A while back Jason came up with this idea to have a subscriber participation video. We had a few ups and downs with the details, but eventually we did, in fact, manage to put it all together and it was tons of fun. Thanks to all my subscribers who participated! You guys are made of awesome sauce. ^_^
Tag: favorite
Back to Basics
A reminder: This post courtesy of Julie Jarnagin’s 101 Blog Post Ideas for Writers.
33. Reviews of your favorite office supplies
A few years ago I probably could have made this post long enough that no one in their right mind would have bothered to read it all. Traditionally, I love writing in a notebook with a really nice pen, so I have a bit of an unhealthy relationship with office supplies. As I’m typing this there is an entire shelf on one of my bookshelves devoted to my notebooks, and about a third of them are almost completely empty…I bought them because I fell in love with them at the time, but only wrote a few pages before getting distracted and/or moving on to something else.
These days, as previously mentioned, I do the overwhelming majority of my writing on my laptop. It’s just quicker that way. That said, I do still have a couple of favorite manual writing supplies that I can say a couple of words about, for the sake of this post:
1. Cambridge City Vinyl Notebooks
I’ve used a lot of different notebooks, but this one has to be my favorite. The vinyl front and back covers feel almost like a supple leather, and the spiral binding is very tough and stiff so you don’t end up with those annoying bent spirals that constantly get your pages all caught up. The pages themselves are beautifully ruled, as beautiful as ruling can be anyway, and all in all the notebooks are a pleasure to write in.
2. PaperMate Capped Ballpoint Pens, Fine, Blue
You might think I’m kidding about this one because these are quite possibly the cheapest pens on the planet, but I’m totally serious. I’m a bit of a pen nut, and these ones remain, to this day, my absolute favorites. They write smoothly, they’re comfortable in the hand, and as previously mentioned, they’re quite possibly the cheapest pens on the planet. What’s not to love?
Great, now I’m hungry…
A reminder: This post courtesy of Julie Jarnagin’s 101 Blog Post Ideas for Writers.
3. Ask a question.
Wow, that’s…vague. I guess as this is a list of blog post ideas, and not actually a challenge, it makes sense as a suggestion, but as I’m using the list as more of a daily challenge that makes it a little silly.
Okay, here’s a question for you then, and you can feel free to answer via comment if you wish:
What’s your favorite kind of ice cream?
(Thought I was going to be a little more philosophical there, didn’t you?)
(For the record, mine is Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.)
Hey you, Trout…climb that tree.
A reminder: This post courtesy of Julie Jarnagin’s 101 Blog Post Ideas for Writers.
1. What is your favorite quote and why?
There’s a pretty good chance that Julie meant for this question to apply to quotes taken from books, but since she didn’t actually specify that I’m going to use a non-book-related quote that I absolutely love. It’s a quote from Albert Einstein that’s been floating around for a while, and I think it should be stamped on the forehead of every educator in North America.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
I love this quote because of the truth in it. I understand the reasoning behind a standardized education system, but I do truly believe that this system fails many children who simply aren’t that kind of genius. For example, I went to school with a guy (I won’t name names, of course!) who was not an academic by a long shot…he was placed in the lowest level of math our high school offered and still had a hard time passing the course. I’m sure there were times when the system made him feel stupid. But here’s the thing: that guy is an amazing cook, and he went on to find work doing what he loves, creating delicious works of art.
That guy was lucky. A lot of others aren’t. There are lots of kids out there who have a variety of fun and marketable skills that simply aren’t considered or encouraged by our standardized education system. Some kid could have the spark in him to be the creator of the next worldwide sensation, but he’s sitting in a classroom right now having his teacher and classmates imply that he’s an idiot because he can’t figure out fractions, or doesn’t understand how to read the Periodic Table.
It’s a sin that we don’t encourage kids to look for their own strengths, rather than imposing upon them our own ideas of what ‘strengths’ are.
15 Day Book Challenge – Day 3
Day 3- Your favorite author and favorite book by them
If you asked me a year ago I’d probably say Stephen King and his more recent book, Under the Dome, which was a particularly interesting and creepy story.
These days if we’re going to talk about favorite authors, I’m going to have to go with R.R. Martin. The thing is, I can’t give you my favorite book because I’ve technically only read the one so far…that is, A Game of Thrones, the first in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. How can I choose Martin as my favorite author when I’ve only read one of his books? If you’d read the book yourself you probably wouldn’t be asking that question. I am positively amazed at this man’s ability to interweave a fistful of different plots while keeping track of dozens of characters in a vast world full of a slew of different cities, lands, beliefs, creatures, and any number of things I’m forgetting. As I was reading A Game of Thrones I couldn’t help picturing Martin in a huge room with nothing but a writing desk and a multitude of hand-drawn/written maps, character descriptions, and plot trees covering every inch of the walls, ceiling, and floor. I just can’t fathom any other way that someone could possibly create such a tapestry of information while still making the story genuinely good and fun and interesting. Kudos, R.R. Martin. Freakin’ kudos.
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