Tuesday various

Monday various

  • Ursula K. Le Guin On Rules of Writing, or, Riffing on Rechy:

    As for “Write what you know,” I was regularly told this as a beginner. I think it’s a very good rule and have always obeyed it. I write about imaginary countries, alien societies on other planets, dragons, wizards, the Napa Valley in 22002. I know these things. I know them better than anybody else possibly could, so it’s my duty to testify about them. I got my knowledge of them, as I got whatever knowledge I have of the hearts and minds of human beings, through imagination working on observation. Like any other novelist. All this rule needs is a good definition of “know.” [via]

  • At this rate, NBC’s Day One is going to end up as nothing but a blipvert.
  • 42 Essential 3rd Act Twists [via]
  • I really like this vintage ad search engine. [via]
  • And finally, Batgirl Is Now Prince. Also: Marvel Comics as Simpsons characters [via]

Vacation, all I ever wanted

I don’t know about you, but I spent the first day of the new year — the new decade, depending on how you reckon these things — doing not much of anything.

Oh sure, my father and I took down the Christmas tree this morning. And I did a little tinkering with my short story for the Geist Annual Postcard Story Contest. And I watched a few more episodes of The Big Bang Theory — how have I not been watching this show? — and then this evening I watched a pretty decent horror movie called The Signal — kind of like a neat modern riff on George Romero’s The Crazies, with some good scares and interesting thoughts on what mass psychosis might actually look like. (“Do you have the crazy in your head?!”) But overall, really, where did the day go?

I’m in the tail end of my two-week-long vacation (sixteen days, actually), and I’m starting to feel like maybe I’m ready to get back into having a daily routine. Vacation has really agreed with me, and there’s a big part of me that doesn’t want to go back. But, at the same time, I think I really benefit from having a more structured schedule. I haven’t really done a lot of writing these past couple of weeks, and I’ve definitely done less reading. (A forty-five-minute commute, twice a day, really does wonders to focus my time for that.)

I go back to work on Monday, and it’s kind of nice to feel like I’m ready for that.

Monday various

  • Maybe I’m just still bitter that my family stood on line for several hours to see this when it was new — and missed out on Journey into Imagination (at the time a personal favorite and which is what we originally thought we were standing on line for) — but come on, the return of Captain Eo? Really?
  • I’m always dubious about lists of new slang words. They inevitably seem like they’re just a joke on whoever is compiling them — “can you believe what I got that reporter from the Guardian to believe?” — or like somebody’s just gotten corrugated ankles, gone to goat heaven, and started making things up. [via]
  • Graham Greene once entered a contest to parody himself. He came in second. [via]
  • Sketchy Santas. Parents, do you really want your kids sitting on these men’s laps? [via]
  • And finally, speaking of which, Jack Bauer’s making a list and checking it twice…

Wednesday various