Various and Sundry Writing

John August on Professionalism

Back in 2006, writer John August wrote (and presented) a really great talk called “Professionalism and the Rise of the Amateur.” It drew on his own experience as a writer, but it could be applied to other jobs — basically, anywhere where you’re trying to be “professional” — and what that word means, really. Well, lots of things have happened since then, as he recounts as he revisits and expands (and corrects) some of those…

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Writing

A Writer Writes… to What End?

For whatever reason, I’ve been seeing a bunch of memes about writers writing, writers writing ’til they’ve finished (whether or not it’s good, they can always rewrite, etc.) and so on. So what if you’re wondering about the point of all this? Well, for a motivation Monday, Monica Leonelle has a bunch of questions and exercises to ask yourself. Now I’m going to get back to writing.

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Various and Sundry

Star Trek Day – Panel Videos

Given my post on Monday, there really wasn’t much doubt that I’d go ahead and link to a bunch of the videos CBS did for Star Trek Day on Tuesday. They have a bunch more videos on the CBS All Access YouTube channel, some of them snippets of these below, but this should keep you stoked for Trek. TOS TNG/Picard Deep Space Nine Voyager Enterprise Discovery Lower Decks Strange New Worlds

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Rants Raves Various and Sundry

Every Episode of Every Star Trek Series, Ranked

As long-time readers of this blog know (all seven or nine), I am a bit of a Star Trek fan, as may be deduced from my manic series Crisis of Infinite Star Treks alone. Where that series delves into fannish hand-wringing and minutiae, it did remind my of how much I enjoy Star Trek in its seemingly infinite combinations. I wanted to do something special for its official 50th anniversary, but life has intervened (quantum…

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Various and Sundry

Tolkien thought a lot about Middle Earth

I mean, a lot. I mean, when you consider that the man was a philologist, that’s already a specialty type of academic nerdery. Now, this may not be surprising to avowed Tolkien fans, but for the rest of us who did not sail through The Silmarillion without failing asleep, this is the video for you! If, for no other reason, you’re a casual reader who never could get what the deal was with Tom Bombadil,…

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