Writing – Page 10 – Ron Writes Stuff

Friday Morning FYI – 6/10/2016

June 10, 2016 Ron Delaney JrLeave a comment

Welcome to your Friday Morning FYI – my chance to share observations/wisdom/rants in short, easily consumed form.

In my younger years, I pirated stuff off the internet. Music and software mostly. I was young and money-less and got sucked into the pit of “Screw them, they want too much for this.” I’m not proud of having done that and don’t do it anymore, though I do know people who routinely steal content (yes, downloading for free is stealing – what else do you call taking something without compensation?). It’s wrong on every level, and can have impacts far beyond the money you think that content’s creator won’t miss, as thoroughly explained by this post by Sarah Madison over on her BLOG. That brings us to this week’s FYI:

I get it, HBO is expensive. So is Photoshop, the latest hardcover book by your favorite author, and whatever album you just have to listen to. But high cost doesn’t mean you have a right to consume any of those things for free, and more to the point, it doesn’t mean the creators shouldn’t benefit financially from their work. Yes, work. Writing a book is work. Filming a show is work. Not charity, not free art, work. You get compensated for your work, so should they.

Thanks for reading,

{RDj}

Friday Morning FYI – 6/3/2016

June 3, 2016 Ron Delaney JrLeave a comment

Welcome to your Friday Morning FYI – my chance to share observations/wisdom/rants in short, easily consumed form.

I’m writing this to you from my favorite coffee shop, on a morning where I had day job work to do, to shop for some fishing tackle (rw shopping, not interwebz shopping), and to pack for a weekend camping trip. Why am I mentioning this? Because I got the work and packing done before 9AM, came to the coffee shop to write, and will go buy my tackle in a few minutes. In fact I’m only taking the time to write this post because I’m done writing for today (seven hundred words to finish a chapter). Nuts? Not at all. That’s this week’s FYI:

JK Rowling said, “Be ruthless about protecting your writing days…” I all too often hear writers complain about having “… just too much else to do.” Bull. There’s a lot of hours in the day. I know writers who get words down at 5AM. Get up earlier, have some coffee and breakfast, and get typing.

Or do you presume to tell JK she’s wrong?

Thanks for reading,

{RDj}

Friday Morning FYI – 5/27/2016

May 28, 2016 Ron Delaney JrLeave a comment

Welcome to your Friday Morning FYI (I’m late because I’ve been fighting f*cking torx bolts since Thursday edition) – my chance to share observations/wisdom/rants in short, easily consumed form.

In case you didn’t know, summer has popped here in the north east. As a fall/winter guy, normally I’d be unhappy about that, but I’ve been waiting for it to get warm ever since I bought my jeep late last year. The long weekend seemed the perfect time to take the doors off and the roof down, but the makers of my jeep had a dark surprise for me, named LockTite, which holds the torx nuts in place unless you’re friggin Superman (who’d still probably strip the damn things trying to get them out). I’m sure the folks at Jeep have a fine reason for using LockTite, but for those of us who just want to take our doors off (the problem is relocating the side mirrors), it’s a royal pain. That leads us to this week’s FYI:

Good intentions only get you so far. In everything you do, you must also consider the consequences, especially when others are involved.

Thanks for reading,

{RDj}

PS – If you think I’m being dramatic about some stupid bolts, you’re right. Go try and work them yourself and tell me how it goes 🙂

Sexy

May 23, 2016May 24, 2016 Ron Delaney JrLeave a comment

I was thinking about being in the woods and camp fires and the way people use sexy to mean attractive in some way, and this little run-on sentence crawled around in my ear until I wrote it down. I liked the rhythm in it, so decided an impromptu post was in order.

I think you’re sexy but not in an I want to have sex with you way, in a way that if I was sitting around a campfire with my friends and you came out of the woods and asked if we had any tea I’d say “Sure, little tree, join our circle,” and we’d all talk until we fell asleep under the stars and the next morning I’d wake up and you’d be gone and that would be OK.

Thanks for reading,

{RDj}

Friday Morning FYI – 5/6/2016

May 6, 2016May 6, 2016 Ron Delaney JrLeave a comment

Welcome to your Friday Morning FYI – my chance to share observations/wisdom/rants in short, easily consumed form.

Last week, I wrote about a barista who asked if I was a writer. After that brief conversation, I returned to my coffee and WIP. About an hour and several hundred new words later, I heard the following, in that same barista’s voice, from the direction of the espresso machine:

“I hadn’t played live in a while, but it’s like coming home after a long vacation. Everything looks a little different even though it’s not, and it takes you a little while to get back into everything. Once you do, it’s like you never left.”

You’re d@mn right I wrote that down, and yes, I plan to use it. That’s this week’s FYI:

Writers should always have their ears open to the profound/insightful/asinine things said around them. Why? Because there are voices other than our own, spoken from experiences beyond ours, by people more complex than any we might invent. To not take from those voices (including other writers) would be like ignoring an unclaimed pile of gold because you were on your way to pan for your own.

Aaron Sorkin summarizes it for us:

Um… or was it TS Eliot?

Oh balls. Did Eliot steal that quote from Oscar Wilde?

See what I did there?

I’m not talking about full-on plagiarism, of course. Word for word, sentence for sentence, paragraph for paragraph copy -> paste is wrong on every level. But when you hear something that clicks, you’d be a fool to not jot it down.

And yes, I fully expect someone to steal those words, just as I stole them. Good on those who do 🙂

Thanks for reading,

{RDj}