ET Does Valentine's Day
My friend Dana has recently begun a cooking get together with some friends. The idea is that each person brings ingredients for one course and preps and cooks it there so everyone can learn how to make a new dish, and together, the dishes comprise a whole meal. Since Valentine's Day is just around the corner the theme for last week’s get together was appropriately, “building a romantic meal,” with the main course being Coq au Vin. I was stumped on what to contribute so Dana suggested a bean or carrot dish knowing that I am a true veggie-phile, and it being the middle of winter, Roasted Winter Vegetables seemed most appropriate. I took my recipe from the Barefoot Contessa’s Family Style Cookbook.
The recipe called for carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes, winter squash and a little bit of parsley. At the market I was happy to see a selection of colorful vegetables; purple potatoes, yellow carrots, and golden beets. I snagged some rainbow colored carrots to brighten up my recipe (we need all the brightness we can get in the Northwest at this time of year!).
Our host, Angie, made a turkey meatball appetizer that was accompanied on a skewer by fresh slices of pineapple, sweet pepper, and water chestnuts, delish. Christina baked pastries filled with sun dried tomatoes and goat cheese -- yum!! She also brought a honking bottle of Reisling which we all enjoyed as we cooked and ate.
The Coq au Vin was the main event and Dana provided plenty of step-by-step instructions, although as we all got to drinking wine and talking about this and that the cooking lesson broke down a bit. I did manage to pick up a few tips from her instruction. First Dana fried up some bacon to create some good fat for the cooking process. Her chicken had a beautiful purple color because she had marinated it in a delicious Shiraz for a day in advance, along with the “holy trio” of vegetables in French cooking: onions, carrots, and celery. She skipped the bay leaf so that we wouldn’t have to hunt around to find and discard it later, and I think this certainly did not hurt the flavor. She served the dinner with the same Shiraz to further complement the meal.
Who can resist bacon? - - Out of the marinade into pot. - - Building flavor.
The holy trio. - Check out these thighs... - Less holy trio? Squash, sweet potatoes, parsnips.
What better to top off the feast than vanilla ice cream topped with dulce de leche (caramel sauce) and finished with a chocolate biscotti, compliments of Nicole. Here’s an interesting tip- boil a can of condensed milk on its side for three hours and you will have perfect caramel sauce. It turned out great! A couple of reminders - fully immerse the can so that the contents heat evenly and open with a cloth wrapped around the can to help avoid a mess.
Making Caramel
With all of this indulgence we did not even make it to Candi’s lemon meringue pie, but I’m sure that Angie’s husband didn’t mind having it leftover in the fridge.
In between eating and drinking, I leafed through a copy of Intercourses, an Aphrodisiac Cookbook by Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge.
Angie’s friend had leant her the book for the occasion. It had many steamy dinner suggestions, (think lots of oyster recipes).
Next event will be a brunch theme for St Patrick’s day. I’ll look forward to making one of the great recipes from Ree Drummond’s cookbook, my food bible of late. Maybe I’ll make her version of Huevos Rancheros, with green eggs, of course!!
Content should be free, except for my book 'Free.'
I'm gonna be watching this one pretty closely over the next few weeks. I'm open to new ideas about content and outlets for writers, but I must say, I'm more than a little dubious about Chris Anderson and his theories. In short, I think this guy writes Airline Business Porn, the kind of books businessmen pick up during their travels, read on the plane (when they can't use their Blackberries for an hour or two), then bring up at their next meeting, and use to anchor terribly misguided business plans for the next couple years.
