Reallocating my Time
It may come as a surprise to you (it shouldn’t), but I am Italian (technically, Italian American). One of my biggest regrets: I can’t speak Italian. Now, my parents speak fluently, but being the last child, I didn’t benefit from them speaking the language at home. By the time I was born, they were mostly speaking English in the home. Now, I can listen to Italian and deduce what is happening, but I can only respond in English. As such, for most of my life, I have had the desire to learn Italian. I love my heritage and read history books on Italy (in the read more section, I will actually share some knowledge I’ve gained about the ol’ boot).
So, when I made the decision to dive deep into learning the language, I quickly came face to face with the sheer amount of time needed to study. The goal is two hours a day, which means, I am severely impacting my writing/reading time during the weekdays. Between painting, learning a language, work, writing, and reading, I am beginning to burn out. As such, I will be maintaining writing/reading as I love it, but I will be (for the first time in 6 years) prioritizing something above reading and writing. The goal, at this point, is to come home from work, study a lesson or two of Italian and then use whatever time I have left to write/read/socialize. I know my output will drop, but I expect that I will be able to maintain 80% of my focus. [Click “Read More” for some knowledge on Italy]
Read MoreProper use of Words in Headlines
On every job listing I’ve ever read, there is a simple requirement: “must be able to communicate effectively”. I am finding that journalists must not have that requirement as part of their jobs. For the last couple of months, since a certain election, every single headline seems to be over reaching in terms of what has happened. For example: “Ethics Board Literally Gutted” or “Repealed Act 3192 Which Defends All Your Rights”. While those are fictitious examples, you would assume that something horrible has happened, that the actual act has taken place and the ethics board no longer has anyone one it (because they were disemboweled (unless they meant figuratively in their headline)) or that the act was repealed.
Yet, when you go into research mode, because you can’t believe you missed something so important happening under your nose, you find that nothing of the sort happened. In fact, you learn the initial steps have been taken to move towards the eventual gutting of an ethics board and that they meant figuratively. However, if you are like most people, you become despondent because your anger was so high and now you learn nothing bad has actually transpired. So you close the tabs and move onto something more pressing.
The problem arises when you eventually do see a true headline and the ethics board ends up gutted, you don’t react with anger or hatred. You have already done that, and you go about your day disgruntled that the world is falling apart. This is because you have been desensitized to the gutting already, so you don’t take it nearly as drastically. In your mind, you’ve seen this headline before so you browse right past it.
So… journalists… please use the proper wording and words when describing things in your headlines. Otherwise, we as a species will stop caring altogether… leave the sensationalism at home.
Read MoreWant Some Cake?
Of course you do. You want to bury your head in a giant pan of delicious frosting and sugary flour. You’re going to tear through each layer, gnawing and munching quickly away from sadness. Yes, cake brings happiness, but you know what doesn’t bring happiness – stupid phrases.
I am focusing my hatred on a simple phrase: Have your cake and eat it too. This is just a shit sentence. Think about it, everything is a progression of time, so when you say Have your cake, you mean you have your cake at that point, then when you say: eat it too – you obviously are going to eat it. Who buys cake and doesn’t eat it? The whole point of having cake is to eat it.
Now, what the people are looking for in this statement is to say you cannot both have the cake and also have eaten it. However, the above sentence doesn’t convey that point. It is a sloppy sentence and means nothing other than the basic reasons to get a cake, to eat it.
Therefore, in order to make us better people, I propose the following: To eat your cake and still have it. Yeah, it isn’t nearly as catchy but it actually makes sense. Theo out!
Read MoreYou’re Doing it Wrong – Activism
Everyone’s a critic… and no one does anything right… except for me (In this case, me as in whoever is speaking, not me: Theodore Maestranzi). I think that sentence sums up the bulk of humanity. It is grating to accept someone else’s viewpoint/design/project over your own. Our insides boil, our vision blurs, and a deep rumblings of regret bubble into our mind. We try to squash it, but we eventually end up questioning everything. Eventually, we will enter a state of despondency – if lucky – we will rise from that challenge and continue down our path after making valid corrections – more than likely – we will step away from that realm of life and never return. [click “Read More” for more delicious rant]
Read MoreState of my Writing: Current Catalogue of Writing
My friend began a project over 200 days ago. His goal is to write a blog post a day about an album he has never listened to before. Which means, he has listened to over 200 albums and written over 200 blog posts this year alone. After he cleared that goal, I thought to myself: what are the number of projects I’ve completed. Fun fact, I haven’t posted up about some of my projects: the screen play I wrote with two of my friends (one being the person who is doing the album blog I mentioned above, we call ourselves the Three Idiots), and a podcast thing (my co-host is also the person who is writing the blog on albums, the occasional guest is the third idiot from the screenplay) we are building a backlog (we haven’t released any yet). So at the time, I have manuscripts, short stories, a podcast, and screenplay. Furthermore, I sometimes get down on myself because I have a lot of things that have been cooked but not sold (aka everything). So, today, I am taking this blog post to flaunt my output (some things are works in progress, and a lot of them are in a forever state of revisions but being submitted to places).
