Author Archives: Doug

myMFA – A two year writer’s development program

A few months ago a writing pal passed along a link to Dennis Cass’ post discussing his version of an idealized MFA program, an alternative MFA. Cass’ point of view was that traditional MFA curriculums were filed with blanks, specifically outside of craft development, as done through workshops, and outside (perhaps) literary criticism, as done through massive reading work.

This struck a cord with me, it sounded about right, so I went off and built one of my own, what I call myMFA, it’s outlined in detail, along with the schedule of how I implemented it in 2009 and 2010, after the jump…

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WriteRoom and Notational Velocity

A modification to WriteRoom’s SimpleText application has me looking at Notational Velocity again. What I find is a near perfect minimalist integration and text management system that supports long term data storage.

My description of the applications, and how I use them in my infobase system follows after the jump.

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BusyCal, an iCal Replacement, is not quite busy enough

Last week I installed and then de-installed BusyCal, a new and hotly touted iCal replacement.

It was the product of the development team that created David Pogue’s favorite calendar, Now Up-to-Date, and I thought it promising since there really is not another iCal replacement package out there unless you adopt Entourage which means being outside the Apple suite of apps with all their interconnected goodness. Here’s what I liked and didn’t like about the application…

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The Right March on Washington

When I was young, civil disobedience was the tool of choice of the left. Now it has become the tool of the right. In August conservatives filled town halls. Today they filled the Washington Mall.

While the right is not really comfortable, yet, with the tactics of Gandhi – they stand stiffly, wear pastels and khakis, their signs have none of the humor of the old 1960’s banners, they look like they are going to overheat in the sun, and no one burns their bras or even takes off their cloths – the crowds are big and growing.

This must be bitter sweet for President Obama, our community organizer in chief…

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Health Care Reform: It is a Lie

Yep it’s a lie. After the summer of discontent, and the President’s speech last night (with its heckling) I’ve written up my thoughts on the current health care debate.

I wish we were talking about the issues that would actually solve the problem and stop all the lies. But then again, it’s not really about health care, right?

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File System Infobase Manager

I’ve posted a complete outline of my File System Based Info Manager. It’s the tool I use to manage all my writing, notes, reference material, bibliographies, and records. It’s based on Alex Payne’s architecture ideas, Noguchi Yukio’s organizational systems, and input from my pals over on the Scrivener Forums.

So far it is one of the most popular posts on dougist.com.

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