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Unfortunate tweets, unfortunate t-shirts: here’s the worst of what I wrote this week

I write a bunch of stuff each week. Here's some of the best ... or worst, depending on your POV.

It was NFL draft week, so I whipped up a little story on how NFL draftees need some good financial planning right from the moment they hold up that fancy new jersey.  (Tip: Diversify yo' portfolio.) Also did a slideshow on the worst selections at every single position in the first round ... not quite draft "busts," necessarily, but exceedingly poor decisions. And, since draft fans are lunatics and easy prey, I posted a video of them getting pranked with fake player names.

Hope Solo plays soccer. I know nothing about soccer. But I do know that tweeting out your phone number to 700,000 followers isn't a good idea.

Game of Thrones author goofs on Jets, gives Game of Thrones geeks a chance to rail on NFL writers. Good times.

My most-read/shared story of the week: Nike stores are pulling "Boston Massacre" t-shirts from their stores. Solid idea.

An openly gay kicker is trying to make the NFL, which would be historic and all. If you consider kickers legit NFL players, that is.

This was badass: Scott Fujita hikes to the top of Machu Picchu, signs his retirement papers there. At age 33. I only slightly hate him.

Hey, Danica: shut up and race.

Thanks, as always, for reading. More on the way.

Well, hey to you too, Jeff Gordon

Clearly, Jeff Gordon doesn't remember either the time we made fun of his dancing or the time I stalked him. Otherwise he wouldn't be quite so nice to me in this new video:

Nice job, Pepsi Max. That's some supremely targeted marketing.

The Time Magazine breastfeeding cover …

... is right here. Also, here at Time itself.

Just a little SEO experiment here, my friends. Nothing more to see. Move along.

Also:
Tim Tebow
Kim Kardashian
Make money online
Cheap iPad deals

Might as well shoot for the moon, right?

P.S. That kid is gonna hear about this FOREVER. Start tracking down Nirvana baby now, big fella.

Help a brother (in law) out: Be a part of Never Enough Hope’s new recording session

My brother-in-law Toby Summerfield is the head honcho/maestro/impresario behind Never Enough Hope, a traveling, rotating collective of Chicago-centered musicians that create some of the most intellectually and emotionally challenging music you're going to hear. And they're gearing up for their next recording session, scheduled for this June. And they want YOUR help. But we'll get to that in a second. First, here's some fascinating material, Toby on how to write for a 30-piece orchestra:

Now. What you need to do is go over to Kickstarter and pledge some coin to help Toby get this next recording session rolling. There, you can hear some more of his music and get a sense of what you'll be a part of. You can do it, friends. Even a buck helps. And Toby will thank you. I'll make my sister get him to.

Mint Juleps and Moon Pies postmortem: Talking with Y! Sports Radio

Spent some time talking with  John Harris of Yahoo! Sports Radio last night about the gargantuan Kentucky Derby/Talladega article. 'Twas fun:

The secret to great writing! It’s right here! Promise!

My daughter hit me up to write about rewriting for her English class. I think she got out of doing homework for this. You'll note that I backpedaled off some of the words I'd usually choose to use, and I also mentioned Instagram to make it seem like I'm hip to the kids' fresh lingo these days. Anyway, here you go: the secret to great writing.

People often ask me what the secret is to writing. It's like they think there's this little one bit of hidden knowledge that, if you learn it, you'll become a rich and famous author, beloved by millions who read your books (or at least see the movies based on them). Guess what? There is. Gather round, lads and lasses, and I'll tell you:

The secret to writing is rewriting.

That's it. That's it right there. Sure, there are great authors who wake up and spit out paragraphs of timeless prose, who can roll out of bed and write lines that people will be reading a hundred years from now. But those types are few and far between; they show up about once a century or so. For the rest of us, it's all about writing something down, looking it over, deciding that some (or all) of it stinks, and tearing it down to build it better.

This isn't like building a bridge. You get halfway through a bridge and you decide you don't like it, you don't get to knock it down and start over. You're stuck with what you've started. But the words you write for your next research paper aren't written in stone. Heck, chances are they're not even written on paper at all. Don't get too attached to them, and for heaven's sake, don't just write the first thing that comes to mind and think, "Heck with it. That's good enough. What's on Instagram?"

The writing gets it out on the page. The rewriting makes it shine. Ernest Hemingway, an author you may or may not have read but should, rewrote the final paragraph of "The Sun Also Rises" 39 times. One paragraph! Thirty-nine times! He did that because he knew that last paragraph had to be absolutely perfect, to say exactly what he wanted it to say.

(As a side note: Hemingway said that what every writer needs is a very good ... well, let's call it a "garbage detector," though he didn't use the word "garbage." What he meant was that you need to be able to read your own writing and know when it stinks. And generally, if it's a first draft, it stinks, no matter who you are. Your garbage detector will go off, and you should listen to it.)

So when you're planning for time to write, don't just plan on writing your paper once. Plan on writing it two or three times. (You probably don't need to do it 39 times.) Sure, it'll take more time. But you'll get closer to the truth, and -- guess what -- closer to a very good grade.

Now, you'll pardon me. I've got to go back and make sure this says exactly what I mean hope it says want it to you need to hear.

The future of books, in three (or so) words

All right, this is fairly badass...the future of books in three words, as envisioned by some of the industry's best-known observers. Via Winning Edits.

Oh, and my three words? Buy Bluff City. (Shameless.)

Pollos for everyone! The Breaking Bad video game is here!

All right, this is just amazing ... "Breaking Bad" as an old-school Nintendo-style video game. Spoilers ahoy if you haven't caught up:

Even the turtle-with-Danny-Trejo's-head made the cut. Amazing.

[Via io9]

New Planet of the Apes posters are nothing to monkey around with (Sorry.)

When I was a kid, I used to love watching all the Planet of the Apes flicks. We all know the "damn dirty ape" lines, but for my money (six cents or so, at the time) the best of the bunch was "Beneath the Planet of the Apes." The story of what happened after Charlton Heston found the Statue of Liberty, it's the kind of drug-addled freakout flick that terrified kids of my age, but inspired the generation above me, the ones old enough to remember when movies didn't have creepy-ass blaring horns on the soundtrack and cinematography that mixed lens flares and soft-focus into some kind of fever dream. It ends (spoiler!) with Charlton Heston setting off a nuclear bomb and wiping out all life on Earth. Now, go out and play, kids!

Anyway, the Alamo Drafthouse (best known to me as the theater with the Greatest STFU Commercial In History (click on that link, believe me) held a marathon five-movie Planet of the Apes marathon last May, and these posters were the result of that. That one there is from Film School Rejects. The rest are at a variety of other sites; check the pics below for more.

Great stuff. And I'm almost done with my therapy for that friggin' movie.