Nope, I don’t know that name. There do seem to be several people selling that kind of thing though, using mostly the same formula, inside whatever particular niche they know about.

I could have cited any number of famous authors who’ve written about writing–Kurt Vonnegut’s short 1982 essay, “How to Write With Style,” is priceless–but Pournelle’s advice about a million words, as arbitrary as it may seem, is probably the most practical I’ve ever seen. I don’t read him as much as I used to because the topics he covers don’t overlap much with my 9-to-5 job anymore. But he’s an influence.

And I just searched on that Vonnegut essay, and I sure echoed him a lot in here too–particularly #5, though I didn’t cite him directly.

WordPress has certainly made things easier. Posting content and formatting it well is much easier now, and its Dashboard makes it easy to see what people are reading, which makes finding inspiration much easier on those days that inspiration doesn’t find you. I think it’s usually best when inspiration finds you, but knowing where to find it keeps things going in the meantime.

Two things on #10:

s/these this/this/ (unless you were intentionally posting a “Don’t do this” title)

And I’m glad you’re still reading (or at least referencing) JerryP. I think I originally found you through a DayNotes site that he had linked to. I enjoy his writing (blog and books) and thinking. Yours, too. It seems like getting the new WordPress system unleashed a flood of posts – and that’s a good thing.