Relief Journal, a Christian fiction quarterly, is raising funds for this year. They say, “If every person that visited our website last month gave us $1, we would have more than enough money to meet our campaign goal.” They are at 13% now.
All posts by Phil
The Best Time To Write
Stewart O’Nan on writing between other responsibilities: “Some days I’d get a sentence. Some days I’d get two sentences. Some days I wouldn’t get anything. Use your time, steal the time, manage the time somehow.” (Thanks to Ed Champion)
Matus: Boring, Trivial, Mundane
Irvin Leigh Matus, an extraordinary Shakespeare scholar who died recently, said this back in 1989. “Get a 9-to-5 job? No way. When you have a mind like mine, such a wonderful mind, well, to have it virtually imprisoned in the boring, trivial and mundane would be torture.”
Matus was homeless for a long time while pursuing his research. He wrote two critically acclaimed books on the Bard, but would not–perhaps could not–hold a regular job or I guess even an irregular job. I offer you his quote above both to point you to an interesting obit on him and as a writing prompt. What would a wonderful mind do in a regular job? How would a genius handle the everyday humility needed for living under God?
Stop Laughing, It's Not Funny
From our Practical News Desk: Scientists have learned chimpanzees will laugh at things they don’t find funny. Just like people who will laugh in order to share the moment, even when the moment isn’t funny, chimps will laugh in order to bond with each other and no doubt optimize their evolutionary progress in order to whip us up in the next generation–or two.
Laugh at that, you puny man.
You Know What? It's Friday
Friday Fight!
Did their mothers never tell them they could poke an eye out with those sticks?
Novel: Not Done Yet
Why haven’t we finished our novel? (An infographic from The Onion) Blogging about writing is not on this list, probably because it’s too realistic to be funny.
The Bible in English, #309
The King James Bible, published in 1611, was the 309th edition of the Bible in English at that time. For reference, the first hand-written manuscripts of the Bible in English were composed by John Wycliffe in the 1380s.
Oh, Henry! What Is Man That God Should Think of Him?
Let’s give it up for the fabulous new duo, The Civil Wars.
Video Game Critics Debate
Here’s an interesting set of letters between two critics of video games, one prioritizes personal experience and story, the other views the games in the context of all games since the beginning of civilization.
Tom Bissell writes about his approach: “I do, however, like to write about how games cross over into affecting, enriching, or profoundly messing with one’s life outside of game-playing.”
By contrast, Simon Ferrari explains: “It’s my contention that games are systems of rules and artificial spaces before they’re stories. And if we want to foster creativity, depth, and breadth in the design of future games, then we need to begin by teaching the reading, writing, and critique of rule systems at an early age.”
Five Seconds of Every #1 Songs
This music sounds like a great pop culture final exam: listen to this track and name as many of the songs you can or the groups performing. It’s five seconds of every chart topping song since the chart began until 1992. I just heard The Temptations singing “War” from 1969. Wow. This is not my field of study or entertainment.