These might be the most important qualities for doing anything. Talent In every interview I’m asked what’s the most important quality a novelist has to… Read More »Haruki Murakami on Writing: Talent. Focus. Endurance.
Make it better. Make it more specific. We often discuss art this way: the artist had something he wanted to express, and then he just,… Read More »Intuition plus Iteration: George Saunders on Writing as Editing
I’m working my way through Elizabeth Eisenstein’s excellent The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, an abridged version of her two-volume The Printing Press as… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (12): Elizabeth Eisenstein on How the Printing Press Changed Books
I love it when people describe writing a blog, or writing on the internet, as “popularizing” economics or something similar. That is a sign they… Read More »Tyler Cowen on Writing on the Internet, and Network Value Creation
The technology of writing isn’t simply the infrastructure of thought: it’s the enabling infrastructure of most of the complex activities we think of as government.… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (11): Writing Rules
Here’s the great Elizabeth Eisenstein on the impact of the printing press on a lost world of information underload, and an interesting lens for viewing… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (10): Elizabeth Eisenstein on the Printing Press and the End of the Information Famine
The weird thing about code is that you realise that language is code: the ability to direct other people lets you get more stuff done… Read More »Writing Before: High-Level Language, Code and Subroutinity
Seven year-old Onfim slays his enemies; Onfim is a wild beast. Onfim (hat tip: Alex Tabarrok and Owen) reminds us that reading and writing (and… Read More »Writing and Reading (and visual art) as Technology (9): Virtual Realities
On Speaking [My literary agent] Darhansoff & Verrill… handles speaking requests. I almost never accept these. When I do, I charge a lot of money,… Read More »Neal Stephenson on Speaking Arrangements; Art and Artists; Correspondence and Productive Writing
Overlay For those who came in late, here’s everyone’s favourite online encyclopedia on AR: Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience of a real-world environment… Read More »Writing and Reading as Technology (8): Augmenting Reality