Even as the big ideas behind Anderson's last book are proving more than a bit useless, here comes his latest must-have business conference accessory, Free. Much is being made of the book's recent (I would argue hypocritical) review in The New Yorker and Anderson's rebuttal on his own magazine's site. I won't link to them, because I think each is the equivalent of one sock-puppeted hand arguing to the other, while Si Newhouse hopes that pageviews translate to magazine subscriptions. In short, I'll sum up my thoughts this way: I think talented and professional writers deserve to be paid for their work. Period. It's hard enough to break into the business of writing, and if it becomes impossible to ever make a living doing it, no young people will even try anymore, they'll all just start their own sites (or publish on Lulu), until the whole business is completely and utterly splintered in a million different directions, none of which you'll be able to find! In the rising corporate outlook on content, many at the helm point to their success pulling in advertising dollars based on content often produced by unpaid enthusiasts, as a sign that they can make money at little to know expense, and their "writers" will just be happy to be published. Obviously, Anderson has spent too much time on conference calls with such individuals, and too little time out in the newsroom with his own magazine's writers. No writer worth his salt would be willing to work unpaid for any extended period of time. That to me is a simple fact of life. If you work a day job that saps your will to live, does Anderson really think that year after year you'd be willing to go home and write music reviews, game evaluations, or what have you, without the hope of one day turning it into a paying gig? What is this man thinking? Furthermore, if something is free, then why would anyone expect it to be made available to just them? What incentive do they think the author of this work would have to allow this? Furthermore, after a certain amount of time has passed, and the free writing has spread, what value does this work even have anymore? Intellectual copyright can be the creative equivalent of a Viagra patent (just watch Michael Jackson's stake of the Beattles publishing catalog as proof) -- if you have a hit, it will continue to bring in cash for decades if not generations to come. In the short term, free content might make someone a little money from advertising, but in the long run, what is the value of that archived writing?
The perfect example of the questionable ideas behind Anderson's book is illustrated by an issue that will surely dog it existence, however long of brief that may be. In the last month it has been found that Anderson (or perhaps an unpaid writing assistant?) copied and pasted numerous sections of Wikipedia entries into his book and failed to attribute them. Not only is this a violation of Wikipedia's agreement with its users (not to mention the ethics code of every high school and college in the civilized world!), it means that large portions of the book are also available elsewhere! Yet the asking price of 'Free" has been set at $26.99! Will part of that fee be going to the uncredited writers? And if not, are they just happy to be published? More and more, it seems that squeezing writing from an indentured stone will get you nothing more than exactly what you paid for.
'Free' isn't free, except for its
They’re All Gonna Twitter At You
First of all, Sandler himself is known for being a bit reticent with the media. You seldom see him on TV or read an interview with him in the papers. For someone with a box office record that makes many a studio executive drool like Garfield’s buddy Odie, this guy manages to keep one low profile. So that said, when you do see Sandler on TV, he is, without fail, going before the cameras with one purpose: to sell a product.
Much has been made of Twitter and it’s ability to get the word out every which way you can. The big media kingpins are quickly jumping on board the Twitter fast train, for fear of the little guys running productive circles around their mighty feet. After all, with the ability to get the word out to the masses yourself, what use is there for the Colossus with the monopoly on megaphones?! Twitter, Facebook, Friendster, MySpace, Ning, all these sites are or were meant to put the power of the press in the palms of your sweaty iPhone clasping hands. The only thing is, everyone seems to be on there for the same reason. Folks aren’t casually staring at the screen, waiting for the next big news break or book review to pop up in 140 characters or less. Maybe some are, folks named Gordy and Esther, but the folks with their fingers on the pulse, they’re on there for one purpose and one purpose only: to sell, SELL, SELL!!!
They’re either pumping their Twitters with automatic feeds, or working their little thumbs raw, trying to rack up the largest number of followers. Yeah, the goal is to get as many folks to see your stuff as possible, but there’s something funny going on. For a while now I’ve tried to follow anyone who follows me on Twitter. I’ll dutifully go to their name and click follow. Then a day or so later, I go back and compare notes, and oftentimes, the person who started following me first has now stopped. If this had only happened once or twice I’d have thought nothing of it, or maybe taken it a little personally, but now I think it’s just another variation of measuring, which frankly, is just sad! Is everyone out their just trying to rack up the highest numbers while pontificating in a headwind? Yowsers. What's the point then?
So how long will this Twitter thing last? I’m starting to wonder, cause now, frankly, all it seems to be is a bunch of folks yammering away with no one listening. It’s like the stock market problems have brought the ultimate desperation, instead of ticker-taping their quotes, companies and entrepreneurs are ticker-taping every meeting and scrap of an idea or product line that enters their heads. Hell, I'm guilty of it, but in the end it’s just more noise.
Anyway, I guess we’ll see. In the meantime, I’m going to head off and Twitter this article now. Let’s see if anyone is listening.
Self-Publishing Finds Commercial Niche In Digital Age
Self-Publishing Finds Commercial Niche In Digital Age
Kelly Jane Torrance writing for The Washington Times
In related news, my thriller "Billionaires, Bullets, "Exploding Monkeys" is now available for purchase!
