My favorite thing about this incredible and terrifying video of the Baker Shot, a 23-kiloton nuclear bomb that was detonated about 90 feet underwater at Bikini Atoll in 1946, is the countdown timer in the first few frames.
They are detonating a nuclear bomb, and yet the timer looks as though someone has written in the numbers and the word FIRE by hand.
On a recent podcast, musician Aimee Mann said, “Being stuck in one place and bored out of your mind is the key to creativity.” I couldn’t agree more.
My writing career only began because I was bored out of my mind as well.
It was February of 2005. My wife and I were spending a week in Boca Raton, Florida with her then 87 year-old grandmother. Much of our trip consisted of breakfast and lunch at the club and dinner at a restaurant somewhere in town.
Halfway through the trip, Nana left us for the evening. She had a date with a man named Joe and an opera class at the local college, which left us home alone and without a car. After days without Internet access or cable television service and nothing left to read, I found myself in a desperate search for something to keep me busy.
The previous November, my then-fiancée and I were having dinner with our close friends, Charles and Justine. During the course of the meal, Justine mentioned that she had lost an earring earlier that day and was hoping to find it when they returned home. I asked Justine how she knew that the earring had been misplaced. “Perhaps some clever thief came to your house and stole just one earring, so that you wouldn’t suspect theft.”
The idea of a thief who only steals items that go unnoticed lodged itself in my mind, and when I arrived home later that night, I jotted down the idea on my ever-growing list of possible story ideas.
The idea was still stuck in my mind while pacing around Nana’s home three months later, but I had no story. Just the idea for a character. Nevertheless, boredom defeated my belief that I had to outline any story that I was going to write, so with nothing but an idea for a character, I started writing.
I wasn’t sure if it would be a short story or something longer, but by the time the trip was done, the first three chapters of the novel were complete and I was well on my way.
When I began the book, I had no idea where the story might take me,. I simply began connecting sentences together and waited to see what might happen. This is a method of writing that no one had told me about during my time at college. Despite attaining a degree in English with a creative writing concentration, my professors had always taught me to outline before writing. Create character sketches. Research. Plan.
I’ve since learned to embrace the unknown and allow the story to come to me. Stephen King calls this “unearthing the fossil,” though I wouldn’t hear this expression until the book was nearly finished. I’ve also learned that about half of all fiction writers write this way.
Ten years go, this would have sounded like nonsense to me, but now I believe it with all my heart. There were many moments in the writing of Something Missing when I literally did not know what would happen next until I wrote it, and the same has held true for my subsequent novels.
In fact, as I writing the final chapters of Something Missing, I still didn’t know what my main character’s ultimate fate would be. I was writing the section of a chapter in which much of the plot would be resolved when my wife called.
“I can’t talk. I’m about to find out what happens to Martin.”
“Really,” she said. “What happens?”
“I don’t know! I’m still writing it!”
If you are reading this chapter someday, remember that I experienced it just like a reader would: One word at a time.
Though many authors know exactly where their stories will ultimately go, I do not, and I’ve learned to trust this instinct. I start with character. I find a person who interests me, and then, in a vomit-provoking, disgustingly spiritual, earthy-crunchy way, I assume that the plot is already written in the character’s fate.
Once I’ve found the character, his or her fate is sealed. I just have to unearth it.
But it’s true. I’d been trying to start a novel for more than five years before beginning Something Missing, but each time, I thought that I needed to plan the story from beginning to end before starting to write. While many writers work this way, I have found that I am better off beginning with a glimmer of an idea and discovering the rest along the way. I leave the story to fate, and things have seemed to work out so far.
I like to tell this story because I worry that too many writers sit around, waiting for their one great idea to emerge, when that idea might already exist, waiting to be unearthed.
So if you’re waiting for the next great novel idea to reveal itself to you, why not pick up a pen and starting writing while you wait?
