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Blog Du Jour
Inspired Thinking
Wed Jun 14 00:00:00 EDT 2006
These five blogs cover a broad range of ideas and topics but I find the thinking in their entries so lucid and sharp, the lessons learned can be applied to any passion or profession. [Editor]
Creating Passionate Users focuses on "how the brain works and exploiting it for better learning and memory."
Signum sine tinnitus is written by visionary, venture capitalist and Forbes columnist Guy Kawasaki.
Slow Leadership's mantra is "real leadership isn't an instant activity."
Presentation Zen, is about "professional presentation design."
A List Apart is "for people who make websites."
Don't forget: Send us your favorite blogs -- and tell us why you like 'em. Email us.
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Dog Eared
Cult Fiction
Mon Jun 12 00:00:00 EDT 2006
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Word Count
Controlling the Controlling Idea
Mon Jun 12 00:00:00 EDT 2006
In this installment of Bagel & Schmear -- my ongoing conversation about writing with playwright and ad creative exec Clark Morgan -- we discuss what the "controlling idea" means to your non-fiction writing. Whether putting together a business brief or best-seller, Clark says, "the controlling idea is your friend." [Editor]
VT: What is the controlling idea?
Clark: Everything you write needs to express one main thought, not twenty. When people finish reading what you've written, you want them to be able to easily say what it was about. You don't want, "Well, you got to read it." That's a bad answer.
VT: I just read this book called "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell.
Clark: Really? What's it about?
VT: Thinking. The kind of thinking that happens in the blink of an eye. Different facets of rapid cognition -- what goes on in our heads in two seconds, when are snap judgments good, when are they not. Is that what you mean?
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Backstory
James O. Born, author of "Escape Clause"
Sat Jun 10 00:00:00 EDT 2006
I was always interested in writing and even took a shot as an undergrad at a student newspaper job while attending Florida State but aside from one article on street construction in Tallahassee I was unsuccessful.
I moved on to police work and have been quite happy with my choice since the first day in the academy. I like the physical nature of the job. I love the diversity I experience every day, never knowing exactly what my assignment might be. It may sound hokey, but I like helping people and see the relief on their faces when we show up at a disaster or particularly nasty crime scene.
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Blog Excerpts
The High Heater: What to leave out
Fri Jun 09 00:00:00 EDT 2006
This tiny but power-packed entry comes from an outstanding blog called Gangrey that describes itself as "prolonging the slow death of newspapers." It highlights great writing from papers across the country. The entry appeared on 03/14/06:
This Fresh Air interview with David Mamet and Shawn Ryan is instructive for storytellers in any medium.
Mamet ...
The trick is to leave everything out. That's the whole trick to drama. It's like the ability to hit the fastball, it's the ability to leave out the narration. You've got to leave the narration out because anybody can say, "Well, Jim, welcome back from Antarctica. We haven't seen you since we cured cancer together in 1985. How's your wife? Is she still an albino?"
If you take out the idea that you can overburden the show with narration ... then the question is: What information is really, really needed? And what information can we really do without?
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Blog Du Jour
Five Designerly Blogs
Wed Jun 07 00:00:00 EDT 2006
These are the five blogs that our design director, Tina Roth Eisenberg, checks out every day. Tina's own amazing design blog is Swissmiss.
Coudal's "fresh signals" are addictive. You'll see.
Designobserver.
A must see for every graphic designer.
BBlinks. BB always finds the best links.
Advertising/design goodness. Tons of excellent advertising/design related finds
Core 77
is an 'industrial design supersite'. Enough said.
Don't forget: Send us your favorite blogs -- and tell us why you like 'em. Email us.
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Department of Word Lists
Bird Words
Wed Jun 07 00:00:00 EDT 2006
Adapted from "Bird Words," contributed by subscriber Ruth Beasley. Ruth writes about birds on her website Learning the Birds. She can also be heard on High Plains Public Radio , her local NPR affiliate in Garden City, Kansas.
A large part of learning the birds is the attempt to gain fluency in a new language. Bird words, I call 'em. Memorable words like melanistic, pileated, accipiter, and axillar -- none my spell-checker recognizes. These fine words permeate the bird books, meticulously staking out descriptive territory.
Birders are people for whom subtle differences are carefully noted, and it's important to get the lingo right. Colors are precise, with shades of tawny, bay, cinnamon, ivory, chestnut, and buff. I'm still figuring out the difference between sooty and slatey, mottled and splotched.
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Word Count
Art of the Essay
Mon Jun 05 00:00:00 EDT 2006
"I really love essays," says Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum. Celebrated for her incisive and humorous views on culture, she's the author of a highly-regarded novel called "The Quality of Life Report" and has written for numerous magazines, including the New Yorker, Vogue, GQ, Harpers and Travel & Leisure. She's also published a collection of personal essays in a book called "My Misspent Youth." We talked to Meghan about why she holds this literary form so dear.
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Dog Eared
100 Best Books for Children -- Continued
Mon Jun 05 00:00:00 EDT 2006
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Blog Excerpts
Do the easiest thing that could possibly work: A First Draft
Fri Jun 02 00:00:00 EDT 2006
This entry comes from the brilliant blog Noise Between Stations, written by strategic thinker and consultant Victor Lombardi. It appeared on 3/20/6.
When you have a new idea and you're not sure it will work, create a tangible version of it as quickly as humanly possible. Even if it is very rough, something tangible helps you reach a solution.
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