Inneresting 35
issue 35
January 15, 2021
Taking Stock of 2020
Last week, John posted his Annual Review for 2020.
This issue’s links follow in that spirit of looking back, and preparing to move forward.
Show me a better GIF. I'll wait.
Lessons from Pixar’s origin story
Ed Catmull, computer scientist, Lucasfilm alum, and co-founder of Pixar, gave an hour-long talk at the Stanford Graduate School of Business about the early days of Pixar.
It’s full of trivia about the company’s early films, as well as anecdotes and advice about how to spot and solve problems in a creative team.
Any momentum will get you moving forward
Finding motivation to move forward with your writing even in the best of times can be difficult. Few will confuse 2020 with the best of times.
But in an interview with Esquire, author Rumaan Alam discusses some techniques he uses to change things up, keep his writing playful, and take some of weight off of Having To Write:
“Often when I do exercises, they have to do with numbers. Which is funny, because I hate numbers. But I’ll say, ‘You have to write 333 words exactly. No more, no less.’ I published a story a couple of years ago that grew from an assignment to write a story where every paragraph was its own sentence. I wrote it by hand to curtail the possible length. I suppose I could have spent weeks on it, but I did it in a burst. It’s five paragraphs, and each one is one sentence long. Another exercise I often teach is to write for the length of an episode of sitcom television.”
Scoring your tabletop sessions
Maybe, like John’s, your tabletop gaming sessions have moved online. Or maybe you’re playing within your bubble.
No matter how you’re keeping up with your quests, Tabletop Audio has free ambient loops to help immerse your party in whatever world you're adventuring in.
Highland How-To: Reviewing Your Writing
Looking to scan through your writing to make sure you’ve addressed all your notes to yourself, or want to share notes with someone reading the PDF? Highland 2 can help.
When looking at your script in Preview, toggle the check boxes for Synopses and Notes to add those parts to your Preview and Exported files.
And when looking at your script in Revision Mode, don’t forget that you can manually mark and clear revisions. Highlight the text, then press ⌘ Command + R to mark it as revised, or ⌥ Option + ⌘ Command + R to Clear Revisions.
You can also go to the menu bar to make your whole file asterisk-free with Revisions > Clear All Revisions.
For more tips on how to get the most out of Highland 2, check out our Knowledge Base!
Other Cool Things
In Nora Ephron’s 2010 book, I Remember Nothing, she made two lists to sum up what she will and will not miss.
What if your Twitter feed replaced advertisements with reminders from your todo list? That’s the concept behind the Safari plugin Hijack Your Feed.
And that’s what’s inneresting this week!
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