Lately, I’ve been working with a lot of writers who are sending in their stories and they seem to have a great fear of the mighty exclamation point. And I get it. I get their concerns, the exclamation point has a pretty bad rap. We’ve all seen stories where every bit of dialogue ends in an exclamation point. Or our boss sends us an email and everything is a sentence fragment ending with that exclamation point. The BBC even has an article about what overusing the exclamation point says about you, writing: “Bill Bryson – writes, the exclamation mark is classically used ‘to show strong emotion (“Get out!”) or urgency (“Help me!”).’ If part of the point of punctuation is to change the timbre of the voice – another part is to get you out of a hole. Punctuation saves lives: there’s a meaningful difference between ‘Duck’ and ‘Duck!’ Both of Bryson’s examples are notable for the underlying sense of emergency, need for security, and atmosphere of fear. No wonder, then, that newspapers have historically referred to exclamation marks as ‘astonishers’, ‘gaspers’ and ‘screamers’; no wonder newspapers have been their most voracious advocates.” They consider it the selfie of the internet. I think it’s sort of the selfie of the punctuation club, too. It’s like “Yo. Exclamation mark is in the house. Everyone give it some attention!” And the BBC article goes on to say, “Overuse of any punctuation mark tells us something about ourselves, in the same way overuse of any object does. How you punctuate your sentences might have something to do with how you punctuate your life.” Here’s the thing: the exclamation point is not your enemy and it’s okay to use it in moderation. Even the god-like purveyor of all things grammatical in U.S. novels, the Chicago Manual of Style says that the exclamation point can be used, just do it sparingly or it loses its effectiveness. This is really true about everything from em-dashes to semicolons to the sexy and addictive ellipses…. Cough. See what I did there? When you avoid the exclamation point in dialogue obsessively, it isn’t helpful and you end up with something like She shouted, “I can’t believe you.” Or He yelled, “I’m going to kill you, so you betta run.” Or They hollered, “Help me.” It looks dumb. The reader thinks, “Um, are they really shouting if there is no exclamation point?” As the writer, you want to be in control of your world and part of that control is making sure that you don’t give the reader conflicting signals through verb and punctuation because a conflicted reader is a reader who won’t keep reading, who won’t keep trusting you the writer to take them on a journey into another world. So, if you make someone shout or yell or holler in dialogue, really make them do it. Pretend they are a politician making a tweet or someone being ironic and throw them all in there. No, just kidding. Only use one at a time. Seriously! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/support
We talk about the naked Florida man in the random section of the podcasts. We don’t transcribe that part, and believe me, you don’t wbut here’s the link to the article. but here’s the link to the article. So I’ve been reading this book calledThe Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload, by cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin. Anyone who has had wine with me (or a rum and root beer) will know eventually that cognitive neuroscience is my big regret—like it’s the date I went on and wanted a relationship with, but I had put so much time in with my BF political science that I just couldn’t dump him and swipe right on the cognitive neuroscience profile. His book is full of cool stuff about how our brains are just really overwhelmed and wasting a lot of time dealing with things like 40,000 items in the grocery store or hundreds of emails and notifications and god-forbid texts starting before 7 a.m. He suggests not trying to grab all the info all the time and be a little more chill because that’s what our brains need us to do. We have to focus on the important stuff, slow down, and work efficiently. Daniel Levitin writes: “Multitasking has been found to increase the production of the stress hormone cortisol as well as the fight-or-flight hormone adrenaline, which can overstimulate your brain and cause mental fog or scrambled thinking. Multitasking creates a dopamine-addiction feedback loop, effectively rewarding the brain for losing focus and for constantly searching for external stimulation. To make matters worse, the prefrontal cortex has a novelty bias, meaning that its attention can be easily hijacked by something new—the proverbial shiny objects” Every time we make a decision, it uses up energy in our body via our brains. All those choices can distract us from the cool stuff sometimes. So how do you make that better? Get rid of clutter. Clutter actually increases the stress hormone in women (cortisol) and seeing it while we’re trying to focus? It breaks us. Turn off the notifications on your email. He estimates that knowing and seeing those emails waiting decreases your working IQ by about 10 points. So avoid distractions. Find organization systems and categories that work for you. Give all your