(Potentially relevant link)

I love the Economist, but this article is so...I guess not condescending, but just so...not the way they should be. I guess because it's about tech?
* 'a new web browser to rival that of Microsoft, called Internet Explorer (IE)'
* 'when it crushed Netscape, an early browser.'
* 'a rival web browser to IE, called Firefox.'

This isn't so much that they're telling us these things, but the way they say it. 'Microsoft's browser, Internet Explorer' is very different from 'Microsoft's browser, called Internet Explorer'. The former gives information just in case it's needed, whereas the latter makes it sound like readers are assumed to be completely unfamiliar with this entire 'Internet' and 'Computers' thing. I'd rewrite these as:
* 'a new web browser to rival Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE)' (or 'Microsoft's own browser, Internet Explorer (IE)' if necessary.)
* 'when it crushed the previous leading browser, Netscape'
* 'Firefox, IE's chief rival'

I have a friend who does something along these lines all the time in ordinary speech. She'll call the maul, 'that maul thing' or Micah 'That Micah guy'. She's simultaneously demonstrating that she knows the terms, but separates herself from them by mentioning them instead of using them. Well, people familiar with this stuff call that a maul, but not me. Why say things in a roundabout way if the only effect is to make you seem clueless about what you're doing when you're actually not?

Once in Philosophy Club we were doing a 'Worst philosophical argument ever' thing, and one paper put 'reality' and the like in quotes. It's similar to the above, except in this case it was more of a 'people talk about a so-called "reality", but it's all nonsense' thing than a 'Let's treat readers as ignoramuses!' or a 'Let's appear clueless!' thing.

(Yes, Fannie and Freddie are being nationalized and I'm blogging about other stuff. Here's my brief F&F comment: OMFG! It's a bit overwhelming for me to opine right now, and I'll be away for the next ten days.)

(Potentially relevant link)

I just thought I oughta mention that for my NaNoWriMo, I have a separate blog. It's full of wit and wisdom and cleverness and nothing at all really, but just let me dream, okay?

When I was young, when I'd try to write a story, I wouldn't know how to start. I knew 'Once upon a time' was lame. So what to do? I could start out by introducing the character: 'Bob was a lawyer who wanted to be a carpenter.' But that sounded clumsy. The only way to make an opening line like that would be an almost Carrollian commentary discussing Bob with us. Very lighthearted, and very narrator-talking-to-the-reader.

Eventually, I realised the easiest way was to start in the middle of something. 'Bob looked around nervously. This was his first time using a hammer and if he broke his fingers, he didn't want the nearby construction workers to laugh at him.' It worked.

If I was a better writer, I'd do something in between. 'It was a sunny day in middleton. The leaves fluttered in the breeze, and Mrs. Andrews was hanging up laundry to try. Down the street, a construction crew was breaking for lunch.' But the transition over to Bob's stealing a hammer and then smashing his fingers requires magical writing skills only held by brilliant writers.

So I usually stick with the 'jump right in' approach. Bob's holding the hammer. Ambulance needed presently.

But I can only write a few paragraphs of this scene. I then have to jump over to Fred who is in another country but will hopefully tie in sometime later. Fred's an orthopaedic surgeon. Yeah, that's right. Oh what fun he'll be, what with the cutting and sewing and gushing blood!

Two paragraphs later, though, I have to leave this scene to go to another. And it can't be the Bob scene. That one hit a dead end. I have to start yet another.

Perhaps next November my Nanowrimo will consist of 49 000 words of brief, unrelated scenes followed by a three paragraph conclusion that pulls them all together. That, I can do.

(Potentially relevant link)

Nearing that time of year again. Several of my friends have been planning for a month or two already. I started something like this many years ago, and was thinking it could make an interesting NanoWriM, but I doubt I'll do it that way. But, you know, when you're short on words for the day, throwing in a H2G2-esque article from time to time could be appealing. Coherence will not be something I demand of my story.

Graham (who alerted me to NaNoWriMo with his blog entry last year) is talking about how much harder it may be for him this time, since he succeded last year. For me, that's no problem. It can't really go much worse.
2004-11-01: Five hours of sleep the night before. Too tired to write much that evening. Why did they have ot make it start the day after Halloween? I wrote under 800 words.
2004-11-02: I wrote under 400 words, as I recall. I just /had/ to go watch the election results come in instead.
2004-11-03: Four more years. Too depressed to write.
2004-11-04: Four more years. Too depressed to write.
2004-11-05: Four more years. Too depressed to write.
2004-11-06: Four more years. Too depressed to write.
2004-11-07: Four more years. Too depressed to write.
2004-11-08: Four more years. Too depressed to write.
...

I wrote a tad more around the twelfth, or so, but by that time it was obviously a failed endeavour. This year, maybe I'll just go ahead and forget all about quality as I had planned. Writing poorly is not the easiest thing for me.

I don't do dialog. I learned to write on E1 and E2, and later writing lots and lots of philosophy papers. I write in a very philosophical (read: pretentious/dispassionate) tone by default. I've also written thousands of posts on various web forums and newsgroups, which are also dialog-free.

I wrote (started) some Really Lame Stories when I was young (8-12yrs), but have done very little dialog since. Even when I wrote papers for English class (two fictional stories in all, I believe), I kept dialog down to a couple lines. I have no need for characters to talk. I always focus on describing or explaining things--not because I'm good at it, but because I prefer it to dialog. Dialog always sounds silly. I don't drive the conversation in real life; I let other people say stuff and I'll answers their questions. Sure, I'll synthesise stuff, but delivery is usually in the form of a short quip no one will get. How can I write a dialog if I can only manage the response-half in real life?

I may end up writing a rather unusual novella next month. Maybe I could make all the characters mute. Maybe I could have just one character so he doesn't have anyone to talk to in the first place.

(Potentially relevant link)

I'm thinking I'll probably try writing a novella this November. I'm not sure if I'll make it, but if I do, it will be the most awful thing I've ever written. I'll likely try for a fantasy novel, but I won't have a detailed world worked out, and I'll probably have to write all sorts of weird stuff in order to produce five pages each day. There will probably be weird bits where I go off into sci-fi subplots on other planets (desperate attempts to finish my daily dose), completely irrelevant and ignored in later parts. ('Meanwhile, out hero was still on his home planet and was entirely unaware and unaffected by this chain of events'.) There will be rambling, semi-coherent discussions of natural kinds and rigid designators. Characters will discuss Descartes, mathematical dorkage, and metaphoric comparisons of Java to C++. The hero will draw circuit diagrams in the dirt between battles.

Basically, what I'd post here if I were required to record my daily thoughts, rather than simply writing a post when the IC went down. Bloody thing.

I do encourage you to write a novella too. It will be terrible, but who cares? You'll probably learn a thing or two. Maybe you'll get better at dialog, at maintaining a linear path in your writing, or spelling sesquipedalians. Who knows? If nothing else, when your (future or present) children (or students) complain about the terribly long ten-page term papers they have write, you can regale them with a tale of the time you wrote a 50 000-word novella in a single month. After all, spoilt brats like us aren't going to be able to brag that we walked through twenty kilometres of snow to school each day. We need some way to shame our future lazy brats.

(Props to Graham for putting me on to this. My new favourite blog, his is.)