I love my iPad for many reasons—its capacity for creative writing is not one of them.  

That all changed the second I fired up this $0.99 pearl. Of course, writing is much more pleasant on my laptop, however, iA Writer at least makes it so I can write on my iPad in a way that doesn't make me want to throw it across the room every five seconds.

Its Focus Mode and Dropbox Sync features (more on these later) alone are worth the tiny price tag. However, what really sells it is the top row on the keyboard.

Attn. Apple: did you not see this at prettyfuckingobvious.com when you were designing the iPad? Take note.

Nothing derails my iWriting experience worse than having to stop, hold my finger down, scroll over to the iNevitable typos and fix them. Now I can just click the arrow keys and move the cursor—like we have been since the advent of the word processor. You can also scroll by word (which makes a cool sound). The Obvious Bar™ also includes a hyphen button, a semicolon button, a quote button, an apostrophe button, and a brilliant "smart parentheses" button.

And we're all looking forward to the Em Dash button in the next version (hint-hint).

It should have taken you about a minute to read this far. How do I know this? Well, screw page numbers—in the digital realm it's all about time—and the creators of iA Writer apparently got the memo, thus incorporating the ever-handy (we're at 1:14 now) Reading Time feature in addition to Word Count (255).

 

I could go on about Focus Mode, which turns off auto-correct and highlights just the last three lines typed. Or the beautifully designed monospaced typeface (suck it, Courier). Or the fact that it syncs right up with Dropbox—and therefore every other device I own. But I promised myself I wouldn't make this more than 1:43 long so you can hear all about it here.

(344 words up.)

 

I've written about my criteria for moderation of oneword.com entries before. This post is very specific, prompted by an ever-growing pattern I've noticed over the last few years. Let me start with one example:

The day's word: bee

"Nothing more than a struggling person trying to live their lives off someone elses salary who actually reaps the benefits of all his or her worker bees. More like his benefits, women don’t get to do shit in this world, but so what? It’s just a shitty game we all play, too bad we don’t know any other games. Fuck."

The above example is not profound, well-written—or even grammatically correct—but it follows oneword's admonition to "just write" well enough. The puzzling part is the lone, irrelevant f-bomb tagged onto the end of the entry. The term "f-bomb" is perfect here, because it really is like dropping a bomb on an otherwise relevant piece of writing. And I get anywhere from two–five entries that follow this pattern daily.

So we're clear, I have no problem with a strategically placed f-word. For instance, another entry on yellow and black, fuzzy, buzzy things:

"I am absolutely terrified of bees. A bee landed on my brand new white tee shirt in gym class when I was thirteen and it was huge. It scared the living shit out of me and I screamed and made a huge fool of myself amongst my snotty peers. I hate bees. Fuck bees."

In this example, though I don't personally hate bees, I'm right there with her.

In both cases, the entries will get approved. However, I'm taking the liberty of deleting all f-bombs as illustrated in the first example. Why? Two reasons: A) it takes the real firepower away from other people using the word intelligently, and B) it screams "I'm insecure!" which is not a part of flowing or stream-of-consciousness writing.

My mom vehemently disagrees, but I think it's the perfect word—not as a parachute—but when the parachute doesn't open.

Jane: yo wz up
Ted: nt mch wut up witchu?
Jane: kickn it gettn it poppin whtchu kno boutt thttt ?!
Ted: roflmao

Let's stop here. Not for the obvious—but for logistics. How is it that one might roll on the floor and laugh their ass off while simultaneously typing “ROFLMAO”? Second, how ass-less can one be? It stands to reason that there would at least need to be a buffer between asses being laughed off to allow for a new one to flourish.

Ted: cme ovr
Jane: yeaaaaahhhhh babyy

In addition to liquidating the English language to a series of sputters and blips, it now appears to be somewhat cool and hip-hop-y to add an extra letter or three onto the end of words. This screams, “I'll follow a trend no matter how stupidd!”

Jane: i wuld bt im grnded
Ted: lololololololol for wuttt?

