Colin Wright's Blog, page 40

My Life on the Floor

Staring down at all my possessions, it’s easy to become judgmental. Too much. I have too much stuff.

It’s not some kind of ownership anorexia — it’s more a panicky feeling that I can’t carry everything I own with me in one armload. How am I going to travel stress-free with all this junk? How the hell did I accumulate it in the first place? The room’s a mess. Everything pulled from the closets and bathroom and drawers of my desk. Everything I own laid out in a grid, staring back at me like foot...

SquidHound’s Solution

The following is from my new book, a short story collection entitled 7 or 8 Ways to End the World.

“No, that’s not quite right. Let’s give it another go.”

DJ SquidHound pressed his fingers to his temples and rubbed them in small circles, doing his best to alleviate the headache that had slowly grown like a particularly hardy desert weed behind his eyes over the past four hours. After a few moments, he pulled his fingers away from his head and placed them back on his deck. He opened his eyes, fo...

Outrageous Ambition

Some ideas are practical. Manageable. You can fit them in your pocket and tote them around all day, barely feeling the burden. These ideas are great because you can act upon them whenever you like and they’ll still be likely to succeed.

Some ideas are a bit more unwieldy. They pop up in your mind at the most awkward times until you finally find the opportunity to act on them, and as a result they need to be acted upon sooner rather than later if you’re going to make them happen.

And then there...

Are Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus Gay?

Are Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus from The Minimalists gay?

No.

Well, probably not.

That’s not actually the point of this post.

The point of this post is that there are a solid number of Google searches for that phrase, and by choosing it as the title for this blog post, I’m increasing the chances that the eponymous search engine will send them my way. It’s a lightweight form of search engine optimization (SEO). It’s also hilarious.

SEO is a craft that went from belle of the ball to da...

One Size Fits All

A quote from my most recent book, Act Accordingly.

Ways and Means

When speaking to one another, we have different tonal ranges to draw upon which allow us to add information to the things we’re saying. An angry voice, a chipper scream of joy, a grunt of acquiescence — these are all easily-recognizable and oft-used means of communication built into our other communication — using words to encode what we want to say, and delivering those words audibly.

The media we use — the vehicle that delivers the information we wish to convey — can be as important as the m...

Magpie Fight

I love magpies.

They’re sturdy-looking birds, and some of them can use tools. If you approach most other birds, or even just pass by them too closely on the sidewalk, they’ll flutter away, terrified of the massive human-beast that no doubt wishes to eat them.

A magpie, however, will tilt its head toward you, look you up and down, and take the time to decide if you’re worth its effort. Most of the time they think not. They’ll stand their ground, maybe hop a few inches away if you move closer, bu...

Unlabelable

Aspire to be frustratingly unlabelable.

Quote from my new book,Act Accordingly.

Hats

I don’t look good in hats. There’s something about the shape or size of my head, or maybe the structure of my brow or ears or whatever that makes hats look funny on me (and makes me look funny in them).

A few years ago, however, I was given some homemade knit hats by a gal named Robyn Devine. I’d worn knit hats before, and they’d all had the same weird relationship with my head as fedoras, toques, and bowlers. These ones, however, looked pretty dang good.

I was shocked, but pleasantly so. Hats...

Trappings

I worked as a designer specializing in green printing techniques before I segued into branding.

It was a lot of fun, figuring out how to help companies and individuals ‘greenify’ their work, lowering their carbon footprint and in small ways contributing less to a problem they believed we should be trying to fix.

Of course, that party didn’t last long. Less than a year in, most of my clients were looking to ‘greenwash’ their projects — using special papers and inks to make it look like they’d go...