if you're bored, you're not paying attention
Unfinished or quasi-finished prose that hasn’t been published elsewhere
… Story continues … “Collaboration and photography”COMING UP: MINDFUL WRITING WORKSHOP. I’m co-hosting a workshop on Haiku for the Turn of the Year with Marion Pernoux, a somatic arts therapist and Reiki master, on December 7 in San Francisco. Click here to learn more and register for our mindful haiku workshop.
When Microsoft first introduced its Office assistant, “Clippy,” it was ridiculed by many. The cutesy animated paperclip came across as goofy, but the real problem was how annoying Clippy was: He popped up unexpectedly way too often, interrupting your work to offer inane recommendations you would invariably reject.… Story continues … “It’s Clippy’s world now”
I was standing in the futuristic, multi-story atrium of NVIDIA’s “Endeavor” building when I saw Neal Stephenson leaning against a railing.
“I bet you’re not a lefty,” I said.
The award-winning science fiction author had been a speaker earlier that day at Google, which was hosting Imagination in Action’s Next Revolution of AI summit, a two-day conference event packed with experts from the upper echelons of tech, venture, and academia.… Story continues … “How to write like Neal Stephenson”
Last weekend, on a sunny balcony overlooking Monterey Bay, with cocktail chatter in the near background and sea lions barking in the distance, I talked about love with a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Army Special Forces.
My new friend spent 10 tours of duty first as a grunt, then as a Green Beret sniper and medic.… Story continues … “What it’s like to attend a Renaissance Weekend”
This summer, I took a five-week course from The Good Listening Project to learn the craft of listening poetry: poetry that arises from deep listening in a one-on-one conversation.
A listener poet is someone who spends time with you, maybe twenty minutes, and then writes a poem for you about whatever is on your mind or in your heart.… Story continues … “Introduction to Listening Poetry”
A fellow consultant recently asked me for advice on writing and publishing more consistently. He wasn’t asking me to ghostwrite for him or to edit his work, as I do for many of my clients. He’s an excellent writer and is able to make time for it. … Story continues … “Good listening leads to better thinking”
Artificial intelligence complicates things for writers.
It’s complicating everything for everyone these days, sure. We all have AI in our faces all day long, whether we want it or not (and mostly we don’t).
But for writers, the existence of chatbots that can generate text — let’s not call it “writing” exactly, but content — seems like an existential threat.… Story continues … “Writing with (and without) AI”
Like many writers who take their craft seriously, I had an uneasy relationship with the word “content” for a long time.
Once, in the late 1990s or early 2000s, I went to a digital marketing conference and heard a man onstage — a real pioneer in the emerging field of digital content — say, “I’d like to find the person who coined the term ‘content’ and kick the living shit out of them!”… Story continues … “What is content? What is writing?”
David Strom is a veteran technology journalist and content strategist who has been covering enterprise technology for over three decades.
He has held editorial management positions for both print and online properties including as the editor-in-chief of Network Computing (in print), Digital Landing.com,… Story continues … “Rewrites to infinity: David Strom on the reality (and dangers) of content collaboration”
Writing has always been a challenging job.
But now, in the age of generative AI, it’s getting even more difficult for many of us.
The sheer volume of content that GenAI tools churn out makes it hard to be seen and heard.… Story continues … “Secrets of the word wizards”