"Write now is good."

Creative fire, typewriting monkeys, and Twitter (again)

The weekend approaches. Wondering what to do? Spend some quality Internet time with these writing-related links:

1. "Creative Instinct Is Like Fire." The complete text reads:

Controlled fire gives heat, light, and power which runs the factory machinery or the railway train/
Uncontrolled, it is the cause of untold loss and human suffering/
Are you using or wasting your creative powers?/
Humanity needs your energy wisely directed

This image (dated 1922) is from the University of Minnesota's American Social Hygiene Posters collection (seriously!).

2. We bloggers must keep a sense of humor about ourselves. I laughed when I saw the t-shirt which stated quite bluntly, "No one cares about your blog!" I laughed even harder when I saw this t-shirt: "A new theory of the Internet". Obnoxious t-shirts (featuring monkeys using typewriters) won't hold me back — I will continue to blog, undaunted.

3. Twitter is a veritable writing revolution: "Twitter inspires extra-short short stories" — 140 characters, to be exact. From the Los Angeles Times.

4. Always a sound reminder: the 4 simple steps to the writing process, from MIT''s Online Writing and Communications Center

Got any choice writing/creativity/inspiration/media links to share? Leave a comment, and I'll include them in a future post.

Memories, like a diagrammed sentence

 

Apologies to Barbra Streisand, but this illustration from Jessica Hagy's genius blog "Indexed" brought back quite a few memories. One dominated: my high school English teacher for sophomore year, forever trying to seem cool and keep our attention, made jokes about "dangling elements" every day that she taught us about sentence diagramming.

Yes, that's right: every day. She must have thought that none of us were listening. But that's not why we weren't laughing. There are jokes getting old, and there are jokes getting ancient. These were prehistoric. When I taught English, I never made such agonizingly corny jokes. See? I was listening.

This illustration's title is "Predicated on whatever." The comment thread associated with this post is a fascinating commentary on what is, and isn't, taught in school.

If you like Jessica's diagram, check out more at her blog. She's also just gotten a book deal! It's amazing what a little high-quality ink-on-paper can do...congratulations, Ms. Indexed!