things a place and put it back in that place so that the hippocampus (a part of our brain) knows where it is. Think of how your kitchen is organized or your clothes. Forks go with other silverware, right? Socks probably are hanging out for socks. That’s a system. “Shift the burden of organizing from our brains to the external world,” Levitin writes. That’s why to-do lists on paper or digital are way better to have outside of our brains. We don’t want to have to retrieve things all the time. Levitin goes with “drop it, delegate it or defer it,” and if you can do something super quickly (like less than two minutes) just do it right away. DOG TIP FOR LIFE Don’t try to get a treat and poop and chase a squirrel all at once. Focus on one task at a time. SHOUT OUT! The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website.Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/support
SHOUT OUT! The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website.Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free. The full notes are here. https://carriejonesbooks.blog/podcast/marital-hate-and-have-trevor-noah-and-terry-real-figured-some-s-out/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/support
Every once in awhile, a dog climbs on the roof of a house and chills out, but if you’re Huck the dog, you do this all the time. How often? So often that your owner has to put a sign on the door. Join us as we talk about Huck and also about defining happiness, doggy style. All the episode notes and links are here at https://carriejonesbooks.blog/podcast/ LINKS AND RESOURCES https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/11/dalai-lama-arthur-brooks-each-us-can-break-cycle-hatred/ XIV, Dalai Lama, and Cutler, Howard C. The Art of Happiness, 10th Anniversary Edition: A Handbook for Living. Penguin Publishing Group, 2009, 294. Course: “Managing Happiness,” HarvardX, accessed June 27, 2022. “Why Are Dogs So Happy.” No author stated. Global Dog Breeds. SHOUT OUT! The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website.Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/support
Because she’s not some drugged up doper or anything like that, but shivers have taken control of her whole entire body because it’s cold, cold, cold in Bar Harbor, Maine and it isn’t even winter yet. Because she’s huddled behind the dumpster outside of Geddy’s. There’s a giant lobster claw at the front part of the restaurant and a massive moose on top of the ceiling because that’s what gets the tourists. Fake moose. Broiled monster lobster claws, red with death and sprinkled with white Christmas lights. Because it gets to be too much, huddling there against the cold and the sun’s rising over the Porcupine Islands, so she gets up. She gets up and she heads out to the wharf where all the lobstermen tie up their skiffs, so they can get out to their moorings. The wharf’s not much of anything really, just a lot of pilings holding up a parking lot and then there’s some docks holding the skiffs. WE get Because she runs out there because sometimes no matter how cold you are, running makes you warmer. It only works until you stop, though. When you stop running, the sweat against your skin turns you even colder. That’s why she usually don’t stop running. Because she does today. She does today because today she is cold, cold, cold all the way into her capillaries. Today she is cold, cold, cold all the way into the roots of her teeth. Because it’s not winter. Because it will only get colder. Hey, thanks for listening toCarrie Does Poems. These podcasts and more writing tips are at Carrie’s website, carriejonesbooks.blog. There’s also a donation button there. Even a dollar inspires a happy dance in Carrie, so thank you for your support. The music you hear is made available through the creative commons and it’s a bit of a shortened track from the fantastic Eric Van der Westen and the track is called “A Feather” and off the album The Crown Lobster Trilogy. While Carrie only posts poems weekly here, she has them (in written form) almost every other weekday over on Medium.You should check it out! https://freemusicarchive.org/music/eric-van-der-westen/the-crown-lobster-trilogy-selection --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/support
A quick ramble about setting. Writers, you need it. You might not want it. You might not be good at it, but setting is like a good fart. Sometimes you have to expel a little gas out of your rectum in order to be your best. All the notes for this podcast don't fit here, but you can find them over at Carrie's main blog. Hey, thanks for listening to Write Better Now. These podcasts and more writing tips are at Carrie’s website, carriejonesbooks.blog. There’s also a donation button there. Even a dollar inspires a happy dance in us, so thank you for your support. The music you hear is made available through the creative commons and it’s a bit of a shortened track from the fantastic Mr.ruiz and the track is Arctic Air and the album is Winter Haze Summer Daze. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/support