“wuld.” It's an interesting choice to keep the one totally silent letter. And, Ted, “laugh out loud out loud out loud out loud out loud out loud” makes zero sense.

Jane: rprt cd 2day
Ted: dam grrrll!!! tht sux.
Jane: yea flnkd englsh 101 fml 

Shocking.

In an earlier post, I had mentioned being anti-stupid.

This was in response to multiple (some harsh and rude) allegations of the site being against freedom of speech. This, to me, is not only comical—but the antithesis of oneword.

Rather than being anti-stupid, I would like to offer a revised, more accurate statement:

oneword.com is pro-intelligent

The kid who sprays a litany of racial slurs, or pastes "your mom has sex with horses" a thousand times, is intelligent. Somewhere in there. Deep down.

Everyone has the capacity to act stupid, though it's just that—an act. And usually one of insecurity; of being afraid to truly express themselves. And, if anything, that's what oneword.com is all about: expression.

Yes, pro-intelligent, is the [compound] word of the day, and here's to shining a light on the brilliance inherent in everyone, in hopes that others—and, importantly, you—will see it, and be it.

Inspiration is a tricky little son of a bitch.

Really. Inspiration's mother was the daughter of Necessity, the mother of Invention, who was the daughter of Repetition, the mother of Skill (from her first marriage), who was widely known to be a ranting, annoying, bitch.

The more we write, the less we die.

We want to be inspired, so we sit diligently at our laptops, waiting for it to hit. And wait... and wait... and wait...

Then nothing. So we wait some more...

 Finally, we get frustrated and give up and get on with our uninspired lives. No sooner do we succumb to the doldrums of existence—BLLLAAAAAAANG!—that little son of a bitch pops in. "Hey, ass hat!" He taunts, "check this out!" Then proceeds to flood your mind with the beginnings of this brilliant and life-changing idea. Your fingers fly at breakneck speed as Inspiration eloquently dictates revolutionary prose like an auctioneer on a coke binge. Then—GLLLLLRRAAARRP!—you hit a wall. Stuck again.

Why is this?

Looking at the etymology of the word "inspire," it began meaning "to breathe" or "breathe into." Origins of this meaning date back to before 1000 B.C. As the language evolved it began to take on more religious connotations leaning more toward "to breathe in spirit," or "breathe to life."

Life is an interesting word. What is living? At its very core, life is breathing. We could stop eating and live for months; stop drinking water and live for days; but we can't go without breath for more than a few minutes. So it could be said that breathing is the most important thing in our lives. How often do you think about breathing—the most important thing in your life? Unless you're a yogi or climbing Mt. Everest, it's probably a pretty rare occurrence.

Just like the air that we breathe, Inspiration is always there, unseen; ebbing and flowing. And, just like breathing requires us to exhale in order to inhale, Inspiration requires an expiration before again fill the lungs of creativity.

Is life supposed to be an endless cycle of rampant creativity followed by utter stagnation? Maybe. But the trick is not to argue with either. Be just as open to the exhale as you are to the inhale; to the expiration as you are to the inspiration. Then the ebb and flow are enjoyable. Acceptance and allowance of something, in a sense, puts one in control.

Now you can expect Inspiration, all grown up, well beyond mother's clutches.

When I was nineteen, I inherited a pet peeve. I was at a party and we were on the subject of peeves that were pets and a guy said, "I hate it when people say anyways." I hadn't given it any thought before, but I then realized the stupidity of this non-word. And it has peeved me—and my pets—ever since. So, it gets the number one slot.

1. "Anyways."

I've already gone off about dashes, so I'll be brief.

2. Spaces surrounding em dashes.

When did it become okay to put spaces before and after dashes? I can't figure it out.

Read Great Expectations or Catcher in the Rye or the New Yorker—hell, read The Elements of Style by Strunk and White or the fucking Chicago Manual of Style.

3. Courier.

(The typeface, not people who deliver stuff.)

