Week 47 Round-up

Thanksgiving weekend kept me busy, even here in Sunny South Korea. Went to my first meetup.org event, a thanksgiving dinner with 50 foreigners eating turkey and drinking beer in the Korean countryside. Our cabin had a piano, and our group just happened to have a guy who could crank out the Chopin and Mozart.

-Here’s a short post from Tim Ferriss called The Benefits of Pissing People Off. Years ago, when I first started writing, I tried to be non-offensive and appealing to all, but I realized that was a recipe for boring, lame, vacuous, and impotent writing. Raising ire is much more fun.

“Doing anything remotely interesting will bring criticism. Attempting to do anything large-scale and interesting will bring armies of detractors and saboteurs. This is fine – if you are willing to take the heat.

There are good reasons to be willing, even eager.”

Read more here.

-For you Nanowrimo writers out there, James over at Men With Pens wrote a post just for us. He asks everyone who reached their Nanowrimo goal to ask themselves these questions:

Was there something about my story or my execution that was otherworldly brilliant? Off-the-charts original and compelling? Something, anything, that made it better than just good? That made the whole exceed the sum of its parts?

Read the full article here.

-Finally, I just finished reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. This is a very funny book, and it will make you happy you took all those high school Spanish classes.. I wish I had time to write a review, but that’s what the NY Times Sunday Book Review is for. Check it out here.