"Write now is good."

How data flows, Peeps secrets revealed, and "The Addictionary"

Photo: "binary easter egg" by Rakka

A few sites of note I recently found while surfing:

1. FlowingData is a well-designed and -organized online locale which helps readers

...explore how designers, statisticians, and computer scientists are using data to understand ourselves better—mainly through data visualization. Money spent, reps at the gym, time you waste, and personal information you enter online are all forms of data. How can we understand these data flows? Data visualization lets non-experts make sense of it all.

A few entries I like:

-- "Little Red Riding Hood, the Animated Infographic Story"
-- "Visual Guide to the Financial Crisis"
-- "17 Ways to Visualize the Twitter Universe"

2. The Addictionary is a social word site. Users make up words, create definitions for made-up words, vote on other users' humorous wordy concoctions, and connect to others who enjoy doing the same. From their "About Us" page:

The Addictionary is a site for word lovers and those who like to see our beloved English language grow in serious or humorous ways. We built the Addictionary to empower word-play and to help lovers of word-play showcase and market their cleverness and creativity to the world...

If you add a word or definition to the site, drop a comment here. I'll post a link to it so other readers can check it out.

Members of the Twitterati may follow The Addictionary on Twitter. The site's "snowflakes" have a new book out, too—Addictionary: Brave New Words.

3. A view into the secret life of Peeps. Because I always wondered how marshmallow peeps were made, and this photo set answers it for me*:

"How Peeps are made" from The Chicago Tribune (via Chris Glass)

* A video of the entire factory process would be even more enlightening!

Tweets throughout the ages

Today, I learned something surprising. Twitter, the purportedly new microblogging service, has been around for thousands of years. The digital archeologists behind Historical Tweets are slowly unearthing relevant 140-character messages from the past and revealing them via their blog for posterity. (See above tweet from Abraham Lincoln.)

So, this form of social media is actually a bit ancient. Since humans have been tweeting for generations, it makes sense that many 21st-century technologists have adopted the practice so readily.

I wonder what the first-ever tweet was. (If you have some inkling about the tweet which started it all, please leave a comment. I'll post the ideas and link to your blog if you do.)

Mined from a tweet by CrossTheBreeze.

UPDATE: Two bloggers so far have submitted possibilities for the "first-ever tweet." They are:

1. "Hello, world" — Leah
2. "Got fire?" — Tumblewords

Thesaurus-loving zoo keepers make signs like this

Behold: eighteen different words used to describe how visitors should not interact with a zoo's animals. The keepers, and their zoo-signage team, earn points in my book for:

1. shameless use of their zoo's thesaurus
2. a focused passion for synonyms
AND
3. creative design incorporating a misplaced punctuation mark (That bold, eye-catching exclamation point, standing alone, gives a shout even BEFORE the sentence starts.)

Bravo!

I would love to see the other signs in this zoo. Does anyone know where this is from? This image has been posted and emailed and re-emailed so many times, its original sourcing (if it ever existed) cannot be found.

Image from GreenUpgrader's post "Sunday Funnies: Signs That Remind Us To Respect Nature", found via NOTCOT

Be an AWESOME writer

Last month, I wrote a post about a very insightful and funny YouTube video called "Book Launch 2.0". It features Dennis Cass, an accomplished writer and the author of Head Case, conversing with a phone-friend about the pros and cons of using new and social media to launch books.

For those of you who enjoyed Cass's video also, I've got good news: he has created an online community. Its goal: to make creative people more effective and successful at their creative lives and careers. It is called, appropriately, "Dennis Cass Wants You To Be More Awesome."

DCWYTBMA is a site full of "advice, jokes and tough love for people who want to make a living making culture." Dennis regularly answers members' questions, providing sound advice on a variety of relevant topics. The community is active, full of creatives commenting with additional viewpoints and examples. Plus, he features an "Awesomizer" to help improve creative endeavors; it has made me look at some pop culture mainstays with a fresh perspective.

I strongly believe that participating in writing/creative groups (even online!) can help their participants grow in their work, get unstuck when creative blocks arise, and provide camaraderie and support when the creative road is nothing but potholes and speed traps. (If you have done anything creative ever in your life, then you know the ride can get bumpy...)

While reading Cass's articles and answers, I have laughed out loud many times. Knowledgeable creative-career guidance + original insights + active community + humor = WIN! And if you sign up, I'll see you there.

Book masterpieces, summarized in six words

Photo: "teeny tiny book i bound" by robayre

Quick link: "Six Word Cliffs Notes" from SMITH Magazine (via Salon's "Table Talk"). One example:

The times were good. Also bad.
A Tale of Two Cities

Anyone feeling brief today? Leave a comment with your tiny summations.

Ah, yes — it's "Book Launch 2.0"

Hilarious, frightening and true. Writer and author Dennis Cass captures so much about book promotion in the Internet age in his video "Book Launch 2.0". He skewers both the trials many authors must go through in doing full PR for their own books, and the abundant-yet-confusing social media tools out there to help in the process (supposedly).

Enjoy.

Thanks to Chris Glass for this gem.

Comedians do this

Photo: Comedy and tragedy by Mermaniac

After watching a stand-up comedy DVD (one I'd never heard of or seen before, and that was brought over by family) this weekend, I realized this about comedy:

Great comedians have the amazing ability to tell the truth — the most awkward, painful, hilarious, honest truths — to laughs and nods (or to head-shaking in embarrassment because, after all, what they are saying is often true).

