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nedhepburn:

nevver:

Six Tips on Writing from John Steinbeck

1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.
2. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.
3. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.
4. If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.
5. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.
6. If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

‘Cannery Row’ is one of the best books, and ‘Of Mice & Men’ can make a grown man cry. Steinbeck was a legend. Also; the third point here is vital, stellar advice.

(via npr)

futurejournalismproject:

The bad news? The Newspaper industry claimed the title of the fastest shrinking industry in the U.S. The good news? Online publishing was one of the fastest growing industries during the same time period.

According to Linkedin:

The fastest-growing industries include renewables (+49.2%), internet (+24.6%), online publishing (+24.3%), and e-learning (+15.9%). Fastest-shrinking industries were newspapers (-28.4%), retail (-15.5%), building materials (-14.2%), and automotive (-12.8%).

In terms of post-recession recovery, IT, marketing & advertising, computer software, and insurance are the largest industries that fell heading towards the end of the recession in 2009 but in 2011 are at or above their 2007 employment level. Financial services is starting its recovery and real estate appears to have bottomed out. Several industries such as newspapers, supermarkets and telecom have continued to shrink throughout the sample period.

In terms of job titles, The Economist presented Linkedin data to show that:

one of the fastest-growing job titles in America is “adjunct professor” (an ill-paid, overworked species of academic). One of the fastest-shrinking is “sales associate”

As the Economist points out, an adjunct professor is someone a university convinces to work for peanuts in exchange for the word “professor” somewhere in his resume. I assume if “adjunct professor” jobs are growing, “professor” jobs are declining.

(via futurejournalismproject)

publicknowledge:

PK pays its respects to Daniel Johnston while in Austin.

thisistheverge:

Subtraction.com: “Vintage” Movie Titles for Video Games

thisistheverge:

Best new tumblr blog. via @jasonsantamaria