November 2011
1 post
1 tag
Complex Theorem Progress
As some of you already know, I abandoned my personal website — OnlyJames — in order to pursue a clean slate. My new home will be Complex Theorem. As it stands, it is nothing more than a landing page. Behind the scenes, however, there is a different story.
Work on this project has been steady going for the past few months, and as most creatives will tell you, the hardest thing to do is to remain...
September 2011
1 post
2 tags
April 2011
1 post
3 tags
March 2011
1 post
Comma Usage and Placement
Not long ago I e-mailed Tobias Wolff, a Stanford professor and writer of the novels The Barracks Thief and Old School, for advice about comma usage and placement.
This was his response:
Dear Mr. Mowery, Good question. These days I write with more attention to rhythm than to rules, which I have metabolized to the extent that I am hardly aware of them. As it happens I frequently tussle with NYer...
February 2011
1 post
1 tag
78 Keys
These 78 keys of Chinese plastic on my Macbook are the closest I may ever feel to an aura of divulgence that I rarely experienced before. As I sit here on my bed and depress these blocks that transpose electrical signals into symbolical meanings, I realize something — something quite important. It is only when I’m alone and at my worst that I manage to reach the world with my best.
My...
January 2011
5 posts
1 tag
Writer's Block
I can’t write anything on this godforsaken Tumblr account without backtracking. I have ten drafts in the queue, with well-thought ideas within them all. But I can’t finish a single one of them. What is wrong with me?
My last resort is to write about nothing — prepare to be blown away.
OK, writer’s block isn’t exactly nothing. It’s more like a pain in the ass — even...
Being Better
Merlin Mann wrote an inspiring piece about how to be better. In it, he noted a few things he attempts to do everyday to better himself. Some of them I already do, and some of them I believe I will start to do. However, all of these these are things that we all could (and probably should) do to better ourselves. So, why not
identify and destroy small-return bullshit;
shut off anything that’s...
2 tags
2 tags
The Write Stuff
I don’t write because I want to; I write because I have to.
I love expressing my own opinions. I pretty much have an opinion about everything — from how ridiculous politics are to how fake reality television truly has become. Writing just so happens to be the most effective medium for me to do just that. I guess you can say I’ve become quite good at it.
I have been writing...
2 tags
“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.”
– Italian Proverb