up and barely contained in these bags of bone and flesh and nerves we call bodies. Messy humans we are, even if we look orderly on the outside.

The humans who populate Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout's novel-as-collection-of-stories set in small-town Maine, are as messy as anyone, though like most everyone, they do their best to hide it. For the most part, they live quietly and drink privately, literally in some cases, figuratively in others. The drug of choice varies, but there is always something people reach for to quiet the rages, fill the emptiness, plug up the holes that would otherwise let out the crazy. They turn to gossip or silence, food or self-denial, dreams or ritual, usually, some cobbled-together collection of these.

Still, the mess will out; it always does. Everyone has hunger, as Olive points out to a girl who starves herself to stave off her own. Everyone is crazy and messy and, most of the time, barely holding it together while simultaneously doing their best. And in the end (and the end of Olive Kitteridge is both shocking and comforting at once), that is the truth: that we are more alike than different, that each of us is doing our best to reconcile our personal mess with the chaos we are confronted with daily.

If you like your narratives with a strong sense of place, revealing character without underlining it, quietly letting the whole shape of the protagonist reveal itself through actions both direct and reflected, you will love Olive Kitteridge.

You may even find yourself loving Olive Kitteridge herself, difficult, obstinate, outspoken, complicated, simple, gracefully ungainly, wise, short-sighted, hungry Olive Kitteridge, who makes us wince alternately with loving tenderness and a kind of dread at her clumsy, overt humanity. And if we can love Olive, who is so grossly and messily human, maybe we can begin to love ourselves a little bit, too.

• Buy Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout on Amazon

Cover design: Robbin Schiff; Cover photo © Laura Hanifin; Photo of Elizabeth Strout © Jerry Bauer.

Legalese, etc! Links to the books in the post above are Amazon affiliate links: if you click on them and buy something, I get Amazon dollars. Which is great, as it helps keep me in books to review. More on this disclosure stuff at publisher Michael Hyatt's excellent blog, from whence I lifted (and smooshed around a little) this boilerplate text.

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #10

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffantabulous things I find stumbling around the web during the week here, but which I post on one of the many other Internet outlets I stop by (or tweet at) during my travels. More about the genesis here.

If you need a little cheering-up about the future of our world, look no further than this YouTube capture of a 17-year-old girl playing one of the stage's most gloriously complex and robust middle-aged characters, Mama Rose. [Facebook-ed, via Taylor Negron].

And if you need your faith restored in the prodigious power of grownups to effect change, check out the book trailer on the site of one Heather Anne McIntosh, three of whose children were diagnosed with autism.  [delicious-ed]

My friend, Hiro Boga, wrote a magnificent essay on grappling with losses too big to comprehend, much less process. [Stumbled, via Danielle LaPorte on Facebook]

No matter what you think of Joan Rivers, you'll think of her with greater respect after reading this New York magazine piece. [Tumbld]

I am dog-crazy in general, but I'm developing a particular crush on Rupert. Maybe it's the way he pronounces "Nicaragua." [Flickr-faved]

xxx
c

Image by williac via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.