StoryMill: Making Writing Fun (Again)

I've been working on a long project for some time, and now that revisions are in order I decided to try out Mariner Software's StoryMill program I'd first heard mentioned in the end pages of a David Levithan novel. StoryMill, which is only for macs, comes with a free 30-uses demo although it's also quite affordably priced.

What makes StoryMill so helpful is that it provides a variety of ways to organize yourself while writing. If you're anything like me, you've usually got notes scratched on a notebook, three ideas rattling around your brain, a couple of links cut-and-pasted somewhere to help write the description of the main character's hometown, and some minor characters whose motivation you need to explore. With StoryMill, you can create character profiles, assign yourself research tasks, input any useful information from YouTube clips to website snippets. When you sit down to write, you can make sure you're surrounded with every tool you need to focus on the writing.

StoryMill also allows you to keep track of your productivity via a ProgressMeter that you can set to a specified word count goal or project goal. Thematically, you can organize your progress through a Scenes tab, or create a timeline of events. StoryMill allows annotation, tagging, and a full screen view to prevent any distractions on-screen.

I'm having such a wonderful time with StoryMill because it allows me to put all my relevant information in one place, and organize it in as many or as few ways as I feel it needs. That, in turn, makes me want to write, which is fantastic. I haven't played around with all of the functions, most notably the timeline, which received a rather negative review here. If anyone else has worked with StoryMill or a similar application, I'd love to hear about their experience.

Writing The Wrongs

Kids today aren’t just disinterested in writing—they are downright terrified of it.

Blame video games. Blame the Internet. Blame cell phones. Blame any of the high-tech toys that too many responsibility-shirking adults are so quick to use as a scapegoat. But, the way I see it, distractions like these are only as strong as the internal motivation to avoid another task. So what is it? Why is “writing,”—an activity that so many, historically, have used as a vehicle of rebellion, self-expression, and liberation, not more attractive to angsty, contrary teenagers?

What I saw in my classroom this week has led me to my own hypothesis. And, at the risk of sounding like a turncoat, I say: the real onus is on teachers.

“Miss Carey?” One overachiever asked, “Will you take points off our writing if we have more than 8 sentences in a paragraph—or less than six?”

No, honey, Mrs. So-and-So probably told you that because that’s the way the state testing Gestapo is going to decide how worthy you and your teacher are on the MCAS this spring.

“Miss Carey? What do you mean good poetry doesn’t have to rhyme? Are you saying that Jack Prelutsky isn’t the greatest poet who ever lived?”

Yes, dear. That is what I’m saying. If you were told otherwise in the past, it’s because your teacher was as afraid of poetry as you are.

“Miss Carey? Will you make us write as a punishment if we do something bad in class?”

No, son. I also won’t bludgeon you with a calculator and then try to make you a better mathematician.

It goes on. The truth is, I haven’t done much at all in the way of actual writing instruction so much as I have trying to reprogram 60 brains and convincing them that, despite what has been instilled in them with all the fire and brimstone of a Catholic upbringing, writing is not just another set of rules and regulations cast upon them by generations of old-dog teachers who refuse to learn new tricks. So far, it seems to be working, but it’s going to be a long road.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Four Landscapes by Jerome Rothenberg

Each of Jerome Rothenberg's Four Landscapes on PFS Post suggests a different way in which a landscape and the lives within it may be viewed as one travels through "on a train".

In the first, descriptive lines alternate with statements that destroy, contradict, or interrogate them. It's not quite Adorno or Hegel but something beyond between them. Figures crossing a bridge are revealed to (possibly) be more than just picturesque figures witnessed but, rather, being for whom this might be a daily or weekly journey. The everyday occurrence of crossing the street is made strange. What bells mark changes because everyone who hears them will have a different take. An arm is closed with another arm. This shifting resembles the way one's perception of a landscape shifts as one travels through it. The framing created by the full end stops resembles the frame of the train's window which creates the possibility of perceiving a series of connected, static scenes cut-off from the world like camera shots.