As for my, I’m eternally grateful that even at the age of 87, Nana was still driving, dating and taking classes. Like Aimee Mann, I needed to be stuck in one place and bored out of my mind for my creative process to finally reveal itself to me. Nana unwittingly provided me with just that when she left me at home that night.
She’s 92 today and little has changed. On Sunday night she was sitting in the audience at The Moth’s GrandSLAM, chatting with hipsters from Brooklyn while waiting to hear me tell my story.
I have friends in their thirties who tell me that they can’t stay up that late.
Some brilliant person has taken the J.Crew catalog and used the images to create three minute narratives that are both funny and, in the words of one commenter, “de-mythologize the vaguely-exotic-yet-comfortable-and-assured lifestyles and identities marketed to our authenticity-seeking culture.
It appears that about four of these have been made so far, but I still love the first one the most.
The only problem with the project is the name. While admittedly clever, it’s almost impossible to find these videos without accidentally landing on an actual J.Crew webpage.
Otherwise, they are near perfection.
J.Crew Crew Episode 1: The Honeymoon? from Meghan O'Neill on Vimeo.
My “novel in the drawer” (the book I wrote two years ago and am keeping in reserve for a rainy day) is the story of a vigilante of sorts who is desperate to remain unidentified by his community. He enacts his brand of vigilante justice through acts of public shaming.
His name is Wyatt.
Wyatt would freakin’ love Dove’s recent guerilla marketing campaign.
I do, too.
This odd and fascinating man, who spent untold hours creating a device to remove the filling from an Oreo cookie, is just the kind of person you might find in one of my books.
The Illinois board of tourism created this video in honor of Abraham Lincoln and the attention he will be receiving at the Academy Awards this evening as a result of the Spielberg film.
It’s a bizarre film by any standards but even more so considering it comes from a governmental agency responsible for bringing tourists to their less-than-touristy state.
Government is so often devoid of humor. I love it when someone working in the bureaucratic machine manages to be creative.
It’s long for the Internet but well worth it.
Brace yourself for the most amazing video of 2013.
Featuring the most amazing product of 2013.
Just imagine the applications:
Apply to your dog’s fur on a rainy day
Surreptitiously apply to a friend’s soup spoon as a gag
Coat your entire house in the product
Apply to yourself before swimming (I can’t even begin to imagine what might happen)
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is 200 years old this week.
In celebration of this anniversary, Anglerfish Magazine created a “Which Pride and Prejudice Character Are You?” flowchart.
Usually these flowcharts are nonsense, but this one seems, at least for me, spot on.
It turns out that I am a Lizzie (Elizabeth Bennet), which is described as:
You are strong willed and aren’t afraid to express your opinion when you feel the moment is right. You can find it difficult to empathize with people of a different opinion or nature to yourself.
If asked to write a two sentence description of myself, I may have chosen these very words.
No wonder I like the book so much. Other than the emphasis placed on marrying a wealthy man (I cannot tell you how much this desire both disgusts and disturbs me, regardless of the time period), I have always adored the story.
The flowchart also led me to The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, an online, modern day video journal adaption of the book that I highly recommend. Hilarious and exceptionally well done.
Late last week I “stirred up a hornet’s nest” by writing a piece arguing that the reason Hasbro markets Easy Bake Ovens solely to girls is because the vast majority of children who want an Easy Bake Oven are girls, and the company has no obligation to the minority of boys who might want one.
This was not a chicken-or-egg debate over why more girls prefer the Easy Bake Oven than boys (though some wanted to make it one). I was simply arguing the logic behind Hasbro’s decision from a business perspective.
But the chicken-or-egg debate is an interesting one as well, and one worth discussing. In terms of why more girls than boys prefer this toy, I thought this TED Talk was the perfect place to begin thinking about the issue:
Every night at 10:00 PM, the "Flogsta scream" can be heard in Flogsta, a neighborhood in the western outskirts of the Swedish city of Uppsala.
At precisely this time, students throughout the region scream collectively from windows, balconies and roof tops.
How the Flogsta scream first began is a matter of debate.
