Fresh ideas about craft, clarity, creativity, and personal growth, as well as updates on my projects, media recommendations, and links to all the weird and delightful things I find on the internet.
I’ve had a truck for a couple weeks now. (Long story.) So I’ve been taking care of niggling errands around town, and visiting places I haven’t been to since I was dating someone with a car who took me to them. Today’s errand was cashing in my change at a Coinstar machine. The places that … Read more
Early in the year I started an iTunes playlist called 2018. I added songs to it as it occurred to me. I didn’t really have a plan, but it ended up creating a portrait of my year. Many tracks are new music that resonated with me. A few are old favorites that had particular relevance … Read more
Corey Gwin is building a writing app called Blurt. To promote the app, he’s been writing about writing. To promote my book, I’ve been tweeting about writing. I tweeted out one of the things he wrote, which made him notice me, and then he asked me to do a video interview for a series he’s … Read more
My journal is full of entries, my Ulysses inbox is full of notions and half-starts. So I’m writing a lot. I’m writing a lot. Good. Great. But I’m not quite getting to what I want to with a lot of it. I want to be on that Austin Kleon wavelength, you know? That easy, collected, … Read more
I’ve always been enamored with product ecosystems. It’s rare that I’ll buy anything without researching what kind of accessories I can get with it. Does it have an official case, pouch, or sleeve? Can you change the tip, the handle, the grip? What can I upgrade? What can I combine it with? LEGO was both … Read more
Minneapolis indie rocker Mark Mallman has a book coming out next year. Mark is as much an artist as a musician. I dig his whole thing and am looking forward to the book. I’m not precisely sure why, but I got a kick out of this article busting the myth that Medieval people didn’t drink … Read more
Twitter is a dumpster fire, but it’s still better than the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that is Facebook.
Recently back from an overnight trip to Chicago to speak with their UX Book Club. My book Writing for Designers was the featured book, and they hosted a Q&A style event with the author, who is me! This was the first time I’ve been at an in-person event specifically because I wrote a book. I … Read more
There’s a joke that having a writing deadline is the best way to get your house clean. Personally, I channeled this form of productive procrastination into digital spaces while getting to a finished first draft of the book. This was also partly out of thoroughness and desperation — “I know I’ve thought thoughts about this … Read more
I gradated in 2006 from the Journalism school at Drake University, having majored, somewhat inexplicably, in radio & television production. (I think I mostly just liked things with knobs and switches, and having projects instead of tests.) Here are seven lessons I learned from my radio/television major: 1) Throw the airplane. Our first video production assignment … Read more