Blogs with a theme

Student bloggers, some of you despair of finding something worthwhile to write about. Some of you worry that you have to think of something new to say. You wrote about the game, or the movie, or the roommate last week--what to write about this week? Must you pick something entirely new.

Well, not necessarily.

I wanted to point you to a couple blogs to you to suggest that you can write about the same topic every week. In fact, a lot of people create blogs to write about a particular topic they know a lot about or care about.

Say you want to write about fashion. Tavi, a 13-year-old blogger, does that on style rookie.

Maybe you wrote about the Colts last week. You can't write about them again. Why not? Did you know that ESPN has an AFC South blog?

Do you watch a lot of movies? You could blog about what you've seen recently, like this guy. Read a lot of comics? Play a lot of video games?

Do you eat?

Chances are you do something, know something, think about something. Something that you could blog about.

Shuffle

I have 4,051 songs on my ipod, so I sometimes forget about what's on there. I tend to listen to the same music over and over, then switch to something else. Today, playing songs on shuffle I made a fun discovery: "Spongebob and Patrick Confront the Psychic Wall of Energy" by the Flaming Lips.

Patrick,
You see I'm growing a mustache
And though I know, I must ask you,
Does it really make me look like a man?

Woke up this morning . . .

Here is the reference for Wednesday's random comment: "I woke up this morning and I got myself a beer." So, students, please don't write on your course evaluation, "He drank before coming to class."

My kids won't stop singing this

Don't call me a cat lover . . .

We have three cats: Murray (the black one in the background here), Sunshine (pictured), and Sunshine's sister, Tiger. My daughters picked out Sunshine and Tiger when they were kittens. But my 9-year-old insists that she is not a cat lover.

"I'm a cat liker. Cat lovers are lonely. And I'm not lonely."

Stephen King says, "You have to read"

Revising means more than running spell check

This week we are working on revising our memoirs. What do we have to do when we revise to actually make our writing better?

We have to step back and see the writing differently. Revising, as Adrienne Rich famously said, is re-seeing. (Revision as re-vision.) What's the best way to get this new vision? Have someone else read your draft. They may not have any advice for you on how to make improvements, but they can tell you how they respond as readers: how it made them feel, what it made them think, what parts had the biggest impact, what parts were the most confusing. They can ask you questions.

Another way to get another look at your writing is to simply put it away for awhile and come back to it later (hard to do when you're under a deadline--that's why it's important to give yourself time to write). Time can give you the distance you need to see your writing more impartially.

With practice, you can learn to read your own writing as a reader. But all writers, at some point in the process, benefit from feedback and time.

Here is a good handout on revision.

The most important rock albums of ALL time

Not really of all time, but of my time. These albums are important because they are the first ones I ever bought, the ones I first listened to over and over, the melodies and lyrics that burrowed deep into my brain. I haven’t listened to any of these albums in a long time, 20 years at least, but I could probably sing along to every word if I heard them today.

I owned all of these albums on vinyl, of course. Never upgraded any of them to CD.

#5 REO Speedwagon, Hi in Fidelity
“Take It on the Run,” “Keep on Loving You”



#4 Journey, Escape
“Don’t Stop Believing,” “Who’s Crying Now,” “Open Arms,” “Stone in Love”



#3 Styx, Paradise Theatre
“Too Much time on My Hands,” “The Best of Times”



#2 Queen, The Game
This is the first album I can remember buying with my own money. “Another One Bites the Dust” was my favorite song. It was also the theme song for the Detroit Lions in 1980. That was when Billy Sims was the star back. They went 9-7. The song also gained notoriety for backmasking. If you played the record backward, it “clearly” said, “Try to smoke marijuana.” I tried it, of course, but never heard the message all that clearly.



#1 Kiss, Alive
This was THE album of my childhood. My brother and I used to play Kiss with other boys in the neighborhood. I was usually Ace Frehley with the smoking guitar. All the sexual innuendo in the lyrics went right over my head.

Everything you think you know about studying is wrong

Mind - Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits - NYTimes.com

Every September, millions of parents try a kind of psychological witchcraft, to transform their summer-glazed campers into fall students, their video-bugs into bookworms. Advice is cheap and all too familiar: Clear a quiet work space. Stick to a homework schedule. Set goals. Set boundaries. Do not bribe (except in emergencies).

This is all wrong, according to a story in the New York Times. Instead, you should do the opposite. Instead of clearing a quiet workspace, you should vary your study location. Instead of sticking to a schedule, you might try varying your schedule. Try mixing the content of your study sessions instead of immersing yourself in a single subject for hours. Give yourself practice tests.

Actually, not all of this advice sounds so revolutionary. Still, the article has some good advice, especially for you nursing majors, or anyone who has to memorize a lot of material.

Does any of this research on studying apply to writing? Well, some of the "bad advice" that we give for studying we also give for writing. We tell writers to find a quiet place to write. You need the room of your own ( impossible in college). You need a desk that you always write at.

However, the research on writing suggests it might be better to write in a different place each time. Or, if you are writing and you get stuck, try moving to a new location. Maybe the activity or a change of context could get your brain moving again.

It's also better to write often, to space out your writing sessions, rather than to do the equivalent of cramming and write everything in one long session at the last minute the night before paper is due.

Idea #3 for blog post: Write about something you read online. Quote from it and give a link.

Zero Draft

Writer's block. Who needs it? Not you, I bet. Writer's block comes from thinking too hard, putting on too much pressure to be perfect now. You stare at the blank page/screen and no ideas come. You write something down. It sucks. You get stuck. You figure you're better off playing Halo or baking brownies.

But what if you actually want to write and not just get carpal tunnel and cavities? The zero draft comes to the rescue. What's that? Weather stripping? Well, yes, but, I'm talking about writing, not home improvement. Stay with me here.

The zero draft, also known as the shitty first draft, is a jedi mind trick. A way of tricking yourself into writing by lowering the stakes. You're not really writing a first draft, or even a real draft. You're just writing a zero draft. It doesn't have to be any good. In fact, it's even better if totally sucks. You can write the first draft later. The zero draft is like a scrimmage, or a pre-season game. You're going to rest your starters and see what Curtis Painter can do. Who cares if you win?

Just write. Get it down. See where it leads. Don't look back. The key is to give yourself time. Write for an hour straight. Or if you aren't up to that, write for a half hour. Chances are you won't really be keeping track of time anyway, once you get into it.

Idea #2 for blog post

Write a list. 10 things I miss. 5 reasons the Colts won't win the Super Bowl again this year. 8 things I love about breakfast.

Fish Tank

Every year the local elementary has a Spring Festival, with bingo, a cakewalk, ring toss, and all of those games you only play at a school. When I was a kid, we had the same thing, but we called it a carnival. The idea is to raise money. At one of these festivals, my daughter M won a goldfish. She brought him home in a plastic bag filled with water. We bought a plastic fish tank, colored pebbles, a fish net, and fish food, and created a nice little plastic home for Goldie.

He died the next day.

So much for that. We emptied out the tank and stuck it on a shelf in the closet. Eventually, the tank made its way down to the basement, where it sat undisturbed for at least four years.

This weekend the tank made its way out of the basement for our yard sale. It lasted about ten minutes before being rescued by my nine-year-old daughter L.

"We can't sell this!"

She took it up to her room where it is now home to fish of a more durable nature.

Idea #1 for Blog Post: Write about a picture.