Lines
February 21, 2024
Current location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Reading: Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close by Hannah Carlson
Watching: BOTTOMS (delightfully bizarre and hilarious film)(if you have a moment, reply with your own 3-item status via email or in the comments)
Lines
I’ve been using a little grammar app while editing my new book so that I have a visual sense of what I’m doing wrong (according to someone else’s standards) as I trim, delete, rearrange, and rewrite—my words passive aggressively underlined, the software wagging its virtual figure at me for all the (in its robo-mind) silly mistakes I’m making.
Most digital writing tools have something like this baked in, and I like having this alternative viewpoint right there in my field of view as I make tweaks, as it helps me maintain a sense of how such things are actually meant to be said, even in cases where I disagree with a specific rule and choose ignore it.
I’m of the opinion, for better and for worse, that we all have the power and the right to mess with language however and whenever we choose.
There are moments in which it makes sense to bend toward the average, non-colloquialized version of whatever it is we’re trying to say, as that ensures more people understand what we’re attempting to communicate, lessening the chance of misinterpretation.
In other cases, though—many cases, I would argue—it’s more fun and interesting and valuable to apply our own, personal linguistic flair to our written work, as it makes engaging with the words we choose to use (and the order in which we choose to commit them to the page) more compelling, entertaining, and often productive, as well, because a unique presentation of information or narrative will be more likely to stick than a dry, bot-like recitation of the same.
None of which excuses shoddy writing, which is something we’re all prone to from time to time, but which ideally mostly occurs not because we’re writing lazily and unintentionally, but because we’re trying things out, upending our own expectations and patterns, and trying to make better use of the raw materials (words, punctuation, grammar) available to us.
These sorts of tools can be useful in that they remind us of where the lines are and how we might color inside them when we want to do that. But they also point at the rules we might choose to break (or bend, or shatter into dust) when we’re keen to compose more us-shaped creations.
Interesting & Useful
What’s Special About This Number?
“4 is the smallest number of colors sufficient to color all planar maps.
5 is the number of Platonic solids.
6 is the smallest perfect number.
7 is the smallest number of sides of a regular polygon that is not constructible by straightedge and compass.”
“The Live Music Archive is a community committed to providing the highest quality live concerts in a lossless, downloadable format, along with the convenience of on-demand streaming. In 2002, the Internet Archive teamed up with etree.org to create the Live Music Archive in order to preserve and archive as many live concerts as possible for current and future generations to enjoy.”
LensCulture Street Photography Awards
“Anna Biret: ‘I make candid street photos, simplifying the chaotic mess of life to bring out some mystery and order. For this project, I focused on the women in Kyrgyzstan: their lifestyle, their place in society. Kyrgyz women are actively involved in various aspects of life, including education, politics and the workforce. In recent years, there has been an increasing emphasis on empowering women and promoting gender equality in the country.’”
Outro
I’m still book-editing, and I’m making pretty good time, even if it doesn’t feel that way on a day-to-day basis (it feels like a never ending slog, but a necessary and strangely rewarding one).
I’ll be headed back to Seattle to help with my baby nephew (who’s going through a lot of rehab after some significant medical issues several months ago) next week, so my publishing schedule will be adjusted a bit, though mostly in the sense that I’ll be doing something a little different with One Sentence News (and won’t be producing OSN podcast episodes), and in that this newsletter will probably be briefer than usual, if I do one at all.
I learned from my last time visiting that it’s a more than full-time gig helping out under these sorts of circumstances, so I’m hoping to get some stuff out the door as usual, but also allowing myself flexibility based on the reality on the ground—thanks in advance for understanding, and things should be back to normal the following week!
How are things going in your neck of the woods? Any plans headed in to March? Tell me what’s been up, or take a moment to introduce yourself—I respond to every message I receive and would love to hear from you :)
Prefer stamps and paper? Send me a letter, postcard, or some other physical communication at: Colin Wright, PO Box 11442, Milwaukee, WI 53211
Or hit me up via the usual methods: Instagram/Threads, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or virtual vase wireframe generator.
Awesome helping family. I'm constantly doing that and work + classes.
Reading: ikigai by yukari mitsuhashi and becoming who we are by Colin Wright 😎
Listening: to my thoughts
I pray you and your family are BLESSED this week as you assist with your wee nephew... Your actions of, ‘family first’ encourage this ole grandmother. It is wonderful to know of younger folks with genuine morals and compassion. God bless you! May his rehab and recovery be swift and complete!