The Writer's Poke

For Writers: I needed to write my dissertation to finish, but the thought of writing something 200 pages long (and 200 pages would be on the short side) kept me from writing for five years. Meanwhile, I was paying my tuition each semester so that I could stay active in the program. I pretended that I was just making an "alumni donation" to the university, and this was supposed to make me somehow feel better about paying out thousands of dollars just to keep the hope of finishing alive. Then that May, I received my annual progress letter. There was a new graduate program director, and his letter indicated that they planned to deactivate me from the doctoral program. I wrote back and asked for one more chance, to which he responded: "You have until August 15." In other words, I basically had three months to write and defend my dissertation. And guess what I did that summer? I wrote my dissertation. Something that I couldn't do in 5 years I was able to do in under ...

For Writers: Back in the stone ages, I suppose people took naked pictures of themselves with Polaroid Instamatic cameras. But now we live in the digital age, and even most cell phones have built-in cameras. Technology has made it much easier to share ourselves with others. And some of us bear more than our souls. Over the past year, there have been stories of teenage girls who have taken risqué, shall we say, photos of themselves. Some cheerleaders in the Pacific Northwest, for example, were kicked off the team when high school administrators discovered their inappropriate pictures posted online. The girls' lawyers cried foul, wondering why the girls were punished and not the boys that had apparently posted the pictures. In Pennsylvania it was the boys and not the girls who were punished. The girls sent the pictures to the boys' cell phones (amusingly dubbed in one article as "sexting"), but the boys were the ones who found themselves in trouble. Somewhat amazingly, t...

For Writers: I have a friend, let's call him Bandhu (which is Hindu for friend). A few of us took at trip to New Orleans one year, and Bandhu totally amazed me. We were at a bar, and Chumbawumba's "I Get Knocked Down" was a very popular song at the time. Bandu just let it all loose on the dance floor. I can't say that he was or wasn't the smoothest cat out there, but what I will always remember is how uninhibited he was. And since the drinks in that bar were so watered down, I can't just attribute his moves to the booze. This young man was sober, and he was out there shaking it for the world to see. On the other hand, he was still uncomfortable drinking a jelly shot off the stomach of a hired drink seller, but maybe he was simply concerned about her hygiene. It was the funniest thing watching him slurp the shot off her stomach, being careful not to touch her body in any way with his tongue. And since he hadn't developed the nerve to lick her clean, he ...

Inspired by http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/define_friend/ For Writers: Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams is also a writer, and he is the most famous person that I know of who keeps a regularly-updated blog. He has even published his blog entries in the form of a book, lovingly titled: Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain! Lucky for us, he doesn't just stick to comics. The man has a brain, and I like the cut of his jib, if you'll excuse me for using that expression. In a recent blog post, he gave his definition of a friend. According to Adams' definition, to qualify as a friend, two conditions must be met: 1. You must have told that person a secret. 2. That person must have accepted a favor from you. Personally, I thought Adams' conditions made quite a bit of sense; and although I had never really thought of friendship in those terms, it certainly seems to pass the smell test. Provide your own definition for the term "friend." Using Adams' definition explore h...

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What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode? -- Langston Hughes For Writers: Delayed gratification is supposed to be a sign of maturity. That's what we're told, right? And I don't doubt that there's a lot of truth to the idea. If you can't afford a $5000 vacation to Europe, then you probably shouldn't just put it on the credit card and go, right? Save you money for ten years and pay cash for the trip. (Just assume that you'll be around in ten years, and that you'll still have both the health and desire to want to go to Europe.) Take this classic example from psychology: the marshmallow test. If told that they can eat one marshmallow now or t...

Here are the winners of the Washington Post's Mensa Invitational, which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. 1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time. 3. Intaxicaton : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with. 4. Reintarnation : Coming back to life as a hillbilly. 5. Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little signs of breaking down in the near future. 6. Foreploy : Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid. 7. Giraffiti : Vandalism spray-painted very, very high 8. Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it. 9. Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when yo...

For Writers: The kid was no doubt intelligent, but he admitted that he never did well when boxed inside the structure of a college class. By semester's end, he had only produced three of the seven required essay assignments, claiming he just couldn't get into the assigned topics. Although the topics I assigned gave students a lot of flexibility, I told him that I was open to foregoing the regular classroom assignments all-together, as long as he had some good ideas ready to present. Since he needed to write the equivilent of four 2-page essays, I suggested that he do an eight-page research paper. We should meet during office hours, I said, so that we could hammer out the details. The following day, he came to my office carrying a box of Playboy magazines. My dad is a collector, he said, and he has Playboys all the way back to the 1950s. Great, I thought, as I watched him starting to remove Playboys from the box. Take a look at this one, he said, as he pulled out three more from...

