Jeff Ventura - surprisingly has never been called 'Ace' before.

I'm Comic Sans, asshole

A short, imagined monologue by Mike Lacher by way of McSweeney's:

You don't like that your coworker used me on that note about stealing her yogurt from the break room fridge? You don't like that I'm all over your sister-in-law's blog? You don't like that I'm on the sign for that new Thai place? You think I'm pedestrian and tacky? Guess the fuck what, Picasso. We don't all have seventy-three weights of stick-up-my-ass Helvetica sitting on our seventeen-inch MacBook Pros. Sorry the entire world can't all be done in stark Eurotrash Swiss type.

Purveyors of Outlook-based smileys everywhere, rejoice.

David Mamet: How to write drama

A just-surfaced note from David Mamet, executive producer of the now-cancelled The Unit, to the show's writing team.  The caps are his.  If only more executive communication had this level of real-human plainspeak.

QUESTION: WHAT IS DRAMA? DRAMA, AGAIN, IS THE QUEST OF THE HERO TO OVERCOME THOSE THINGS WHICH PREVENT HIM FROM ACHIEVING A SPECIFIC, ACUTE GOAL. [...]

THINK LIKE A FILMMAKER RATHER THAN A FUNCTIONARY, BECAUSE, IN TRUTH, YOU ARE MAKING THE FILM. WHAT YOU WRITE, THEY WILL SHOOT.

HERE ARE THE DANGER SIGNALS. ANY TIME TWO CHARACTERS ARE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

ANY TIME ANY CHARACTER IS SAYING TO ANOTHER “AS YOU KNOW”, THAT IS, TELLING ANOTHER CHARACTER WHAT YOU, THE WRITER, NEED THE AUDIENCE TO KNOW, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

DO NOT WRITE A CROCK OF SHIT. WRITE A RIPPING THREE, FOUR, SEVEN MINUTE SCENE WHICH MOVES THE STORY ALONG, AND YOU CAN, VERY SOON, BUY A HOUSE IN BEL AIR AND HIRE SOMEONE TO LIVE THERE FOR YOU.

You owe it to yourself to read the whole thing.

(Via DF)

Zadie Smith on David Foster Wallace

Zadie Smith, author of the acclaimed Changing My Mind, writing about David Foster Wallace in the Five Dials tribute to the late author:

In a culture that depletes you daily of your capacity for imagination, for language, for autonomous thought, complexity like Dave's is a gift.  He recursive, labyrinthine sentences demand second readings.  Like the boy waiting to dive, their resistance 'breaks the rhythm that exclues thinking'.  Every word looks up, every winding footnote followed, every heart- and brain-stretching concept, they all help break the rhythm of thoughtlessless -- your gifts are being returned to you.

If you don't have the Five Dials celebration of David Foster Wallace, get it here [PDF].  It's free and delivers thousands of dollars worth of emotion and power and literary awe directly into your spinal column.

One tip: don't read on a computer.  Go old school and print this out and read it off the reconstituted pulp of felled trees.  Trust me.

It's in the Fingers, Not the Mind: Making the Clackity Noise

I’ve learned that my job is to just sit down and start making the clackity noise. If I make the clackity noise long enough every day, the “writing” seems to take care of itself. On the other hand, if there’s no clackity noise, no writing. No little stories. The stories may be in there, alongside God knows what else, but there’s no way to know. You must make the noise.
via kungfugrippe.com

Merlin Mann, God love him, nails it. If I were to post here on this blog about how much I wanted to write something more meaningful and then list the terrible excuses I have for not doing something other than Twitter and Facebook and Buzz and all that other impertinent bullshit, it would be called what it deserves to be called: whiny, self-absorbed, tortured soul jerkoffery.

So maybe Merlin's right. Maybe obsessiong about writing and planning and searching deep within David Foster Wallace to find literary inspiration isn't the point. Maybe worrying that I might sound too much like John Gruber or Jason Kottke and lamenting the struggle to find my own voice is just a bunch of chaff, a self-indulgent parade of happy horseshit.

Maybe it's as simple as this: stop whining and write. Write, as Merlin says, until a story falls out. Write until you hit upon something sad or funny or poignant or whatever.

Write until you're not thinking about writing, but actually writing.

Thanks, Merlin.

How to Shovel Fucking Snow

Put on a hat and gloves. Next, throw on a light jacket. Not too heavy moron; you're going to get sweaty. Also, it's gotta be loose so nothing you bought at H&M. Armani? ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME? Next slam your feet into your boots. No, WITH PURPOSE. What, you don't have boots?! (Rolls eyes). Okay, put on your Aldo dress shoes and put each foot into a few tall plastic bags, doubling or tripling up. Duct tape those fuckers on around your calves. You do have calves, don't you? Yell to nobody in the house in particular, "I'm going out to shovel!
via theawl.com

I laughed like an idiot through this entire thing. If you do too, I strongly suggest How To Cook a Fucking Steak, also by the fine folks at The Awl.

Mark Pilgrim on Writing (For Real)

I'm a three-time (soon to be four-time) published author. When aspiring authors learn this, they invariably ask what word processor I use. It doesn't fucking matter! I happen to write in Emacs. I also code in Emacs, which is a nice bonus. Other people write and code in vi. Other people write in Microsoft Word and code in TextMate+ or TextEdit or some fancy web-based collaborative editor like EtherPad or Google Wave. Whatever. Picking the right text editor will not make you a better writer. Writing will make you a better writer. Writing, and editing, and publishing, and listening -- really listening -- to what people say about your writing. This is the golden age for aspiring writers. We have a worldwide communications and distribution network where you can publish anything you want and -- if you can manage to get anybody's attention -- get near-instant feedback. Writers just 20 years ago would have killed for that kind of feedback loop. Killed! And you're asking me what word processor I use? Just fucking write, then publish, then write some more. One day your writing will get featured on a site like Reddit and you'll go from 5 readers to 5000 in a matter of hours, and they'll all tell you how much your writing sucks. And most of them will be right! Learn how to respond to constructive criticism and filter out the trolls, and you can write the next great American novel in edlin.

Bingo.  Do yourself and read Mark Pilgrim on The Setup, which is interesting way, way beyond this little quip about writing.

Anil Dash on Remembering Brad Graham

These days, I very rarely get into pissing contests with other bloggers or butt heads with commenters on other sites. Sure, some of it is having grown up and become a bit more of an adult. But most of it is due to the example of Brad (and those whom I met through him) showing me that there were real people on the other end of the line.
via dashes.com

Even though I didn't know Brad Graham, this lesson hopefully becomes part of his enduring legacy moving forward; it's a lesson we could all stand to be reminded of every so often.

I strongly encourage you to read all of Anil Dash's remembrance of Graham; it's one of the most human and real I've seen.