Some comedians tell truths in palatable ways. They confirm what we people know or suspect about political leaders, fashion trends, famous folks, and characteristics of general society. While they can offend, and they always offend someone eventually, comedians push ahead in their quest to share observations and anecdotes; these stories, often about their personal lives or right-on observations from daily life, are brutally honest yet told with a "wink-wink", so they are heard.

If you want to know the truth within current events, an awkward political scandal, a corporate mishandling, or celebrity snafu, look to the comedians. Some days I think that a comedy monologue should accompany the nightly TV news, so that subtle aspects behind what is really going on could be spoken (by the media) and acknowledged (by the media and the rest of us).

If a society has no comedians, I would bet that truth-telling in the media is near zero. Comedy, particularly satire, provides an outlet for healthy release of societal tensions around awkward issues. Comedy brings up what we cannot say ourselves, and lets us look at it straight on, couched as pure entertainment.

Two of the best things to happen to American news media in the past few years are "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report." While mainstream news media has lost chance after chance to pursue real, worthwhile stories (like the Iraq war), comedians are the only ones who ask questions and propose scenarios for what could be happening. Perhaps a comedian should be hired as an assistant Press Secretary to the President of the United States. After the President's mouthpiece spins the latest propaganda and the White House Press Corps decide not to ask any questions or investigate further, the comedian/assistant Press Secretary will then stand up and bring real issues to the fore. We would then need jokesters/reporters to ask insightful, fearless questions to hold the comedian/assistant Press Secretary accountable.

Comedians cannot be funny unless a grain of truth underlies what they say. In fact, comedians may be the most publicly honest figures any society has.

These realizations have surprised me. I thought that comedians focused mainly on producing laughs with their material; deep down, they may be more concerned with telling a truth they way they see it.

Thoughts, anyone? Who is your favorite comedian and does he/she tell it like it is? What comedy do you like and why? Have comedians influenced the political process where you live? Comments, please!

Custom motivational posters for writers

Writers need motivation—always. It's part of the job. Finding what motivates one is key; however, writers can get sidetracked from writing while spending time "researching" what moves them to wordiness. But that is a post for another time...

Motivational mantras and quotations sometimes get me in flow, often the funnier, the better. Laughter dislodges writing blocks and gets my thoughts moving again. So when I found a site where I could make my own motivational posters, I went a little crazy. Silly crazy, that is.

Here are a couple I made. Feel free to be motivated by them, also. If you'd like to make your own, jump on over to the AutoMotivator.

This image came up randomly for the first poster I made, and interestingly, I have written a couple of posts about the monarchs' miracle migration to Mexico here and here. I find their journey and Mama Nature's mysterious processes inspiring.

Ah, funny but true. I'm still giggling softly to myself over this one. (P.S. I'm making a stack of even sillier motivational posters which I'm keeping under wraps. Perhaps I'll unveil them during the wordy mayhem of NaNoWriMo this November.)

So, what are you waiting for?

Thanks to the quality visual wit of [BB-Blog] for this find.

Storytelling technology, a post in 4 acts

Photo: [click here to imagine a story] by Monsieur J.

This past week, I've discovered some fascinating links and snippets of life along a common theme — storytelling technology. Fitting so well with my blog's theme, these bits are worth sharing here:

1. True stories are the most compelling to me. I became reacquainted with This American Life this past weekend. I set aside uninterrupted time to enjoy it because I can't pull myself away from an episode once I start listening. If you don't know TAL, treat yourself to their free podcast of fascinating, dignified, human tales.

2. What will Google's KNOL do to how people share and gather information online? KNOL, a new online encyclopedia, will focus primarily on identifiable authors as the knowledge sharer; the goal is to create a trusted source, in part because the author is known and is an expert in a field. This differs from Wikipedia, whose contributors are mostly anonymous. Read Google's post on their official blog titled "Encouraging people to contribute knowledge" to find out more.

Stay tuned: Any story will be perceived differently based on who is telling it.

3. Bizarre Books: A Compendium of Classic Oddities is now available for your viewing, reading and laughing pleasure. Publisher Harper Collins released this description of it:

Amazing, illuminating, and gut-bustingly funny, Bizarre Books is the wonderfully twisted product of more than two decades of determined searching in forgotten corners of out-of-the-way libraries and through the literary detritus of eclectic private collections. It is certain to delight every true fan of trivia and the patently absurd.

The authors worked on this for more than two decades? I would love to read about the process behind putting this book together.

4. Last week, I saw a license plate that read "WYSIWYG". A license plate, perhaps the most public label many of us regularly wear, can either be completely innocuous or oddly memorable. Some strive to be among the shortest public storytelling out there. Geek readers among us — what type of person do you think the driver is? What is the story here?

Happy NaNoWriMo Eve! (And Halloween, too)

National Novel Writing Month starts at 12:01 AM, November 1st, wherever you are. (Just follow your local time, and you'll be fine.)

I'll be wrapping up my outline after the Halloween festivities this evening, and tomorrow, I'll roar through my first 1,667 words (at least) to make sure I'm off to a good start and to create some nice momentum for myself.

To present and future Wrimos, here's a great resource from Mahalo: How to Win at NaNoWriMo. Under Step 4, it is stressed how important it is to start (with a brief mention of my post—thanks, Nicole!):

The main reason people fail at NaNoWriMo, say participants, is that they didn't start. If you don't write anything on November 1, you're already behind on your word count. Kristin Gorski gives a great scenario of what happens if you don't start on November 1.

To all, have a happy, safe and fun Halloween. Because I'm such a huge fan of LOLCats, I could not resist sharing the following picture. This kitty is going as "Emo Cat" for Halloween. Enjoy!