For Writers: Alfred, Bruce Wayne's butler, has always been one of my favorite characters in the Batman universe. He's obviously so much more than a butler. He is Bruce's base manager and confidant; but more than that, he's family -- the only family Bruce has, and probably the one person that helped him stay sane after watching as his parents were brutally murdered. On our last cruise, we upgraded to a penthouse suite, and with the penthouse came a butler. How would we use a butler, we wondered? Sure, he fixed our fancy coffeemaker, he brought our evening snacks, and he kept our mini-fridge stocked with cokes, but it's hard to develop a meaningful relationship with anyone when the cycle lasts only seven days. As I said, he was more the butler to the penthouse than he was our personal Alfred. What function would a butler (or any kind of personal assistant) serve in your life? Would having your own personal Alfred change your life? OR Would you rather serve or be serv...

For Writers: A number of years ago, I discovered lucid dreaming. Basically, you learn how to recognize when you're dreaming, and then you learn how to control your dreams. At first, I would get so excited just knowing that I was dreaming that I would immediately wake up. But over time, I learned how to curb my enthusiasm so that I could maintain the dream state.  I had so many good ideas on how I could use my newly-learned powers, but usually I ended up just trying to have sex. Needless to say, I didn't like the fact that my baser instincts from my reptilian brain were winning out, and I soon quit practicing lucid dreaming. Recently, though, it dawned on me that people shouldn't be worrying about controlling their dream anyway. What we need to practice is something that might be termed "lucid living."  What would happen if you began each day by saying "I'm alive!"? How might that change the way you fill your day? "I don't want to earn a livi...

For Writers: Our junior high basketball team was going to State, and three busloads of excited kids went to cheer them on to victory.  During the game, they must have been offering an all-you-can-drink special, because I remember drinking coke after coke. The teachers reminded us to hit the bathroom before we got back on the bus, because the bus would not be stopping for any reason on the four-hour trip home.  Yes, I used the bathroom before getting on the bus. And no, that didn't save me. About an hour into the trip, I recognized that my bladder was quite full. I felt the bus hit every bump, and the girl sitting next to me noticed that I had suddenly got very quiet, and about five shades whiter than normal. She quickly evacuated to another seat. Just tell them you need to stop, some of my friends advised, but I knew they weren't going to stop for me. One of my friends even yelled out that if the bus didn't stop, there'd be a mess to clean up later, but the teacher just...

For Writers: Strange things happen to me in Arkansas. Here's just the latest example: Driving north on I-55, I was almost to the Missouri border when I noticed this Grand Prix speeding up behind me. The driver pulled up along side of me, and he motioned for me to roll down my window. Great, I thought, I must have a flat tire or something. This is a rather desolate piece of highway, so other thoughts ran through my head, too, such as: Is this guy going to pull a gun on me and try to make me pull over? But fortunately, all the young man wanted was directions. He asked me how far away the Blytheville exit was, and I informed him that we had just passed it a couple of miles back. This conversation, mind you, was happening at 70 miles an hour. He thanked me for the information, and then I watched as he sped up and exited the Interstate at the next available off ramp. What is the weirdest (or most memorable) incident that has ever happened to you while driving? "You see weird things...

For Writers: I've always had a fondness for maps. Growing up, I used to study the Rand McNally road atlas for fun. How many kids did that? Without fail, I was always the navigator on any road trip, and I've always had a fascination for seeing new places. Family road trips generally involved driving hundreds on Interstates. So while I've been to just about every state, I cannot really say that I've seen every state. For example, I've driven through Arkansas many times, but my knowledge doesn't extend much past the I-55 corridor. And as much as I love maps, it embarrasses me to admit just how little I know about geography. Before moving to Augusta, Georgia, I had no idea which part of the state it was in. Likewise, when I was offered a job in Rochester, Minnesota, I didn't know a thing about southeastern Minnesota. Most people probably recognize Augusta for the Masters and Rochester for Mayo Clinic, but I'm not sure that I even knew that much. My knowled...

For Writers: For years I wore a size 12 shoe. I always knew that my shoes felt tight, but it wasn't until a shoe salesperson measured my feet and said, "You know, you're actually a 13" that it dawned on me: I should move up a size. My feet have been a lot happier ever since. That's just one example of how difficult it is to change. We get something in our head, and no matter how uncomfortable we might be, we stick with it, and never consider that change is an option, or even that change is necessary. Recently, it dawned on me that most people take pride in being multi- taskers . On the surface, multi-taskers seem able to accomplish a lot more because they can fragment their focus to a number of different tasks. In truth, however, multi-tasking increases stress. And, it's debatable whether or not multi-taskers are more efficient or effective. Just a minor example: for the past few years, I tried to multi-task books, reading five or more at a time. The end resul...

