It has been a strange week for Women's history. The Vatican declared the washing machine the single most important development in Women's lib. Meanwhile Michelle Obama, one of most accomplished First Ladies in American history, is making headlines as a fashion plate and advocate of healthy cooking.
The washing machine... The argument has been made that the mechanisation and industrialisation of Clean actually increased the burden on women. Instead of liberating women to take on work outside the home, things like washing machines and vacuums just raised the standard, the amount of house work always increased to the point where it exceeded the time available to do it.
But I suppose the Vatican is not in a position to acknowledge the role of the birth control pill, the vote or the legalization of abortions in liberating women.
Michelle Obama... Went to Princeton and graduated from Harvard Law yet we are talking about her workout regime and what she feeds her daughters.
Food, not to mention what we do with it, is an important part of national discourse in any country. The thing is that having healthy rich people — of any colour — talking about what we should be doing to stay healthy and clean smacks of Progressivism, not education or policy change.
Actually this wouldn't bother me accept the conversation ends up being about how she talks her kids in to eating vegetables. It's too kitchen sink on one hand and aristocratic on the other. I mean she does have an army of chefs to prepare meals to tempt her kids.
And a Harvard Law degree. Someone should ask her about tortes. hehe.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Periodic Table of Typefaces
I while back I gave up on times new roman. Times new roman is dear to me. I just needed a change. What shocked me was that people noticed. People cared. People came to times new roman's defense. Others recommended alternatives. I have since gone back. I didn't find anything in the mac Microsoft Office catalogue that really got my blood flowing. Well some did get my blood pumping but not in a good way.
I hate courier. There's no excuse. It's not 1944, and we aren't making carbon copies.
Anything written in comic sans looks like grade 2 reading material. And on it goes.
Someone has put together a periodic table of typefaces. Helvetica is ranked one (where Hydrogen would go) and Times is number 7... nitrogen... any how I was thrilled. Courier is number 63 — the Europium, of the Lanthanides of the typesetters universe. Take that 1944.
Also discovered a webspread movement to ban comic sans at bancomicsans.com.
I hate courier. There's no excuse. It's not 1944, and we aren't making carbon copies.
Anything written in comic sans looks like grade 2 reading material. And on it goes.
Someone has put together a periodic table of typefaces. Helvetica is ranked one (where Hydrogen would go) and Times is number 7... nitrogen... any how I was thrilled. Courier is number 63 — the Europium, of the Lanthanides of the typesetters universe. Take that 1944.
Also discovered a webspread movement to ban comic sans at bancomicsans.com.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Still Breathing
I do still like the concept — choose folly — which I laid out in my first post but I am finding that I really am no longer married the topic of productivity. I was spending more time on being productive than on actually being creative. Out of frustration I ended up doing neither. As nobody was reading the blog, I don't have to worry about alienating the readership, I'll write whatever tickles my fancy.
I have been knitting instead of reading and writing lately. On that note the "norwegian purl" was brought to my attention — it is a neat little way for continental knitters to change from knit to purl without moving the working yarn from back to front, something I would categorize as folly. I am knitting up a k2p2 cowl onto a sweater just now and taking the opportunity to practice this new technique. I'm getting to like it quite a bit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DkwcejowiI
I have been knitting instead of reading and writing lately. On that note the "norwegian purl" was brought to my attention — it is a neat little way for continental knitters to change from knit to purl without moving the working yarn from back to front, something I would categorize as folly. I am knitting up a k2p2 cowl onto a sweater just now and taking the opportunity to practice this new technique. I'm getting to like it quite a bit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DkwcejowiI
Friday, November 14, 2008
Making the best use of interviews
I love my recorder very very much. I use an Olympus WS-311 M digital voice recorder. It's nifty. It's a little bigger than a pack of gum. It takes a triple A battery, it plugs into the USB on my laptop, and it shows up on my desktop. The sounds is great, I couldn't recommend it more highly. Evidently it is also a music player if that is important to you.
Digital is particularly handy. I use quicktime to listen to recordings, and I file them away on my external hard drive when I am done with whatever it is I am working on. This is a huge advantage over tapes. I have to keep recordings of interviews for a certain amount of time for legal reasons but they're hard to file. They're clutter.
That said, I still loath going back to them.
Some things I have learned —
-Review your notes as soon as you have the chance to debrief.
- When you're writing go back to your notes before you go back to the recording.
- While I take notes longhand during the actual interview, taking notes by hand from the recording just takes work. Instead by using "apple-tab" I can switch between apps, from quicktime to word and back to pause and play the recording while I transcribe relevant passages.
- Despite my best efforts it is impossible to transcribe an interview with music on, even brain food music.
- When transcribing, make sure you capture what they were trying to say not just what came out. People don't always say what they mean to say, they pause at inopportune moments and they start saying one thing but change their mind and finish saying something else.
I am currently exploring the possibility of learning short hand — It doesn't look promising for the short term though.
Digital is particularly handy. I use quicktime to listen to recordings, and I file them away on my external hard drive when I am done with whatever it is I am working on. This is a huge advantage over tapes. I have to keep recordings of interviews for a certain amount of time for legal reasons but they're hard to file. They're clutter.
That said, I still loath going back to them.
Some things I have learned —
-Review your notes as soon as you have the chance to debrief.
