nice, simple advice

i don't have the answers here, but i can say, as a fan of the sport of baseball, game stories are dead to me. have been for years. never read them, and i can't really see the point.

"But is this explosion of prose good, on a technical level? Yes. Lunsford's team found that the students were remarkably adept at what rhetoricians call kairos—assessing their audience and adapting their tone and technique to best get their point across. The modern world of online writing, particularly in chat and on discussion threads, is conversational and public, which makes it closer to the Greek tradition of argument than the asynchronous letter and essay writing of 50 years ago.

"All of this is changing. The revolution is under way. The novel is getting entertaining again. Writers like Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, Donna Tartt, Kelly Link, Audrey Niffenegger, Richard Price, Kate Atkinson, Neil Gaiman, and Susanna Clarke, to name just a few, are busily grafting the sophisticated, intensely aware literary language of Modernism onto the sturdy narrative roots of genre fiction: fantasy, science fiction, detective fiction, romance. They're forging connections between literary spheres that have been hermetically sealed off from one another for a century."

really touching anecdote about director John Hughes. and speaking of, did you know he did the National Lampoon's Vacation movies? the good ones? the man was an absolute legend.

poor Twitter. when it's not being slagged for its poor uptime, it's being knocked for its lack of a business plan. which is fair, given recent history. but how many would have used it - or even realized that they might - if it's gates weren't wide open from Day One? i wouldn't have. Twitter stands a much better chance of realizing revenue, IMO, now that it's addicted so many users than it did before. it's like crack that way.

"With Alien, I figured out quite simply that, as an audience member, what you DON'T see scares you more than what you see." - precisely. would that more film makers understood this.

my primary mission in life is not to be on the receiving end of one of Mark's broadsides

a useful characterization of some of the disagreement styles in online conversations

i was less impressed than Long. i take nothing away from its import at the time, which was likely considerable, but i would dispute its longer term relevance and standing

"Newspaper reporters...are trained to reveal almost nothing about themselves in their writings. This makes them freaks...since almost all of the other ink-stained wretches in that world reveal a lot...We call these revelations...elements of style." - amen

i'm absolutely with Derek here: better tools are need w/r/t to the mainstream press

fairly novel-specific, but good tips generally speaking

i'm terrible at this

this looks awesome - too bad it's OS X only

we all want to write like Paul, Mark, join the club - we've got jackets

interesting concept. i could probably use something like this, though as Alex noted not being able to easily extract links would be inconvenient

cool - i'm part of Purdue's curriculum now ;)

"I asked him how he went about acquiring new knowledge, to which he responded 'I learn by writing'." - same here, big time

what can you say but the man writes very well

blind spots? what blind spots? appreciate the kind words

agree, and need to discuss further how the short form drives out the long form wrt text

obviously i agree, but what will be interesting will be whether or not the rise of blogs and such stop the poor writing bleeding that email started

great anecdote about simplifying a given discipline down to two essential elements (via Dave)

this is why you don't delete content on the web

amen - closed != not universally equal better business

wow - talk about taking extreme measures to avoid distraction

interesting piece on writing from Gaiman; a lot like Graham's recent essay

good advice, but who gets to choose their audience? it can be intended for a known audience, but Google's always going to bring strangers your way (via Cote)

an interview with one of my favorites, Eco (via Fake)

interview with Dave Eggers (via Kottke)

thoughts on writing from the NY times book review - mirrors my thoughts on blogs almost perfectly

writing tips for bloggers