is a blog by Brendan
1. Ice Claws
2. Hand Freezing Positions
3. Spare Clip
4. Brazee
5. Luger
6. Snake Pose
7. Panda Pose
8. Tiger Pose
9. Stop Dancing
It should be noted that I almost always seemed to find myself wielding the Stop Dancing, even when I was trying to use the Brazee (a street in Portland). I think my brain is trying to tell me something.
Hi. Do you work in an information-based company? Do you use some form of project management software? I would like your input.
At my job, we use a motley collection of software–a hosted timesheet solution with integrated project tracking, Outlook, and most recently Bugzilla. Because I work remotely, my exposure to these is actually pretty minimal, which can cause problems.
I’m curious about what features of project management software you or your colleagues actually use. Do you just create projects and subprojects and assign them to people? Do you track hours or just tasks completed? Do you use Gantt charts or critical paths? Automated risk highlighting? What features do you personally depend on, and which parts just seem like annoying busywork?
Comments are turned on for this post (for real this time), or you can email me.
If it weren’t so dry and poorly punctuated, I would honestly believe that John T. Jones’s Writing 101: Research that Novel was a Story Hacks-like joke. As it is, you can learn more about how not to write from it than all the Story Hacks combined. From a former professor and editor! With a PhD!
“Don’t call your Viking raider, Joe.
Try Eric the Mad or some such.”
I already know what you’re thinking: a book about Joe the Viking raider is immediately more interesting than one about Eric the Mad. But that’s his advice on research? To make up a thing that sounds like what you read once in The Far Side, “or some such?”
“If you met a man in Walgreen wearing a silver body-tight jumpsuit and having antenna sticking out of a gold helmet, you would think: That guy isn’t from here!“
Clearly Dr. Jones and I shop at different Walgreens! Yuk yuk! Also, what the hell does that have to do with writing?
“Each character needs characteristics. You may never mention most of them but you must know them. These are the things that in combination make your character distinct from all other characters in the world. Take Superman for instance or Henry the Eighth.”
That’s such a beautiful non sequitur (and no, I’m not editing out his explanation; that’s the whole paragraph) that I’m tempted to revise my stance on whether this whole thing is pure deadpan humor. I’m also tempted to submit it to the Lyttle Lyttons.
“It’s a good idea to know your subject, your location (setting), and your characters before you start writing the novel. Well, don’t let that stop you. You can fill in the blanks later.”
What. What. That paragraph actually needs clarification to just to reach the level of “meaningless platitude.”
“Just don’t let some bold character take over your book.”
God forbid! You are right, John T. Jones, PhD. After all, when you were writing Revenge on the Mogollon Rim (which seems to be a western and not, in fact, a cent-per-word story from a 1952 issue of Astounding), I’m willing to bet you didn’t let bold characters get in the way. You kept yourself focused on what really matters: absolute verisimilitude with regard to the Mogollon Rim.
This has been Brendan Is Mean About Something on the Internet! I now return to my usual activity of whimpering and typing “how the fuck do I research anything” into Google.
Wow. Wow. The guy who founded WebTV (you remember WebTV, right? Your grandmother failed to use the Internet on it) and the guy who got fired from Eidos (you remember Eidos from 2000-2005, right? You didn’t buy any of their Tomb Raider sequels) have decided to revolutionize the video gaming industry! They’re going to let you play hideously compressed PC games from 2007 without a keyboard or a mouse on a computer with no disc drive, hard drive or video card! Guess who sat around a lot of hotel rooms staring blankly at the N64 controller on the set-top box? (I bet you already guessed!)
To their credit, they have been able to startle some wide-eyed journalists by showing them closed tests on a cloud system with nobody on it, from which they disallowed screen caps or video. That puts them one step ahead of Infinium Labs. You remember Infinium, right? They failed to make the stupid fucking Phantom.
My alma mater is starfucking harder than ever before for its 2009 commencement speakers. At least when we randomly gave out a DHL to James Earl Jones in 2003, it was to a man who overcame a distinct handicap to become a respected actor. But Jerry Bruckheimer? Really?
I guess this is seen as a way to simultaneously give the students a treat and maybe earn a little donation kickback, in exchange for a piece of paper that nobody seriously believes is worth anything. If it were just Linda Bruckheimer, who actually has philanthropic ties to Kentucky, I’d be fine with it. But when you give someone a degree, even a worthless one, you’re endorsing their career and setting it as an example for students to follow. Spend your lives making hundreds of millions of dollars from empty spectacle without even providing any of the creative energy, kids! Bring the circus; let somebody else worry about the bread.
This essay presents me with problems, because I agree with its hypothesis, but not its premises or its conclusion, so, er.
I’ve said before that snarky writing is weak writing, after which a conversation with Holly led me to reduce my stance to “snarky writing is comorbid with weak writing.” Ebert and I concur on this. He goes on to state that blogs devoted to pure snark are dumb, and that gasping about the “gayest Oscars ever” because Hugh Jackman sat in Frank Langella’s lap is equally dumb; this is also true.
Then he defends Joaquin Phoenix’s current performance art spectacle as an “accomplishment,” and as “committing himself as an actor.” Sorry, Roger, but acting isn’t art in and of itself, and acting like a bewildered person with nothing to say, without letting other people in on the joke, is no achievement at all. (I have similar problems with Andy Kaufman, but at least he brought a Duchamp-like duplicity to the exercise.)
More essential to his argument is his assertion that the snarkers should leave! Oscar! Alone! Sorry again, but a critic of all people should understand that you don’t get to just declare that it’s not for you. Joaquin Phoenix and the self-righteous pomp of the Oscars deserve no better than snark, because they’re functioning on the same level. Scrape away the ornamentation, and there’s nothing worthwhile underneath.
But that doesn’t mean that snarkery is a noble satirical endeavor. Sumana (via John Hodgman) provides a better argument than Ebert: snark is just “meh” without the benefit of brevity.
I’m reading my first Stephen King book, On Writing. I’m paying perhaps more attention than usual to its prose style as I go, since I am trying to concurrently parse his advice and decide whether he is a writer from whom advice is to be solicited. So far its defining quality is that it’s straightforward: there’s none of the sidelong poetry you get from Atwood and Wolfe or the little inline games you get from Adams and Pratchett. He just writes what he writes, albeit (in blessed concordance with Orwell) free of tired figures of speech.
I determined all this last night in bed. I had intended to knock out a chapter or two, until my eyes got sleepy; when I finally closed the book, I noticed that I had read a hundred pages.
I’m starting to get it, Stephen King fans.
I’ve just now noticed that for some reason this story got an enormous, Penny Arcade-level traffic spike through Stumbleupon two weeks ago. (As with the PA bump, visitorship quickly returned to normal.) Was it on the front page or something? Nobody tells me these things!
I still haven’t posted about this, have I?
I was supposed to be in this picture. Last September, I got my acceptance letter to Clarion South 2009, which I’d resolved to attend way back when I was still in London. I leapt about with glee, of course, and then set out saving enough money to defray the cost.
I failed, and in December I withdrew my application.
So there’s that story! Maybe in 2010 I’ll be in a position to reapply; maybe not. I am quite sure that whoever got my spot made good use of it, and I hope the short fiction economy survives long enough for me to read the results.
Kara: All the girls at work have decided to write a paranormal romance book together.
Brendan: Ooh! Can I help?
Kara: Well, maybe.
Brendan: “He gently cupped her werewolf boobs–“
Kara: You can’t help.