Inspiration Strikes!
"Do you want it good, or do you want it fast?"
"I want it fast."
That was a pretty common exchange when I used to make movies with my friends back in high school. I wanted my little VHS extravaganzas to be good, but more than anything, I just wanted to make them. So if it came down to getting a scene in the can, or giving the actors a little more time to work out their lines, I erred on the side of haste. After all, when you're in high school, and your cast has to juggle homework, other commitments, college applications, and what-have-you, who knows when you'll be able to get everyone together again to refine a scene. I almost always chose to plow ahead. Sometimes it worked out well. A lot of the time it didn't. Course, there were some fun surprises to be found. Improvised one-liners, happy accidents, and out-of-the-blue comic gems, like the dodgeball sequence above. None of that was planned, but we only had an hour to get that whole scene shot before classes started for the day. Fortunately, the camera was rolling during a comic misfire.
Back in high school I used to doubt my screenwriting ability (rightly so I might add), so I'd ask one of the regular cast members, Mike Coviello, if he could pull some scenes together for whatever movie we were working on at the time. Inevitably he'd fail to get me the pages as fast as I wanted them, and he'd always ask, "Mike, do you want it good, or do you want it fast." Then he'd laugh when I gave the expected answer: "Fast."
In college I switched from production to screenwriting, and though my writing improved, and my ability to fashion scripts with actual structure developed, more often than not, I still preferred a shaky rough draft to a few Swiss engineered finished pieces. I guess it worked okay for me. Over the last two years at RIT I finished 4 television scripts, three feature length screenplays, and a whole stack of poems and short stories.
Then I graduated. That's when I found a whole new way of putting off hard work: Perfectionism. For three years after college, I didn't complete anything. I'd outline, and outline. I'd start out in a fresh notebook, jot down a few ideas in careful, draftsman-like pen strokes. I'd write a page of perfectly formed cursive jibberish, only to tear the page out and copy the whole thing down again if I so much as smudged the ink. I'd do this until my hands cramped up, then I'd move to the computer, where I'd write a scene, then tinker with it, and tinker with it, and tinker with it, until whatever zip the original words once held, has been all but drowned in the slow-drying cement of overworked prose.
If I wasn't rewriting and reworking something to death, I was questioning my basic story ideas and wondering if I'd be better off just starting from scratch. So once the writing wouldn't give up another comma, or allow for another word substitution, I'd hit save, banish that little snippet to some computer file vault, and start the process all over again.
In 2004 I wrote 80 pages of a novel, scrapped it, tried it as a screenplay, then somehow convinced myself that it was okay to let it go.
In 2005 I finally broke the cycle.
As I've said in the past, the book "No Plot, No Problem" played a big part in knocking me free of my little writer's hamster wheel. But more than anything, I think hitting my late-twenties and still finding myself working some truly dreadful jobs, made me realize that I either had to start churning out some material, or stop talking about wanting to write. In 2005 I completed a draft of my first screenplay in four years. Later that year a wrote a draft of a book called "Cinematic Immunity." In 2006 I wrote my first full novel, and later that year I went back to the 80 pages I had set aside in 2004, and found that, rough as they were, I liked what I had been doing. This is how I found my pattern. Outline a little til I feel comfortable with the direction I'm going, then jump in. If it's messy, so what, write until I need to find my way again, then outline some more, then go back to writing. When I finish a draft I put it away for a couple of weeks and either start outlining something new, or go back to the last draft of one of the other projects and rework it again. Repeat, and repeat, until I hit a point where I can't do anything more, and the next natural step is to send it out into the world, and either repeat the process, or start something fresh. Either way, at the end of the process, I always have another rough draft of something rather than a neatly printed plan of attack for a story I'll either rework ad nauseam or banish to electronic oblivion.
Anyway, thats what works for me. This last paragraph is a half-baked mishmash of mixed metaphors, which I guess is sort of perfect for making my point. When an idea hits you, go with it. You might have to wade partway into things before the real inspiration strikes, but if you never get out there, you're just gonna sit around watching your ideas drift by with nothing to show for them in the end.
Step One: Sit in your chair.
"I don't believe in writer's block."
Grady Tripp, 'Wonder Boys'
I don't believe in it either. The biggest problem is getting to your desk and typing those first few words each day. Once you get past that, it's just hunting and pecking and playing around. There are so many quotes about writing, and so many books on writing, many if not all of them written by writers far better than me, that it's best if I just point you in the direction of the three I believe work.
