A lot of people seem to be talking about writing; more often, more thoughtfully, more purposefully. Jeremy Keith rounded up quite a few of them earlier today which, in their several ways, make the point that writing regularly is a habit, that it may help others but mostly helps yourself and that you should write whatever you want. All good and true. None of the people Jeremy singled out says much about setting constraints, except perhaps for Patrick Rhone's plea that anything over 280 characters should be "on a blog that you own". Recently, however, I have seen other people remark on the value of a set constraint, usually a number of words. The morning brain dump folks set a minimum of 750 words, and no maximum. Others like a set number of words, no more, no fewer. And that reminded me that ages ago, when blogging was still new and exciting, I took part in a little challenge.

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Grant McCracken's series of case studies on American culture have been eminently interesting and entertaining, and like a good novel I've been limiting myself to one a day even though a blob of them dropped a few days ago. Today's read, on platforms for producer creativity struck a chord with me...

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Very strange to read an interview with Martie Haselton of UCLA days after reading in The Economist that The idea that women are cyclical cuckolders bites the dust. Why? Because Martie Haselton says:

The work from my lab is best known for doing rigorous studies of changes across women’s ovula...

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As an editor, one of my triggers is phrases of the form "I work for the elimination of ambiguity". I shun them. I prefer to work to eliminate ambiguity. I do so because "it's a fact the whole world knows" that nounifications are harder to understand.

Now I read, in The Economist, that "presenting ... statements in noun form" -- I support the division -- "reduced feelings of anger" compared to the verb form -- I support dividing.

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After a frustrating afternoon pursuing deep geekiness (with some progress, and which I may write more about) I decided to cheer myself up by continuing the endless, thankless and probably pointless task of bringing old posts over here. Three of the five aroused intense memories.

• There was the da...

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