Stream of Consciousness
Do You Want People to Separate You From Your Art?. Top Story - November 2025.
Roman Polanski, Kevin Spacey, Michael Jackson, Caravaggio, Richard Wagner, Woody Allen, J.K. Rowling, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf, R. Kelly, Miles Davis, Carl Jung, Francis Bacon, and Jackson Pollock.
By Paul Stewart2 months ago in Writers
the identity theory
The story goes like this - Theseus, a hero in Greek mythology, had a ship. Overtime his ship began to rot, and as each plank of wood would rot, he would replace it with a new plank of wood. But at some point, every piece of the ship had been replaced, which poses the question - is the ship after all these replacements still the same ship? And to make it even harder, if someone collected all the old pieces from the original build and reconstructed the original ship, which, if either, is the 'real' Ship of Theseus?
By courtney quinn2 months ago in Writers
Getting To School On Time
Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What if? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers prompts — The Exercise - Write five mini-stories (limit: 200 words each) to account for a single event or set of circumstances, such as a man and woman standing on a city sidewalk, hailing a cab. Each story should be different - in characters, plot, and theme - from the others. The Objective - To loosen the bonds that shackle you to a single, immutable version; to underscore the fact that plot is not preordained but something you can control and manipulate at will, like the strings of a marionette; and to demonstrate once more that there are many ways to skin a cat.
By Denise E Lindquist2 months ago in Writers
Michael Savage Shares Top Accounting Tools for Entrepreneurs
It takes vision, discipline, and the right tools to run a business. Mike Savage is a successful businessman from New Canaan, who has always stated that smart financial management forms the backbone of any successful enterprise. Technology has made accounting easier, accurate, and more accessible than ever. With the right tools, entrepreneurs can reduce errors, save time, and thereby make better decisions for their success in the long run.
By Mike Savage New Canaan2 months ago in Writers
Saving The Job
Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What if? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers prompts — The Exercise - On each of five 3x5 index cards, print a vocational label, for example, dentist, truck driver, or fashion model. On each of a second set of index cards, write a mildly strange or unusual behavior. The mistakes here are to be too mundane (brush teeth, clear car) or to be too melodramatic (strangled her lover, drove his flaming truck through the prison walls). Somewhere between lies the quirk of the odd that is interesting: set free the parakeet, pick lose the tennis racket strings, or sew closed his sweater sleeves. Some writers will keep their cards filed for use again and again, and will add to the original pack over time as interesting vocations or actions suggest themselves. Shuffle each pack of cards (not together) and turn over the first pair. The writer may now ask the following question: "Why did Card A do Card B?" Why did the dentist set free the parakeet?" "Why did the fashion model pick loose the tennis racket strings?" The writer may continue flipping cards until a satisfactory pairing is discovered. If no satisfactory pair develops, reshuffle the cards and repeat the procedure. If you have ten cards in each pack you will have 100 possible pairings; twelve cards per pack will yield 144 pairings. Bear in mind that the event suggested by the Story Machine should be thought of as the last scene of a story. Supply motive for the odd behavior. Supply a conflict that might be resolved by this behavior. Imagine a scene prior to the final scene that demonstrates the severity of the conflict. Imagine a scene that demonstrates the initial difficulty. This exercise may easily be adapted for a class. Instead of shuffling, students pass cards one way and then another so that no student is left with any of her original cards. The liberating outcome is that if the new pair lacks all resonance for a student, the student has no emotional investment in the product of the Story Machine. No one has made a mistake or performed badly, just some bad luck has occured. Class discussions of motive and structure can be lively. The Objective - Retrograde plotting is often a revelation to the beginning writer who has again and again found herself staring off into the space above the typewriter and asking, "Now what happens?" Writing toward a conclusion for some writers is easier than exploring the consequences of an imagined premise. One more easily discovers the beginnings of things if one knows the ending. That the Story Machine requires vocational labels gives students insight to the rudiments of characterization, as such labels suggest education levels and socioeconomic status.
By Denise E Lindquist2 months ago in Writers