The first, more than anything, is meant to inspire. If you've ever thought you might like to make it as a writer, you've more than likely looked to Stephen King as proof that there is hope. In 2000, King published "On Writing," half biography, half-no-bullshit advice on sitting down and getting to work. And if you think it's easier for King to say than do, he goes into brutal detail about the physical pain it took for him to sit down and start writing after nearly being being killed in a pedestrian vs. car accident in 1999. Hearing how he sweated through the pain of sitting in a chair with a shattered leg (like a sock full marbles) and a mangled hip as he struggled to make it through just forty minutes in front of his computer, makes any and all excuses for not writing seem trivial.
The second book is sort of silly, but it works. "No Plot? No Problem!" by Christ Baty, is the companion volume to the National Novel Writing Month contest in which writers around the world work to pump out a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I didn't use this for the 30 day program, but I did use it to help me get through my first novel three years ago. All I can say is that this book knows all the excuses, and it guilts you out of using them. The one that still comes to mind is the discussion of the second week urge to scrap what you're written and start something new (I find this hits around page 80). DON'T. This is what keeps folks from moving from, "I have an idea for a book." to "I just finished my first novel."
Finally, there's the classic "Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life" by Anna Lamott. To boil her more eloquent words down to a few lines of writerly insight: Don't be jealous of the other creative folks out there, just sit down, start working, and bit by bit you'll get something down. Perfectionism is the highest form of procrastination. Good or bad, you have to get something on paper if you ever hope to get something published. Only one way to start.
These are the ones that worked for me. You might find your own touchstones.
The books:
"On Writing" by Stephen King
buy the paperback
or spring for the hardcover
"No Plot? No Problem!" by Chris Baty
buy the paperback
"Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life" by Anne Lamott
buy the paperback
How to earn funds and infuriate people
Inside Steve's Brain by Leander Kahney
It's safe to say that most folks reading this book will have more than passing familiarity with Steve Jobs. If anything, the book is aimed right at Jobs' fiercest supporters and most wary apostles. This is a book for anyone interested in Apple Computer, eccentric personalties, business and creative inspiration, or just looking for something to reinforce their impulsive decision to short Apple stock over the last few months.
For all these reasons, Inside Steve's Brain ranks as a real disappointment. Anyone who's read either Kahney's own blog, The Cult of Mac, or either of his other books, or just picked up one of Newsweek's fawning quarterly Apple cover stories, is more than familiar with the material covered here. In going over the material again in my head, I can't really think of any tidbit of information gained from the book, that I hadn't already picked up from another source over the years.
MY advice to those interested in learning about this fascinating, bizarre, inspiring, but infuriating man, will probably learn a lot more, and find a lot more entertainment, if they pick up a copy of Pirates of Silicon Valley and watch that instead.
I'd rather make something
As a writer, I feel the ability to create worthwhile content is grossly undervalued these days. Yes, you can hire a series of writers to churn out oodles of garbage stories that will lead folks to your main site, assuming they find even a whisper of promise in their quest, but is it worth the time and investment? Probably, but wouldn't it be better in the long run to focus on the quality of your primary product? My personal sense is that this is the way to go. Yes, you can always cast a wide net by trying to funnel customers in through every route necessary, but if the quality of your primary product isn't maintained, how long will your company/website/business hang in there and remain relevant?
I know a large part of business success involves adapting to this month/quarter/year's "name of the game," but you've got to stay true to the spirit of you company/business. For me, that means making something. In the end, I'd rather have a shelf full of books, or a pile of t-shirts, or a page full of news stories. Course at the same time, I also want a nice, neat, orderly bank vault filled with stacked tens and twenties, so I know I have to find a balance. My thinking is just this: A book can be repackaged. A shirt can become vintage. Something tangible can go "retro." But a useless article on the internet is worth less than a piece of space junk once its lost its purpose or been outsmarted. For that reason, I guess I'd just like to keep on making things. Anyway, like I said, I'm so curious to know how other businesses are working on finding the balance that works for them.
Retail, wholesale, or FREE? Hmmm... What would you pick?
