Final Friday Five

Some reading for your holiday weekend:

1. Two academic paper slip-ups that made me laugh.
2. A reading spreadsheet even geekier than mine!
3. Does writing something down make you forget it?
4. An easy way to match fonts for your website
5. Two poems that made me feel better: “Inexorable Deities” (Edgar Lee Masters) and “Thanks” (W.S. Merwin)

Happy every day!

Final Friday Five

This month’s links:

1. A great roundup from the NYPL of authorly advice
2. What happens when you stop writing?
3. An A–X list from the copy chief of Random House of common word mixups. (I encountered the P example 112! times in a recent text. I now feel fairly confident that I know the rule.)
4. Prioritizing made a little easier though a “Don’t Wanna” flowchart
5. The dangers of corporate spirituality

Happy Halloween!

Final Friday Five

I’m 4 days late for September’s FFF post. I blame this on the fact that I turned 29 last week and then summer decided to return over the weekend, leading me to the Big E and impromptu raspberry picking on the roadside and other such late-season pleasures. So essentially I’m blaming age and sunshine. Great excuses, right? I thought so.

1. Margaret Atwood’s new novel won’t be read for 100 years; she calls the feeling “delicious”
2. The perfect amount of time for a break also happens to be a great amount of time for a cat nap, and some more good news about naps
3. Jessica Hische made a mahā schedule
4. New course listings are up through the Editorial Freelancers Association
5. YES to this: Editors are lucky, not failed

Final Friday Five

I’ve had a busy, busy summer. I’ve spent a lot of time working, a lot of time playing, and a lot of time thinking about the perennial work-life balance question.

I recently read an excellent article about saying no (I quoted from it earlier this week), and the author had this to say: “Forget balance. Balance is bullshit. What I mostly crave is integrity and joy—a sense that I’m doing what I do excellently and getting a lot of pleasure out of it, that I’m used up and useful.” As a Libra (yes, I believe in that sort of thing sometimes) the idea of balance being bullshit is equal parts exciting and scary. Integrity, joy, and usefulness, though—that I can fully get behind.

As I look to the fall, this month’s links are in the spirit of loving what I do, doing it well, and doing it the right amount to keep on loving it. I hope you like them.

1. 12 things no one tells you about being an entrepreneur
2. Why do we call it the big red house and not the red big house? I loved this piece on Slate about the secret rules of adjective order. It is stuff like this that reminds me why language is so cool.
3. Some say that in editing, 95% error-free is 100% as good as it’s going to get (though you still need a plan for what to do when you screw it up).
4. Advice I sent to a client that I am trying to take myself: how to cultivate a writing routine when you own your own business.
5. Dani Shapiro in the New Yorker on writing memoir in the age of status updates: “We don’t experience the Pavlovian, addictive click and response of posting something that momentarily relieves the pressure inside of us, then being showered with emoticons. The gratification we memoirists do experience is infinitely deeper and more bittersweet.”

Final Friday Five

It’s been a good month: visits from my s-i-l and niece and my best friends from college; camping in VT; finishing several long-term projects; and, as of last night, the return of A, who has been in India since January. Happy end of July, everyone!

1. The NYT untangles some unnecessarily messy passages
2. Daily routines of famous creatives. Mine looks most like that of Kingsley Amis.
3. Freelancing master FAQs
4. The CIA has an updated style guide
5. Typewriters as an anti-espionage tactic? I’m in.

Final Friday Five

1. The NYT on what makes a great editor: Part I, Part II, and Part III.
2. Great examples of the ever-dreaded mixed metaphor
3. To Oxford comma, or not to Oxford Comma? A debate.
4. What’s at stake for an Indian writing in English?
5. It’s official: exclamation points are great!

Final Friday Five

Enjoy!

1. What to write to a pen pal.
2. Do classic books require trigger warnings?
3. Judging books by their stereotypical covers.
4. A good post on the finicky grammar of compound subjects.
5. An interview with Thupten Jinpa, HHDL’s translator

Final Friday Five

It’s that time again.

1. I loved Susan Straight’s piece in the LA Times about finding a space to write.
2. 10 lessons for graphic designers.
3. How to stay creative when you’re out on your own and out of ideas.
4. Akhil Sharma on what happened when publishers decided his book was important.
5. Make punctuation work to your advantage.

Final Friday Five

It’s Sunday morning in India, so by Northampton time I’m only a day late posting this month’s five links:

1. New research says that elephants can decode human voices better than humans. Do you think that applies to our written voices, too? It would make my logo very apt…
2. My favorite pen ran out so they’re on my mind: the 8 best pens according to the Freelancers Union and the 5 best pens (in various categories) according to the Pen Addict.
3. A new speed-reading app will purportedly allow you to read a Harry Potter book in 77 minutes. But why would you want to? That’s not a commentary on HP, but on why you would take away the slow, languorous pleasures of lingering over a book that you love.
4. Engaged Buddhists came in to comfort the families of victims of the recent Malaysian Airlines crash.
5. Some fun news of a personal note: I’m having a piece published in Auto Didact, a small journal founded by a Fulbright scholar here in India that will be distributed free in the back of autorickshaws in Pondicherry. I love the idea of something I wrote literally going on its own journey.

UPDATE: I’m adding a sixth link belatedly because it’s too good not to share: My favorite font is also a money-saver. Garamond, I always knew you were the one for me.

Final Friday Five

1. James Patterson is giving away his money to local bookstores, including Odyssey Bookshop in Hadley, MA.
2. Is Amazon bad for books?
3. Even though I have an iPhone and all the fancy apps I could want, I still carry a notebook and pen with me everywhere I go. Long live note-taking!
4. Daniel Bosch, former director of creative writing at my Alma Mater, Walnut Hill, posted his cover letter for a job to reform a creative writing department.
5. A university in Chengdu, China is the new home to Gene Smith’s library of Tibetan tomes. I wish I’d known sooner so I could have visited the collection during my recent visit to Sarah Ruth Offhaus (aka asiamericana), my dear friend and Peace Corps volunteer posted just outside Chengdu.