Cracked: The Voice of a Generation
This is the first in a series of websites that have influenced me as a writer and artist. It is not a paid endorsement of Cracked, but a recommendation to my readers based on my own subjective taste....
Tagged: writing
Ninja Turtles, Hogwarts and Archetypes
I recently got into a very nerdy discussion with my friends, asking what Houses of Hogwarts the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would be sorted into. As the leader of the four, Leonardo would be in Gryffindor, since Gryffindor...
Creativity and Compromise
We generally think of creativity as something that should never be compromised. There’s a kernel of truth to this, as many good idea have been squashed and perverted by faceless bureaucrats. Likewise, trying to draft original ideas in...
Who Owns Star Wars?
Note: This article was written just a couple of weeks before George Lucas sold the Star Wars Franchise to Disney. And while I doubt that Lucas read my article, I’m glad he came to a similar conclusion. George...
Nerdimus Maximus: Latin Wikipedia
There are a lot of nerds on the Internet (including me), but if I had to pick one of the nerdiest websites of all, it would have to be the Latin Wikipedia. Even though I don’t speak Latin,...
A Stint in Stand-Up
After college, I was fumbling my way through life, looking for a career. Somewhere in the haze I got the idea to do stand-up. There was a comedy club in Lansing with an amateur night, so I wrote...
Spelling Reform
English Spelling is screwed up, though if you’re literate enough to read this sentence, you probably already know that. The real question is, what can we do to make it more logical? I’ve given a lot of thought...
A Brief Letter to the New York Times
Four years ago, in the early stages of the 2008 Presidential campaign, I got a Letter to the Editor published in the New York Times. It was only a single sentence, lamenting that the use of torture was...
Media and Writing Systems
Writing systems are affected by the media on which they are written. A good example is the Chinese writing system (as well as Japanese kana). Chinese is traditionally written with a brush instead of a pen. This leads...
The One Year Rule
Anything worthwhile takes a year. Last month, I finished my novel. It took me a year and a half. That’s pretty quick for a novel, but it still felt like a long time. It got me thinking about...