Some residents claim that it was initially a stress reliever that students engaged in during exams and then became a daily occurrence.
Others say it started in remembrance of an unidentified student who committed suicide in the 1970s.
Either way, it can’t be helping property values in the neighborhood.
It’s always slightly annoying when a guy delivers a toast or a wedding speech that is impossible to top, but in this case, I’ll allow it.
I don’t watch many 15 minute videos online, but this one was worth it.
I played this video for my students last week as part of our Writer’s Workshop, and they were overwhelmed with inspiration.
Literally.
They were blown away by author and illustrator Jarrett' Krosoczka’s ability to overcome difficult childhood circumstances while remaining positive. They couldn’t stop talking about the degree to which he dedicated himself to his craft at such an early age. Some of them pulled notebooks from their desks and started writing the novels and children’s books the instant the video ended.
One of my students referred to Krosoczka as his newest hero, which I found mildly disconcerting considering he has yet to refer to me in those terms.
Whatever.
Another student said, “Mr. Dicks, you need to show us more stuff like this.”
I’d like to, but there simply aren’t that many Jarrett Krosoczkas in the world. But I assured my student that I’d keep my eyes open.
Honestly, what this man does should not be possible.
This might be the first time I have ever seen an actual superhero in action.
This video was sent to me by Chris Harris, filmmaker who created this short film about an imaginary friend about a few years ago. He recently read MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND, and it naturally made him think a lot about Mr. Boo.
I loved the film and wanted to share it with you. It’s about four minutes long and worth every second. Intriguing, mysterious, clever. And I thought the actors were brilliant in their performances.
So much story in just four minutes.
I do not wrap gifts well. Part of my problem relates to a lack of skill, but I also don’t value the wrapping of gifts all that much and designate time accordingly.
Growing up, most gifts in my home were wrapped in newspaper, and if we were lucky, the color version of the Sunday comics. Perhaps my lack of interest began then.
However, I was intrigued when I saw this video on ways to wrap challenging gifts, because I struggle with this from time to time.
Then I actually watched the video and was supremely annoyed.
Within the first minute, the wrapping expert made the following statements:
Upon being shown a less than ideally wrapped gift and asked how she would feel had she received the gift, she said, “I would feel like you didn’t take much time and effort in the wrapping of it, and I would be disappointed.”
Disappointed? I’m giving you a gift, but because I failed to use ribbon or wrap it in the preferred method, you are going to be disappointed?
Then I’ll just keep the damn gift and give it to someone who does not allow the wrapping to get in the way of the sentiment.
She then adds that a less than ideal wrapping job “devalues the presentation, which sometimes devalues the gift.”
Seriously? If I wrap your gift poorly, you may no longer value the gift as much. Once again, I just wouldn’t give this woman a gift. Ever. What the hell happened to “It’s the thought that counts.”
This wrapping expert would have you believe that “It’s the thought that counts, as long as the merchandise is wrapped well.”
Finally, when presented with a wine bottle wrapped in traditional wrapping paper, she say, “It would be embarrassing to give or to get, I think.”
No, lady. I think you should be embarrassed for believing that a substandard wrapping job would embarrassing any rational giver or receiver. The last thing any sane person is doing when receiving a gift is evaluating the quality of the wrapping.
Her suggestion for wrapping a bottle of wine is a product called the Wine’O, which appears to be little more than a version of the tall, brown paper bag that you receive at a liquor store when purchasing a bottle of wine.
The wrapping expert declares the Wine’O classy.
The Wine’O is so not classy.
Katy Waldman has earned my undying loyalty with her recent Slate piece entitled Grapefruit is Disgusting.
If only she would go after broccoli with the same fervor.
While you should read her entire piece, maybe twice, I thought this particular paragraph stood out above the rest and should probably be nominated for paragraph of the year.
No. Grapefruit is unwieldy, disgusting, and in some cases dangerous to eat. It is indisputably the worst fruit anyone has ever put on a plate.
I have always admired writers willing to take a stand absent any qualifiers.