This week has mostly been about writing. I’m revising my book, and I needed a way to make my plot make sense. As I researched how to plot, I found a ton of great stuff! Enjoy!
Writing Finds
Firstly, Kurt Vonnegut ON drama — a short post and the video of the great man himself explaining story structure. Great short watch.
This was the beginning for unlocking the mystery of plot: The Seven Point Story Structure (in five parts)
Which led me to Rock Your Plot. If you write long form anything, I think it would help, but if you have an actual multi-character story to tell, it’s crucial. That led me to her Write Every Day.
Write Every Day is a FANTASTIC resource for unblocking creativity. you can apply this to anything you are not doing. She goes through the four key blockers
- No Time
- No energy
- Fear
- Lack of process
and has working solutions for each one. This is a must, and it’s 2.99.
Or you can go big and get all of them in one package: The Rock Your Writing Series
If you use Scrivner (and if you are writing anything longer than 3K words, why aren’t you? ) you can grab this Rock Your Plot template which is rocking my world right now!
Also, it’s almost 500 words of September: sign up for prompts!
Design
Right Way to do Lean Research Laura and I were supposed to write this together, but I punked out and she kept going, so all the glory is hers! It’s soooo good, too.
Sexism
Yes, I’m still tracking the way the world is sucking.
“Women don’t need to try and find that elusive quality, “confidence,” they just need better information about how hiring processes really work.”
Why Women Don’t Apply for Jobs Unless They’re 100% Qualified
“Men are given constructive suggestions. Women are given constructive suggestions – and told to pipe down.”
Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is
Playing with privilege: invisible benefits of gaming while male (and if you haven’t read No girls allowed, do so.) based on The Male Privilege Checklist
From the article, things boys don’t have to put up with
- I can publicly post my username, gamertag or contact information online without having to fear being stalked or sexually harassed because of my gender.
- I will never be asked to “prove my gaming cred” simply because of my gender.
- If I enthusiastically express my fondness for video games no one will automatically assume I’m faking my interest just to “get attention” from other gamers.
yay.
Finally my pal Dave Malouf wrote Compassion, forgiveness, honesty, and integrity with vigilance which I helped edit. I agree with some of it, and deeply touched by passages such as
Men have grown up taught to be perpetrators. As youths we mostly did it against ourselves. Almost everyone I know either committed, witnessed, or felt personally “locker room brutality/bullying”. The humiliation and fear of humiliation that men experience is pretty intense and seldom spoken about, but is important to process because it is our training ground of sexism.
But I worry about this thinking:
But let’s also remember, that perpetrators are often good men. I mean that. They are good men. They are my friends, my colleagues, and sometimes the accused. They are also my mentors and collaborators. They are my (and your) community. I know a lot of people in my community of designers and I can confidently say that all the men I’ve met are good people. I mean that.
It has a black and white, good and evil categorization approach that I naturally distrust. I don’t think men who do bad things are bad men, and more than I think they are good men warped by society. I think they are men. Hu-men, to be precise.
The men that I’ve seen hurting women exhibit symptoms of classic psychological disorders such as borderline personality disorder and narcissism. While I hesitate to play armchair shrink, I know how ravaging the effects of bad chemicals in the blood stream can be. In my teens and later, after I had my child, I fought a body full of chemicals that seemed to determined to talk me out of living. But I fought them, and I won. I fought them because to not fight them would be to hurt the people I love, deeply. If you have bad chemicals, you have a responsibility to get the help and do the work to clean yourself up so your crazy does not hurt others.
But you know what? It kinda doesn’t matter. Good men, bad men, sick men, healthy men, raised right, raised wrong… so what? It’s still hurting women. One guy acting as a predator for whatever reasons still messes up a ton of womens’ lives. Women who don’t go to another conference, and miss out on learning and networking and their next great job. Women who turn down speaking engagements that would get them opportunities.
The men who find themselves, via nature or nurture, have a responsibility to clean themselves up, because they are hurting others. The people who see them in action have a responsibility to stop them. It’s not about good or bad. We don’t need to pass judgement; we need to take action. If men are hurting women, and if they won’t stop themselves, we have a responsibility stop them. Period.
If you are a friend to a man who is acting as a predator, then forgive them, love them and support them. And stop them. Get them help. But get them away.