My current favorite app on my iPhone comes from McSweeney’s, specifically their McSweeney’s Internet Tendency content, updated nearly daily, consisting of short-to-medium-length humorous submissions from a stable of contributing writers.
And by humorous, I mean regularly true, laugh-out-loud humor, humor that I frequently forward on via Facebook and Twitter and email because I love spreading the joy. (Note: Not all of the content is strictly for laughs, including the occasional very serious book excerpt.)
Since many of these pieces are very brief one-offs, seemingly thrown together quickly as inspiration strikes, the Internet Tendency isn’t really all that different from a multi-author blog, if an extremely minimalist blog, where you decidedly will NOT find any photos, animated GIFs, or video clips.
Included, are a variety of recurring “columns” (not unlike my Recurring Series) — “No Fear of Flying: Kamikaze Missions in Death, Sex, and Comedy”; “Teddy Wayne’s Unpopular Proverbs”; “Ben Greenman’s Graphs About Charts and Charts About Graphs”, etc. — and I was particularly inspired by their “Open Letters to People or Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond” columns when I wrote my post An Open Letter To My Words With Friends Friends last month.
Now, I’ve been reading the Internet Tendency for months and months, so why, you might ask, did I all of a sudden decide to write about it today?
Well, it’s because I loved this!
The Ultimate Guide to Writing Better Than You Normally Do
by Colin NissanWRITE EVERY DAY
Writing is a muscle. Smaller than a hamstring and slightly bigger than a bicep, and it needs to be exercised to get stronger. Think of your words as reps, your paragraphs as sets, your pages as daily workouts. Think of your laptop as a machine like the one at the gym where you open and close your inner thighs in front of everyone, exposing both your insecurities and your genitals. Because that is what writing is all about.
DON’T PROCRASTINATE
Procrastination is an alluring siren taunting you to Google the country where Balki from Perfect Strangers was from, and to arrange sticky notes on your dog in the shape of hilarious dog shorts. A wicked temptress beckoning you to watch your children, and take showers. Well, it’s time to look procrastination in the eye and tell that seafaring wench, “Sorry not today, today I write.”