Now I've noticed a strange thing happening every time I try to open any programs I've used countless times before: They're all crashing on me! Word has crashed. Photoshop has crashed. Final Draft has crashed. These are programs that have not been reinstalled, or modified, or updated in anyway. They just suddenly decided that it's time to either shit the bed or check up on my registration info. Final Draft is the worst when it comes to this. That program is limited to only two machines, and by God if it doesn't make sure you cough up proof of purchase tabs if you so much as add the word "Mentos" to the spell check. I've gone through less rigorous security procedures while board cross country flights! The worst is when I go to reinstall the software, but find that my now aged machine doesn't even recognize the stuff! Infuriating!
You all know that software isn't cheap. Check out the prices for Word, Photoshop, and Final Draft if you wanna rupture an aorta.
Now check out some of the alternatives. Of course, for everything Microsoft turns out, there seems to be a free alternative from Google. Until that company turns out to be some sort of Terminator-like megaconglomerate, check out Google Docs for alternatives to all of the Microsoft Office patented family of rip-offs.
For Photoshop, the alternatives aren't quite so elegant, but they're out there. I've recently been playing with GIMP a bit (no wisecrack about that sentence). To be frank, I like the logo, but kinda hate the product. Still, it's a nice alternative when you can't quite see spending $1700 in today financial climate.
Finally, there's the product I wish I'd know about in college. Celtx is like a little angel sent down from heaven to help film students make movie magic. Available for Mac, Windows, Linux, and the Asus eeePC, this is the best free program I've found. Unlike Final Draft, who treat their customer's like thieves, demanding phone confirmation, online registration, and inner cheek swabs for every stage of installation, Celtx is free. Download it, install it, and it just works.
So where does this leave us? I like to think it's taking us back to where we started. Instead of the proper tools remaining securely in the hands of those who can afford them, all you need to make these programs work is talent. Check em out. Try Celtx first, like I said, that's my favorite.
Secrets of the Little Black Book
Buy this notebook. Or any of these notebooks.
Trust me, they've got TONS of em, you'll find one you like.
Yeah, yeah, they've become a cliche of wanna be writers sitting in coffee shops, hoping someone will look over and think, "Ohh, who is that?" But you know what else, some cliches are cliches because folks have found something that works.
I used to outline on lined legal pads. I'd start a sentence, make a mistake, scratch it out, then hate the look of the scratched out OUTLINE, tear out the page, and start over. As if my outlines needed to be perfect. Just get the stuff out there. This notebook is like your bound portfolio of "dreamer's cocktail napkins." Embrace imperfection, get your ideas down, the hold that sucker shut with the elastic band. No one will see!
Brilliant!
In a few years, flip back through those chicken scratch notations and marvel at the way your rough ideas became a completed work on your shelf!
RapidWeaver
My day job requires the tiniest bit of html know-how -- meaning, I can stumble through the trial and error involved in making a link work in a block of text. If you really hold my feet to the fire, I can try to figure our why a paragraph is coming out looking wonky onscreen, but aside from that, I’ve always been helpless when it comes to anything web related. I recently asked Jay to help me find a program that would let me put up a simple, but professional looking website for my publishing company, Cryptic Bindings. The software he settled on was easier than I could have hoped for. Aside from a couple of snags resulting from my own inability to keep track of my administrative webhosting passwords, I was able to get the hang of laying out a simple website in just an hour or so. After a couple of months of playing around, and after testing out a few different updates to the site, I’ve worked out a few simple, round about shortcuts that have let me make the site seem more complicated that it actually is.
So what’s the software? RapidWeaver (Which is currently only available for Mac OS X)
For $59 (less if you look online for some specials) you get the software, and an assortment of around three dozen professionally designed templates, which you can further customize through predesigned options, working in the html, or (as I did it) by designing the pieces of your page in another program (I used Apple’s Pages and Preview programs) and dropping the “pictures” of text and images into the RapidWeaver window. The software has two options “edit” and “preview.” It’s basically drag and drop. You bring all the text and pictures into the program under the edit option. Center it. Format it. Choose what word is a link. Which is ones lead to what pages on the site. Choose you output template. Then select preview and ta-da there it is! If you like what you see, enter your webhosting information in the appropriate boxes, click “publish,” and in a few seconds, your site is up and running. It really is that simple. You may encounter one or two bumps along the way (in my case it was a mixup in passwords) but if I can get it all figured out, I’m sure you can too.
Here’s my site if you want to check it out.
Try it for yourself and send in the links.