In a failed attempt to imitate the typewritten screenplays from days of yore, we somehow ended up donning this piece of shit font the industry standard for screenplays. As made apparent above, I have deep-rooted childhood dash issues. And guess what a hyphen looks like in Courier? This: "-"; an en dash? This: "-"; an em dash? This: "-". 

Don't even get me started on Courier New.

4. "I could care less."

Well, I couldn't.

5. "Awe, cute."

It's probable that one could be in awe of cuteness. However, it's about 10,763 times more likely that what you meant to write was "Awwww... cute!" (The number of "w"s is subjective.) It's an onomatopoeia (a Scrabble player's wet dream that means "written interpretation of a sound"). Yes, I know that your spell-checker automatically changed it, but if I just went with everything my iPhone's spell-checker suggested, I'd have alienated most of my address book by now.

And, last:

6. "I'm nauseous."

I'll say.

Admittedly this is straight outta The Elements of Style and, equally admittedly, I've misused this word many times myself. However, after I learned the error of my ways and what it really means—it's worth repeating.

What you meant to say is "I'm nauseated." This indicates that you are sick to your stomach. To be "nauseous" is to cause others to be nauseated. Just like to be contagious causes others to be contagiated.

. . .

I could probably go on and on about you're/your, it's/its, there/their/they're and other things that are like a flea driving me up a chalkboard. But I have a feeling we've both got better things to do.

(via our Facebook page)

We've had quite a few people accusing us of being anti-freedom of speech lately. Not the least of which was someone saying "Fuck you" on our Facebook page earlier today.

Really, we're all for freedom of speech. We're PRO-freedom of speech. We're PRO-stream of consciousness. We're only anti-stupid.

How do we define stupid? We don't. It's so stupid, we don't need to.

If you're reading this, and are stupid—sorry—we weren't banking on your making it this far.

We are not anti-profanity either. Dialects, idioms, profanity and colloquialism help to define characters and stir emotions in writing. And we will agree with great fortitude that sometimes there is no other word that quite gets the fucking point across.

However, after many years of running this site, I can, with confidence, offer the following statistics:

50% of entries that contain the word "fuck" are spam or stupid.

60% of entries that contain the word "shit" are spam or stupid.

70% of entries that contain the word "cunt" are spam or stupid.

80% of entries that contain the word "pussy" are spam or stupid.

90% of entries that contain the words "bestiality, incest, slut or cock" are spam or stupid.

99.9% of entries that contain the words "nigger, chink, wop, dago, kike, paki, jihad" are spam or stupid.

So, those words get flagged. If your inspired prose birthed one of more of them, then they go in a "pending" bin and wait, in all their brilliance or stupidity, for me to sift through them.

If the entry isn't stupid—which it's not if you read this far—then chances are it's just waiting to be approved. And it will be. I swear.*

*pun intended.

 

After a certain amount of development, there's a point in writing in which characters begin to take on a life of their own; begin to write themselves.

Being somewhat of a self-help junkie, or just plain selfish, I asked myself:

What have I done to develop my character?

The reason that fictional characters begin to come alive and create themselves is because the writer has created a story and traits that make him or her who he or she is. Pretty soon, all you have to do is imagine a circumstance to put them in, and they'll find their own way out.

In the same way, my character as a human being has been writing itself out of circumstance my whole life. I'm being propelled into the future by my story.

Why do we care about our stories? Should we?

Yes. If life is picture-perfect for you right now, by all means, keep the magic flowing. If not, then stop whatever story you're telling. Like, now.

The connection between childhood events and adult behaviors is fascinating, and discovering them can be extremely cathartic and healing. The stagnation sets in when one dissects and pores over the details—blaming yourself; blaming this situation or that person. Like Methadone, it pretty much works the first time—then it's nothing but more trouble.

I might as well rewrite my "character" the way I want it. My mind doesn't know the difference. My intellect might—but intellect isn't driving this ship and is, at best, an annoying backseat driver with the directional sense of a sandbag.

What intellect is good for is creating new stuff. For imagining a you that is so damn amazing that that story begins to write itself.

My first article for Fuel Your Writing. Check it out.