Leo Interviews Merlin Mann of 43 Folders

The beginning of a blood-curdling recession hardly seems like the time to ruminate about fantasy resources, I’ll grant you that. But, I want you to think about something. Really think about it.

If, tomorrow morning, you had 60% of the time and resources you needed to start making anything you wanted, what would it be? And, what would you do first?  read more »

Although it’s been way more than a month, per our little agreement, here’s some recent Merlin-related stuff that may interest you. Really good stuff this time around.  read more »

If your mall’s bookstores look anything like mine (and it’s probably safe to assume that they do), you’ll find numerous sections devoted to helping writers, painters, musicians, and other aspiring artists to become successful in one way or another. There are books chock full of tips on finding an agent, on painting like the masters, and on composing and selling a hit song.

There are also dozens of books on “creativity” itself. Guides that are meant to help you access and unlock the artist within and to see the world in more creative ways. How to “be” creative, how to generate ideas, and how to learn to think “laterally.”

Some of these books are just terrific, many are atrocious, and, at least in my anecdotal experience, only a handful challenge their readers with a fundamentally unmarketable premise:

Creative work only seems like a magic trick to people who don’t understand that it’s ultimately still work.  read more »

apophenia: Warning: Email Sabbatical is Imminent .. and other random thoughts

[via trivium]

danah boyd is finishing her dissertation, then going on vacation for a month. While, she’s gone, she’s not accepting email. At all. Got that?

No apology. No “vacation message” to pretend she’ll read it later. And no implied promise that the stuff people send to her will magically be tended to by an invisble army of interns and elves. While she’s away, every message she receives is simply discarded with a friendly response as to why. danah writes:

…I believe that email eradicates any benefits gained from taking a vacation by collecting mold and spitting it back out at you the moment you return. As such, I’ve trained my beloved INBOX to reject all email during vacation. I give it a little help in the form of a .procmail file that sends everything directly to /dev/null. The effect is very simple. You cannot put anything in my queue while I’m away (however lovingly you intend it) and I come home to a clean INBOX. Don’t worry… if you forget, you’ll get a nice note from my INBOX telling you to shove off, respect danah’s deeply needed vacation time, and try again after January 19.

If you roll your eyes at such fancy, uppity, big-city behavior, consider the alternatives most of us suffer in order to pretend we’re listening. Even when we know we’re not.  read more »

In the wonderful Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott talks about the incredible, ripping pain she felt after having her tonsils removed. All she wanted to do was chug pain killers and let the stupid thing heal, but, Anne’s doctor gave her some advice that she found as unbelievable as it was painful: he told her to chew some gum.

Turns out that, as with a lot of injuries, the entirely sensible impulse to protect and baby a wounded area was the opposite of what Anne actually needed in order to fix the problem. So, by enduring the excruciating pain of chewing gum for just a few minutes, the muscles in her throat suddenly unclenched, and Anne’s pain went away forever.

The advice Anne wanted wasn’t the advice she needed. And, like we all eventually learn, the best advice you’ll get in life hurts like hell at the time. Because it has to.

And, maybe that’s part of what what bugs me about all the “tips.”  read more »