In the second landscape, the speaker picks out various details and moments. Their eyes dart from sky to hand to house. Any total picture must be put together in their mind after this sense data has been gathered, just as the reader must use these short, full end-stopped lines to put together a whole poem and a whole image (if they wish to do so).

The third focuses in on one detail, then moves to another one, related but still cut off by a full stop. The last line, more abstract, represents a return in thought to the original detail.

The fourth landscape moves in a similar way, only two related details follow the one focused upon. Moreover, the stampeding horses and the fire are the sorts of things that distract, that dramatically grasp at one's attention, so the overall effect is less tranquil and contemplative.

It's the End of the World as We Know It

We're living in an increasingly consumer-driven society--Youtube is replacing network television, musicians can remix their favorite artists' music, and Time named "You" as Person of the Year in 2006.

Now, even the rules of literature are being rewritten: collaborative, web-based novels, written by a diverse group of writers (most average web-users, not writers) are becoming more and more prevalent. In 2007, Penguin launched the ground-breaking "One Million Penguins" Project, a wiki novel project in which the submission period spanned five weeks, but the wiki is still open to edits. Though some would contend that a user-driven collaborative novel cannot succeed, the form remains.

The University of Chicago has piloted a new project, EndOfThisWorld, a collaborative novel focused around the hypothetical end of the world. This novel uses voter input to determine which submissions will be published as part of the overall story. Submissions are open for the 5th chapter of the novel--check it out, and get writing!

The Believers/Zoë Heller

Whereas Notes on a Scandal employed the services of an embittered yet wryly perceptive narrator, The Believers casts a wider net, this time opting for a third person narration which cunningly absorbs the conflicting perspectives of the assorted characters whose lives it intersects. We follow this tangle of delightfully toxic and brittle souls as they proceed to negotiate their tense and often vicious encounters and are treated to glimpses of their anger, resentment, shame, weakness, and self-loathing. Such sentiments are expressed (and repressed) with varying degrees of honesty and venom, ranging from enthusiastic precision to resigned politeness. Along the way, each character’s respective values and convictions are tested, discredited, abandoned and amended (hence the novel’s slightly crappy title).

Heller’s decadent mix of linguistic flourishes and biting humour - immediately apparent in her previous novel – is perhaps more restrained here, waiting until after the understated prologue to come into play and wow the humble reader. Save for the occasional slip, Heller avoids common cliché in both her descriptions and her details which touch on human weakness with nuggets of piercing accuracy and that clever breed of wit which wavers between sardonic and sympathetic.

If Notes looked at an affair from the obsessive gaze of a bitter ‘friend’, The Believers casts a wavering eye around the edges of one, dipping into the personal stories of those on the periphery rather than exploring that of the key players. This is a more ambitious novel; the complexity of the family dynamics harder to negotiate, and consequently the potency is somewhat more diluted. Nevertheless, Heller has still crafted a thoroughly compelling novel which affirms that her skill for touching on multiple nerves is as finely honed and deftly spun as ever.

Uncut review joy (plus a snippet of synopsis)

Other opinions (it’s only fair):

Telegraph

Guardian

Interview (just because)

How it begins (but remember that it gets better)

I like jazz AND I wear heels

By now, you've probably seen this commercial. In case you haven't, it's part of a new campaign to McDonald's new foray into serving espresso. It's called "Intellectuals." (Their quotation marks, not mine.)


(I'm sorry this is huge, and topped with a boston.com logo. It's the only place I could find the video)

Sure, this commercial is all about the commodification of a lifestyle. If you buy your coffee from Starbucks, you're one type of person, and if you buy your coffee from McDonald's then you're another, presumably more real, kind of person. While that's always frustrating, it's nothing new; it's the basis of almost every commercial out there.

But before we go further, let me confess: I am a devoted coffee shop girl. I don't even like coffee, but drinking tea & reading a book in a coffee shop is pretty high on my list of favorite-ways-to-pass-the-afternoon. So my initial reaction to this commercial is defensive; that's me they are making fun of.