Below, the total amount of words sums to 627,957 sans the blog posts (all word counts taken at the point of writing this blog – manuscripts, short stories not on the website, and short stories on the website).
- Manuscripts in order of being written (Total Words – 491,666)
- Primo Capite and the Others – 121,903 Words
- Journey to God – 72,785 Words
- Tesla’s Travels – 72,183 Words
- BlackBox Enterprises – 64,171 Words
- Ashley Pépin’s Mistake (Novella) – 23,266 Words
- Bhor’s Bathos – 106,725 Words
- WT (working title) | Gaia’s Revenge (Novella) – 19,219 (ending pending – not complete)
- Unnamed Manuscript 8 – 11,414 Words (still in progress)
- Short Stories (Total Words – 136,291)
- Not on Website (Total Words – 64,290)
- Unnamed Short Story: Job Interview – 5,697 Words (still being written, may exceed 8,000 Words)
- Unnamed Short Story: AI Project – 5,137 Words (in revisions)
- Unnamed Short Story: The Store – 3,824 Words (submitted to literary magazine) (6/22/2017)
- Stephanie Bourbon’s Lament – 1,028 Words
- 1352 MPH – 2,750 Words (3/26/2017)
- WT (working title) 9A3C – 1,313 Words (3/8/2017)
- Suburban Radicalization – 10,042 Words (2/27/2017)
- Multiplying Secrets – 5,598 Words (10/23/2016)
- Two Brains – 7,634 Words (10/18/2016)
- Filling Gaps – 3,454 Words (10/9/2016)
- Purifying the Past (two versions) – 330 Words | 410 Words (7/31/2016)
- Lamentable Climax – 498 Words (7/31/2016)
- Cherries and Blueberries – 425 Words (7/31/2016)
- Morning Glory – 494 Words (7/26/2016)
- Extrinsic Entrapment – 515 Words (2/24/2016)
- It is all Piss in the End – 500 Words (2/9/2016)
- Regulars, Parties, and High Life – 500 Words (2/9/2016)
- Twenty Two Fifty – 491 Words (2/8/2016)
- Stuck in a Loop – 2,708 Words (1/29/2016)
- Adding Inventory – 2,987 Words (10/5/2015)
- Exciting Work – 2,280 Words (8/11/2015)
- Trappist – 5,675 Words (8/5/2015)
- On Website (Going through these for this project, the works here are unrecognizable compared to what I haven’t posted (Total Words – 72,001))
- Normal Fiction (Total Words – 65,160)
- Biases – 3,105 Words (4/14/2015)
- Oliver the Orc and the Search for the Perfect Beignet – 1,299 Words
- Franks Slipstream – 2,612 Words
- Better than a Ream of Paper – 2,730 Words
- Like Laika – 4,411 Words
- Precarious Air – 2,721 Words
- Relationships – 1,212 Words
- Solution – 1,894 Words
- Last Will and Testament – 1,975 Words
- Similarities – 2,204 Words
- Redirect – 2,091 Words
- House of Bourbon – 1,476 Words
- Time – 2,219 Words
- Love – 835 Words
- Another Day – 5,074 Words
- Hope – 3,723 Words
- Gopple – 3,864 Words
- The Bohr’s Protocol – 8,344 Words (inspired Tesla’s Travels and Bohr’s Bathos – though the writing doesn’t, and the plot drastically was modified during writing)
- Clouds of Fire – 1,129 Words (Chapter 1 of a failed manuscript)
- Love’s Warrior – 3,331 Words
- The Fantastic Mister Mittens – 3,706 Words
- Tis and Orange – 1,874 Words
- Proverbial White Whale – 3,331 Words (Best assumed date for completion: January 16, 2013 | First short story posted to website)
- Flash Fiction (Total Words – 6,841)
- Please, Don’t Recycle – 449 Words
- A Little Vanilla – 499 Words
- Family Matters – 482 Words
- Allure – 965 Words
- Two Snakes – 799 Words
- Medallion – 493 Words
- Dipper – 1,000 Words
- Carbonation – 464 Words
- Arm and I – 499 Words
- Drops in an Ocean – 440 Words
- Cookies – 751 Words
- Normal Fiction (Total Words – 65,160)
- Not on Website (Total Words – 64,290)
- Blog Post – 151 posts
- Podcasts – 16 Episodes at an hour an episode (3 book podcasts – Nueromancer, Wolf in White Van, and The Crying on Lot 49)
- Screen Play – Final pass in September when the Three Idiots ride again.
How Hate Dies – Maybe
I don’t know if capitalism will destroy hate, but I can hope that a weird dynamic that has sprung up within our version of capitalism that will force hate to die out – revenue. In previous posts I’ve railed against the new structure of using advertisements to build revenue for most technology companies. I hate these advertisements because I don’t think I should be subjected to a 15 second advertisement when I want to watch a 2 minute video… however, I am beginning to see an interesting twist. This culture has given the power for choosing web content to the companies that need to advertise – not the consumer (think, who pays the bills, that’s who chooses). But more on that, let’s focus on some assumptions I’ve made in the past. [click “Read More” to dive into the twisted world of revenue]
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