- When you're writing go back to your notes before you go back to the recording.
- While I take notes longhand during the actual interview, taking notes by hand from the recording just takes work. Instead by using "apple-tab" I can switch between apps, from quicktime to word and back to pause and play the recording while I transcribe relevant passages.
- Despite my best efforts it is impossible to transcribe an interview with music on, even brain food music.
- When transcribing, make sure you capture what they were trying to say not just what came out. People don't always say what they mean to say, they pause at inopportune moments and they start saying one thing but change their mind and finish saying something else.
I am currently exploring the possibility of learning short hand — It doesn't look promising for the short term though.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Mixed blessings
The list thing worked.
When I ran out of steam, instead of making tea and watching 30 rock on Sidereel I checked the list and did whatever matched my level of ambition at that moment. I got almost everything done.
In fact all I have left is to listen/transcribe my interviews for these stories. Blurgh.
And of course I still have to write the stories.
When I ran out of steam, instead of making tea and watching 30 rock on Sidereel I checked the list and did whatever matched my level of ambition at that moment. I got almost everything done.
In fact all I have left is to listen/transcribe my interviews for these stories. Blurgh.
And of course I still have to write the stories.
Struggling for three days
"I didn't write 46 pages today, I wrote one page 46 times" Walter Mathau said it some movie where he was a writer.
I work in fits and starts, which is to say I will struggle —agonize — over a story for three or four days, only then I will sit down and write it. I do believe that I need that time for my understanding of a topic to come together. The thing is that at the end of those germinating days, I look at my "current projects" documents and feel like I wasted the day.
So the challenge for this week is to make those days where ideas are germinating look productive.
My friend Jeremy was in town this weekend. Over coffee we talked about our respective short-comings writing. He is an engineer and one of the most systematically productive people I know. On the other hand I work from my laptop wherever that might be, I get distracted, I procrastinate, I can't multi-task and tend to focus on the trees not the forest. I am not good at thinking about the next project if the current one is not done.
He is working on a fantasy series. Right now he is focusing on laying out his universe, characters and plotlines — and is not written anything yet. He's ok with that. Anyhow, this was a pretty radical idea for me.
He suggested I make lists, to prioritize, yes, but particularly so that I knew what to do with myself when I hit a wall, so that maybe at the end of those germinating days, I would have at least planted seeds for the next project.
So I spent the morning making lists. The whole morning — LISTS. At the moment it seems like a lot of time passed that has not gotten me any closer to finishing a story, but I will keep faith and see what kind of payoff I get when I reach end of the week staring down a Friday deadline for the mag and Tuesday deadlines for the paper.
Monday is my 730AM hockey game so its not like Mondays are very productive days anyhow.
I work in fits and starts, which is to say I will struggle —agonize — over a story for three or four days, only then I will sit down and write it. I do believe that I need that time for my understanding of a topic to come together. The thing is that at the end of those germinating days, I look at my "current projects" documents and feel like I wasted the day.
So the challenge for this week is to make those days where ideas are germinating look productive.
My friend Jeremy was in town this weekend. Over coffee we talked about our respective short-comings writing. He is an engineer and one of the most systematically productive people I know. On the other hand I work from my laptop wherever that might be, I get distracted, I procrastinate, I can't multi-task and tend to focus on the trees not the forest. I am not good at thinking about the next project if the current one is not done.
He is working on a fantasy series. Right now he is focusing on laying out his universe, characters and plotlines — and is not written anything yet. He's ok with that. Anyhow, this was a pretty radical idea for me.
He suggested I make lists, to prioritize, yes, but particularly so that I knew what to do with myself when I hit a wall, so that maybe at the end of those germinating days, I would have at least planted seeds for the next project.
So I spent the morning making lists. The whole morning — LISTS. At the moment it seems like a lot of time passed that has not gotten me any closer to finishing a story, but I will keep faith and see what kind of payoff I get when I reach end of the week staring down a Friday deadline for the mag and Tuesday deadlines for the paper.
Monday is my 730AM hockey game so its not like Mondays are very productive days anyhow.
The debrief
First a recap, last week I did sit down and write 300 words — not just any 300 words — 300 very good words. And then I got up and drank a glass of water, did a waltz around my living room and I sat down and wrote another 350 words. All done. In about an hour and a half. Six hundred words I had been struggling with for three days.
I did have very good interviews to work from on that story. I also took a lot of time over the previous two days to go back over my interviews, pull out the important quotes and figure out where I had to flesh the story out for myself. I loath going through my interviews. As useful as it is to hear the interview, I dread hearing my own voice on tape. I usually only go back to the interviews as an act of desperation. This is a good reminder that there is a payoff to doing it properly. The more I use quotes the fewer words I have to come up with myself.
So, the "just do it" approach worked this time.
I did have very good interviews to work from on that story. I also took a lot of time over the previous two days to go back over my interviews, pull out the important quotes and figure out where I had to flesh the story out for myself. I loath going through my interviews. As useful as it is to hear the interview, I dread hearing my own voice on tape. I usually only go back to the interviews as an act of desperation. This is a good reminder that there is a payoff to doing it properly. The more I use quotes the fewer words I have to come up with myself.
So, the "just do it" approach worked this time.
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