Russell Davies

Speaking of putting your darlings in a cupboard

Rob has sent me this piece about presentations. It's good. His point 6 - "Appendicise like mad" is very good and is a variant of 'putting your darlings in a cupboard'. 

A good presentation will often have an appendix. That's where you can 'show your workings' if you really need to. And helps you cut it out of the main bit.

Put your darlings in a cupboard for later

There's a lot that didn't make it into the Do Interesting book. Including, this. Though, now I come to think of it, maybe it's in the PowerPoint book. I can't remember. Ah well.

One of the worst bits of editing advice ever is Murder Your Darlings. (Arthur Quiller-Couch apparently. I've always taken it to mean 'be prepared to cut bits even if you really like them'. It seems he was making a more subtle point, something like - 'cut the bits that you really like because of some pleasing rhetorical flourish you've done, they're likely to be overwrought in some way.')

Either way. It's hard advice to follow. They're my darlings! And I should murder them?

There is better advice in Richard Thaler's Misbehaving: 

"When it came time to revise the manuscript, I decided to create an “outtakes” file of material that was in the first draft but was cruelly murdered. My plan is to post some of these precious masterpieces of glorious verbiage on the book’s website. I don’t know how many of these passages will actually get posted, but the beauty of this plan is that it doesn’t matter. Merely having a place where these pieces are stored in a folder on my computer labeled “outtakes” has been enough to reduce the pain of cutting some of my favorite passages, a pain that can hurt as much as wearing those expensive, ill-fitting shoes. The bigger lesson is that once you understand a behavioral problem, you can sometimes invent a behavioral solution to it. Mental accounting is not always a fool’s game."

That is very smart. And has proven very useful to me. The Do book is around 20,000 words. But we actually wrote about 40,000. So there are a lot of outtakes coming your way soon.

 

Two months

You can probably feel the excitement in the air. We're just two months away from the launch of Do Interesting. Seventh of September. You can pre-order from Jeff. Or the good people.

Interesting 2023 - what you need to know

Here are the essential facts for Interesting. Tickets still available.

 

17th May Conway Hall (25 Red Lions Square London WC1R 4RL)

Apart from all the speakers you'll have a chance to make your own unique badge with Badge Cafe. Their "crafty utopian hangouts" re-use printed materials (books, mags, zines etc) so feel free to bring something along to cut out or collage. More info @badgecafe on Insta or badgecafe.com.

Doors open from 6:30PM.

We will start at 7PM.

We'll have ten talks between then and (roughly) 9:30PM with a couple of quick breaks.

Then we will have drinks, music and chat.

There will be a bar but no food. Eat beforehand or bring a flask and sandwiches.

Our speakers (not necessarily in this order)

Alex Mitchell

Steve Watson

Jeffre Jackson

Sarah Drummond

Hilary Nightingale

Stef Posavec

Lindsey Keighley

Ramsey Hassan

Clem Hobson

Badge Cafe

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting Clem

It's the final speaker! As far as I know, Clem Hobson will not be speaking about Sylvanian Families, but she is a fan.

(I also enjoy how well Midjourney has captured the Male Pattern Baldness which definitely exists in the Interesting audience.)

That's the last of the speakers. I will do a round-up post with all the details in the next couple of days and then exhort you all to 'boost' it on your social channels. 

Interesting badges

Speaker Ten. We have a very special guest this year. Dr Ben Walters is going to bring along the Badge Cafe, which is guaranteed to deliver 'overt, existential joy'. We'll get them set up somewhere, probably in the lobby, (where there will also be a bar, it's all change this year.)

Interesting Ramzee

Speaker Nine! The amazing Ramsey Hassan is back, he's going to do Part Two of his talk from last year.

Interesting Lindsey

Speaker Eight! The magnificent Lindsey Keighley is going to talk about 'sugar highs'. 

Interesting Stef

Speaker Seven! The great Stef Posavec, the person who, among other things utterly redeemed my book with her incredible design.

Stef's talk is going to be:

Logbooks: Collecting the uncollectable 

 

That sounds good doesn't it?

Interesting Hilary

Back to speaker six again (since Anna can't make it). Speaker Six! is the magnificent Hilary Nightingale. And her talk is going to be called: "Shopping Lists: Finding the story in the everyday"

And, er, that's it.