For Writers: Some people claim that they've had a conversation with the devil. Suspending disbelief for just a moment, one has to wonder why anyone would have such a conversation. I mean, can you imagine how awkward that conversation must be? What do you talk about: the weather? Or maybe why the Chicago Cubs have been cursed for all these years? Actually, maybe talking about the Cubs curse would be a good topic. After all, Satan can relate to the idea of being cursed. I know what you're probably thinking. No one should have a conversation with Satan. Surely to do so would be a sin, no matter what the topic of discussion might be. Then again, even the Bible notes that Jesus and God had conversations with the devil; and both of them, it should be pointed out, could have told Satan to get the hell away, but didn't. And aren't we supposed to follow their example? If you could invite Satan over for dinner, what would you talk about? Are there any specific questions you'd...

For writers: I understand the value of deadlines, but what place do deadlines have for the artist? One writer I know made herself write at least 3,000 words per day. She would say, "I've got three weeks to meet my deadline, so I've got to crank out 60,000 words." On the one hand, I appreciate her effort. She's taken an assignment, and she's broken it down into daily chunks. And assuming she stays on task, she will meet her objective. The problem I have is this: her objective is quantity, not quality. Seemingly nowhere in her thought process is: "I have to write 3,000 quality words." The objective is just to fill pages, and that's what makes this writer a hack. Her goal isn't to make art, but to make deadlines. When is it okay to be a sell out? When have you sold out, and did you regret doing so? "Bad art is a great deal worse than no art at all." -- Oscar Wilde

For Writers: I came to reading fiction rather by accident. Before I entered college, I read, but mainly just magazines like Sports Illustrated and Newsweek . It was not my habit to haunt bookstores, and my experiences in high school English classes gave me little encouragement to see what I might be missing. It's difficult to imagine a time when the names Vonnegut, Hemingway, and Steinbeck meant nothing to me, but the truth is, I had no one to show me the way. Then, one of my first college English instructors gave our class her personal reading list. Here were over 500 books that she had read from cover to cover. That intrigued me. Why would anyone dedicate so much time to reading? But she asked each of us to read a book from the list, and I selected Mary Shelley's Frankenstein . It sounds cliche to say, but Shelley took me to another world. And in short order, I read Animal Farm and 1984 and Lord of the Flies and Slaughter-house Five and on and on and on. It was never my inte...

For Writers: I didn't know how to use the telephone. It never occurred to me that I could invite friends over to my house. Instead, I would stay home on Friday nights, wondering what other kids were doing. Why didn't they call me? Why didn't they invite me over to their house? Once in a while somebody did, but more often than not, I spent the night at home alone, reading a magazine. Wondering. When I was old enough to drive a car, I would sometimes drive around town, sometimes aimlessly, but sometimes purposely. I would drive past the houses of people I knew, hoping that someone might be outside. That would give me the excuse to stop. Then I could say, "Hey, I was just driving by, and I happened to see you." But I almost never saw anyone, and the idea of stopping to knock on somebody's door was much too forward for my taste. For the longest time I lived by the philosophy of: If it happens, it happens. Unfortunately, even when I tried to increase my odds of ma...

For Writers: It was the middle of the night, and I really couldn't remember where I was. The room was completely dark, and I stumbled over to the corner. A picture of Marilyn Monroe hung on the wall, and her face seemed to emit a faint glow. Under her picture was a small cabinet. Still half asleep, I pulled open one of the drawers and thought I was standing in front of a urinal. Before I could do any damage, Matt walked through the door, saw what I was about to do to his cabinet, and suggested that I might want use the toilet in his bathroom instead. With the flip of the light switch, the room got bright, and the cabinet that I thought was a urinal became a cabinet again. Describe your most embarrassing moment; or, tell a story about the most inappropriate place that you've ever used the bathroom. "Excuse me, everybody, I have to go to the bathroom. I really have to telephone, but I'm too embarrassed to say so." -- Dorothy Parker

For Writers: When the party was over, she followed him upstairs to the bedroom. I had had too much to drink, and I was going to sleep on the couch downstairs. But at the moment, I wasn't tired. The idea of her going upstairs played over and over again in my mind. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door; it was the neighbor from the adjacent apartment. We knew each other, but we weren't friends. He asked me if I had seen this girl, and I explained that she had gone upstairs with the party's host. At the time, I didn't realize that she and the neighbor were dating. And apparently, I wasn't in control of my mouth. I told the neighbor some pretty mean things about this girl and how slutty she was to go upstairs to my friend's bedroom. The next morning when I woke up, the girl had apparently already left, but as I was preparing to leave myself, she came back. And when she saw me, she tore into me. How could I, she asked, tell the neighbor those awful things about her...