Links tagged with “writing”
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30 Years of Writing on the Internet - Longreads
On how internet writing is never reviewed, or treated seriously, until it’s in book form. A bit like internet video not being as “proper” as TV. (via Web Curios)
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EleutherAI - text generation testing UI
Another GPT-J-6B text-generating tool.
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Text Synth
Easy, working thing that generates further text from a prompt using the GPT-J 6B or GPT-2 language models.
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Karan Mahajan on Twitter: “Some years ago, I was lucky to take a class…” / Twitter
A 69 page PDF of writing quotes shared by Denis Johnson. I love the obviously copied-and-pasted fonts and formatting of this.
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The Sentence is a Lonely Place - Believer Magazine
Text of a lecture by Gary Lutz. So many examples and explanations of amazing sentences from American fiction.
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geek old semi-formal (Danny O’Brien’s Oblomovka)
For trying to write somewhere in “the hellish triangle of being readable, entertaining, and truthful”.
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What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?
About how to, or whether it’s possible to, enjoy the art of people like Roman Polanski and Woody Allen, and whether you have to be selfish, to be an “art monster”, in order to make great art. (via Kottke)
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How To Talk Comedy Writer – Updated! — Andy Riley | misterandyriley.com
Brilliant list of British TV comedy-writing jargon. (via Russell Davies)
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McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: An Interactive Guide to Ambiguous Grammar.
A nice step-by-step transformation of a sentence from active to passive voice (which I’m rubbish at identifying). (via Kottke)
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“Better Call Saul” Writer Gennifer Huthcison Discusses Her Craft and Career | Green Lens Media, LLC
An old net friend done good.
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How to Write a Book in Three Days: Lessons from Michael Moorcock | Wet Asphalt
I spent a lot of teenage time reading these books. (via Boing Boing via Interconnected)
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How to write | SkyLightRain
How Ben Moor, whose writing is lovely and hilarious, puts his books / scripts together.
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John McPhee: Structure : The New Yorker
About ways to structure non-fiction, and the text editor he’s always used, Kedit. A really good read. (via Migurski)
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Lacuna Books
Online tool for writing books and papers. Long content, footnotes etc, output to HTML and, for $10, EPUB and PDF. Looks good. (via Tom Taylor)
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Max Sebald’s Writing Tips - Richard Skinner
W.G. Sebald. I love tips on how to write, and the illusion they give me that I’ll write something great one day. (via @HariKunzru)
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Neal Stephenson Responds With Wit and Humor - Slashdot
I’ve only read the answer to question 2, but that’s worth linking to alone. On the difference between two different worlds of writers. “The reason she’d never heard of me was because I was famous.” (via @JamesBridle)
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Some Practical Writing Advice From Douglas Coupland | LitReactor
Number one in these lists should probably be, “Don’t spend all your time reading lists of writing advice,” but I still like this.
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Pin pages to the wall and examine them with binoculars
Lovely, like a mini, themed David Markson.
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Why Wikipedia beats Wikinews as a collaborative journalism project » Nieman Journalism Lab
From Feb 2010. Wikinews’ combination of deadlines and less of a formula for story structure than Wikipedia has proved challenging for collaborative writing.
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Kung fu grippe — Making the Clackity Noise
“Make the clackity noise until a little story falls out. Just a little bit and just for a little while. Just until you notice one tiny, dumb, pointless story that the keyboard wanted you to remember.”
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LRB · Rosemary Hill · Keep Calm
From 2007, an article that keeps coming back to me, about the Co-operative Correspondence Club, a distributed newsletter for women that lasted most of the twentieth century.
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Home | Yahoo! Style Guide
Looks like it could be good for a web-friendly writers’ style guide. (via Crackunit)
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LRB · Keith Thomas · Diary
About taking notes from books, keeping commonplace books, etc. Interesting to read about his laborious technique.
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750 Words
Nice idea, from the afore-linked Buster Benson. Write 750 words a day, privately, online, to get your creative juices flowing.
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Ten rules for writing fiction | Books | guardian.co.uk
Finally got round to reading this. Is good and interesting like everyone said in February.
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Warren Ellis » Want/Get/Do
Nice and simple advice about getting a basic thread for a story from a rough idea.
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David Mamet’s Master Class Memo to the Writers of The Unit | Movieline
I’m a sucker for writing tips, whatever medium they’re intended for. (via Daring Fireball)
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Cormac McCarthy on The Road - WSJ.com
All good, but mainly for “I hear people talking about going on a vacation or something and I think, what is that about? … My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper … That’s gold and anything else is just a waste of time.”
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John Harris asks whether the best writing about pop music hails from a different era | Music | The Guardian
While I’m at it, I enjoyed this too, about whether music writing isn’t as good as it used to be. It never was. Or maybe it’s always moving so it’s not where you left it.
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Johnaugust.com » Take away the questions
Following on from those time travel rules: “In any script, look for scenes in which characters answer questions, and try to find ways to take the questions away.”
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Flashbake: Free version-control for writers using git - Boing Boing
Sounds nice and some lovely little features like saving info about the weather, etc when it automatically checks your files in. Contextual backup.
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Television Tropes & Idioms - Home Page
Big wiki cataloging “devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members’ minds and expectations”. Big, big time sink.
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Seth’s Blog: Advice for authors
More advice for when you’re having a book published.
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Secrets of book publishing I wish I had known - Good Experience
Nice clear description of having a book published. Even if you have a publisher, you’re on your own. (via Kottke)
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What is it like to write a technical book? at Xaprb
Great write-up of what it was really like to write a big complicated book, managed by rather disorganised people. (via Simon Willison)
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Johnaugust.com » Quitting, and the age question
“It’s not harder for an older writer to start. It’s just easier to quit.” Replace “writer” with pretty much any profession. Harsh truths.
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BBC - Writersroom - Scriptsmart - Script Formats
Different formats for film, TV, radio and stage scripts.
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Celtx - Overview
Free, good-looking software for writing scripts, storyboards, planning productions, etc.
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LRB | Rosemary Hill : Keep Calm
An account of the Co-operative Correspondence Club (early 20C women’s letter-writing distribution network). Also rather moving as the century continues and the women age.
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Rodcorp: How we work
Fascinating collection of snippets about different people’s work habits.
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Poynter Online - How I Wrote The Sopranos: Deconstructing the Stories Behind the Bada-Bing
Summary of David Chase and team’s process for creating the nested stories and arcs.
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The Snowflake Process for Writing a Novel
Sounds rather formulaic, but then it’s also similar to how I imagined the process would be if I ever wrote one.