But ego aside, this is a messed up commercial! From the other side of the fence, Starbucks is pretentious. So in criticizing Starbuck's, McDonald's is suggesting that everyone at Starbuck's would rather be some place more real, more down to earth. Some place like McDonald's.

And so, in this commercial, we see a series of confessions unfolding after the initial excitement of McDonald's coffee, starting with the exclamation, "We won't have to listen to jazz anymore!" The two women, additionally, have only been pretending to speak French and don't know where or what Paraguay is. Thank God for McDonald's; they can finally be themselves! All along they've just been faking it for Starbuck's, but now liberation in the form of a $1.99 latte.

And this idea that book-reading, coffee-shop going "Intellectuals" are some how just full of it is insulting. It's the same ideology behind Sarah Palin's condemnation of "those East coast states." (Read: those liberal, urban, intellectual hot beds of sin like NYC and Boston. But that's a post for another day.) As the title proclaims, it's anti-intellectual through and through.

But here's where we get to my favorite part. The concept that Starbucks-going intellectuals are phonies is reinforced, I think in a forced way, through gender stereotypes. The excitement over McDonald's coffee shops elicits the response: "I can wear heels again!" It doesn't matter that no one would ever dress up in their stilettos for McDonald's. Being an intellectual is completely opposite to being a traditionally feminine, high-heels wearing, sexy individual. Not only is this reinforcing normative gender roles (Woah, just took you back to that Women's Studies class from sophomore year, right?), it's suggesting that a) intellectual women are defying their true desire to be vapid, gossip reading airheads and b) being intellectual, if you're a woman, can't be sexy.

The exclamation at the end, "I just want to show my knees, you know?" is confusing and awkward. The source of her frustration, however is not that she was apparently was raised by Puritans, but that she spends her time at Starbucks wearing flats.

Recently McDonald's released round two of this campaign. You can watch it here. It actually has humorous moments, but is still severely messed up, and while there's lots to say about this commercial too, this post is probably long enough.

This Is Africa

Since living here in Africa we have adopted the fondly used acronym, TIA, This Is Africa. TIA is used to excuse some of the most absurd, ridiculous and uncanny things that will cross your path in this nation. Happenings that make you want to scream for an explanation, but alas, this is Africa, you most certainly won’t get one.

Explaining the concept, simply does not suffice, but let me allow you into a little of the notion here in South Africa, fondly coined “job creation”. The idea is developed to decrease unemployment, and encourages self-initiative and small businesses. It really is a brilliant ploy, and I believe it is working wonders, the out workings of which make a very interesting city for a foreigner to enjoy. Aside from the commonly seen jewellery and bead making, wire twisting and other colourful crafts, are the ‘street vendors’.

Traffic light intersections are more like a mobile shopping mart. From the comfort of your driver’s seat you can view any array of objects from phone chargers to magazines, belt buckles to lamp shades, all at the convenience of your car window. They are avid salesmen too, very convincingly pleading you to buy these random contraptions you never dreamed of purchasing. Stay here a while though, and your bound to adopt the head down, eyes in the opposite direction avoidance mechanism.

If you ever have trouble finding, or manoeuvring into a car park then South Africa is the place for you. Each public parking area comes complete with car guards, who will not only guide you into a space, but will stay watch over your vehicle until you return, without you even having to ask. All this for a small price of 2- 5rand. Simply because, This Is Africa.

And my personal favourite, the ‘taxi’ ride. Here, the taxi operates much like a bus, travelling between one set location to another. However, the taxi is in fact a small combi-van which can squeeze any number of people inside, and wont move until it is filled above capacity. Despite the seats looking a little worse for wear, many are installed with elaborate sound systems pumping self-recorded African music. The drivers have a destination sign sitting on the dash board, although more often they will cruise around yelling out the open windows. It’s a very lively and claustrophobic experience, not for the faint hearted, but certainly a very popular and effective mode of public transport. When you see where you want to hop out, simply signal to the driver and he will swerve to the side for you.

The weird and wonderful continues in this intriguingly beautiful nation. But, I’ll save the rest till next time.