Back in 1862 Duchenne De Boulogne noticed that certain muscles in our face engaged whenever we were joyous. It was an involuntary reaction of our cheek muscles, the zygomatic major, and the orbicularis oculi. That’s a muscle right in front of our temples and below our eye. And when those cheek muscles and that special little muscle engage? That’s when we smile. The weird thing is this is a human universal. It happens all over the world despite gender, sex, culture, race, etc. The weird thing is that if we make ourselves smile like this, with those muscles engaged, we actually usually start to feel happier. The process reverses. There’s a guy who teaches the Introduction the Art of Happiness at a Harvard X class, Arthur Brooks, who has an experiment where you take a pencil and hold it between your teeth and you keep it there for 45 seconds. Do it. Seriously. When you do this you flex those muscles in your cheeks and your heart rate starts to decrease and your stress in your body? It starts to release. What does that mean? It means that happiness is a shared condition of humans around the world. It means we can see happiness expressed in people’s bodies. And finally, most importantly, we can actually make ourselves feel happier just by doing that easy dorky experiment where we hold chopsticks or a pen between our teeth. How cool is that? Brooks believes that “happiness is something that grows in us when we give it away,” and also that “happiness doesn’t just happen to you, you can manage it.” DOG TIP FOR LIFE Manage your happiness! Work for it! Wag your tail. Grab a stick. It’s awesome. LINKS https://learning.edx.org/course/course-v1:HarvardX+happy+2T2021/block-v1:HarvardX+happy+2T2021+type@sequential+block@dd8f672ef4ca4f44879ffd7ea4a38956/block-v1:HarvardX+happy+2T2021+type@vertical+block@049cf8336845451eb71bed94ecf75623 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2319446/ https://nypost.com/2022/05/19/topless-mom-in-her-undies-rescues-pet-goose-from-bald-eagle/ SHOUT OUT! The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website.Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/support
Myths About Presidents 26. He didn’t Ride A moose. The photo is fake Like a lot Of presidential things. 16. He dreamt His death, Found himself Waking in a coffin And asked who Was dead In the White House. Dream mourners said, “The president.” He denied the dream. Nobody listened. The story was too good. 9. He stood At the podium, Sworn in And speechifying For 8,445 words In the cold Of March. He died A month later Of pneumonia Linked to His pontification It was actually bad water At the White House. He’d been drinking shit. 1. His teeth were made of wood. But really they were just so old And stained they looked that way. 27. He did not get stuck in the tub and need Six men to yank and yank and yank him free. 35 He didn’t call himself A jelly donut in German. 45. His toilet Is not Gold. He is not Christ. Or Even the Opposite. 46. He is Poor. 1. He apparently Could not Tell A lie Unlike All the others Who could Not Tell The truth. Hey, thanks for listening toCarrie Does Poems. These podcasts and more writing tips are at Carrie’s website, carriejonesbooks.blog. There’s also a donation button there. Even a dollar inspires a happy dance in Carrie, so thank you for your support. The music you hear is made available through the creative commons and it’s a bit of a shortened track from the fantastic Eric Van der Westen and the track is called “A Feather” and off the album The Crown Lobster Trilogy. While Carrie only posts poems weekly here, she has them (in written form) almost every other weekday over on Medium.You should check it out! https://freemusicarchive.org/music/eric-van-der-westen/the-crown-lobster-trilogy-selection --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/support
Showing details in your writing isn’t just some annoying comment that agents, editors, and writing coaches and teachers paste into every student’s work. You can see it now, right? Big red letters. Loopy script. Maybe an exclamation point. Join us as we give you a couple hints about how to do that. All the podcast notes and links are at carriejonesbooks.com There's a ton of writing tips and all sorts of wildness over there. These podcasts and more writing tips are at Carrie’s website, carriejonesbooks.blog. There’s also a donation button there. Even a dollar inspires a happy dance in us, so thank you for your support. The music you hear is made available through the creative commons and it’s a bit of a shortened track from the fantastic Mr.ruiz and the track is Arctic Air and the album is Winter Haze Summer Daze. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/support
Cognitive bias is a big deal because it's keeping you from making the right decisions. This is the start of our five-part series (of awesome) for a weird look at the types of bias and Shaun scoffing at all of them in a judgmental way. Hey! All our show notes and links are here. https://carriejonesbooks.blog/podcast/you-are-so-biased-so-how-do-you-stop-it/ Please like and subscribe because it's a nice thing to do. And we'll love you forever. SHOUT OUT! The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website.Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/carriejonesbooks/support