I’ll walk you through it step by step: downloading and installing the software, opening up the audio file, mucking about with it, and turning it into an MP3.

Enjoy! (:

What would you like me to explain next time?

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Hey, writers, time to get those fingers tapping!

Chris Guillebeau’s new book, “The Art of Non-Conformity: Set your own rules, live the life you want, and change the world” bursts into the world tomorrow, September 7th. Chris was not only one of our guest stars in the World-Changing Writing Workshop, he was a huge inspiration behind the birth of our own Revolution!

We got an early-release copy – and it is amazing! I have been devouring it, dog-earing every third page or so, and Pace is looking over my shoulder, drooling all over me and impatiently awaiting her turn to read it. It’s mind-blowing and heart-wake-up-ing and a million worlds of yes!

As I told Chris, this book is kind of insanely awesome.

So what does this have to do with you?

Chris has generously given us several copies of his book to give to you guys – he’s so super awesome – so we’re having a contest! To enter, write one paragraph on how you already bring non-conformity to the world (or on any subject you choose, since we’re talking about non-conformity here), and send it to Kyeli by Tuesday, September 7th.

Yes, the deadline is tomorrow. That’s why this is a quickie contest. (;

The fine print: We’ll ship the book to you anywhere in the world where Amazon.com ships. The entries become ours and we might post some or all of them here on our blog, at our discretion. Please include your name and shipping address with your entry so we don’t have to hunt it down from you later. Entries are due no later than midnight, Tuesday, September 7th, 2010. We will contact the entrants via email.

Now’s your chance to produce some world-changing writing and get a chance at a world-changing book! Get going and good luck!

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I’m talking about production values.

Frequent typos on a blog.

A self-published book with clip art or stock art instead of original art.

A typo in the chapter title of a book.

A website with one of the graphics off center.

Grammatical errors on a sales page.

Am I just a total snob?

Whenever I see any of these errors, it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. My opinion of the author goes down. WAY down.

To me, it signifies a complete lack of effort and lack of concern. The creator didn’t care enough to make it look good. The author didn’t care enough to proofread. If they were really serious about their work, they would have made the extra effort to make it look good.

We put a lot of effort into making our products look good. Our manifesto looks nicer than most e-books I’ve seen. The Usual Error doesn’t look like a self-published book.

But speaking of the usual error…

Am I making the usual error?

In my mind, if you care about something, you’ll make the effort to make it look good. Therefore, if it doesn’t look good, you must not care about it.

But there are some pretty darn popular bloggers whose blogs are riddled with typos. There are some pretty darn popular self-published books with low production values.

What gives?

Maybe I’m in the minority? Maybe it’s only me and the other snobs who care about whether it looks good, and everyone else is happy to overlook a few flaws if the content is great?

How about you?

Does it make no difference to you?

Does it bother you?

Or does it block you? Does it stop you from reading it, clicking it, buying it, or recommending it?

What’s your opinion?

No related posts.

So if you can spare a minute to tell us about yourself; to tick some tickyboxes and maybe even fill in a text box or two, it would make us really happy.

Talk to us. We’re listening.

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Change your life, change the world.

My passion has always been writing… since I was old enough to hold a pencil to paper I have been scribing words to the page – everything from poems to short stories, attempts at novellas and novels, plays, rituals, entreaties, manifestos, journals. For my 16th birthday, when all my friends only wanted cars of their own, I asked my parents for a Brother electric typewriter. I yearned to express myself, to write, to connect with other people… and for most of my life I thought that I would do that through writing.

But… like most of us, life happened. And although the urge to write never stopped, the urge to share myself through writing was stamped out. Maybe it was out of genuine concern that it happened – “find a job, make a life” – maybe it was control — “You can’t make a living that way” or “You’re just not good enough, find something else” – but either way the message was clear: Writing is unacceptable.

Writing was a “hobby”, but not something that was acceptable for me. It was something that was delegated to only the SPECIAL FEW that are good enough to create ART, and something that the rest of us were shoo-ed away from lest we think that we, too, might have the ability to create something or think outside the norm.

You know what? It might have taken me 36 years (30 if you don’t count those 3 years when I was busy inventing my own hieroglyphics and my stalwartly uncoordinated 3 years of pre-literate use of the English alphabet before I learned how to properly put letters together) to figure this out but:

It’s a myth. Artists are people who think “outside the box”, who refuse to be controlled and cowed to what is “normal”. Artists are freaks who let their Freak Flags fly. Of course those in control want to make it seem like being an artist is a special privilege instead of an inherent RIGHT of all people to pursue their true nature. Making art, of any kind, the voice of only a few cuts off the voices many of us…

I might not necessarily seem like someone who can change the world enough, I know that even the changes that seem the smallest can inspire many other small changes… and snowball to truly alter the world in surprising ways. So, how would allowing me to join in the World Changing Writing Workshop change the world?

I am working on challenging the status quo that says people like me – over 20, women, single mothers, educated in business and psychology, never formally trained as a writer, not yet “living the dream” – can not write to change their lives, and that writing is not for anyone who might want to express themselves.

As a mother, my voice is powerful in shaping the world. My voice, my actions, my words guide and mold the lives of my children, and their voices and choices ripple out. Stories I read, stories I tell, histories I share with my children all help them learn about the world. My ability to write makes me a better mother, believe it or not, and changes the paths of those that I interact with. My passion for writing shows my children the importance of language and the love of structure and flow of writing. My willingness to put myself out there, to mirror my struggles to become a full person and to guide my children to adulthood, shows that connection with art (in my case writing) changes lives for the better.

Writing is my creative outlet, my wish for the world manifest. Writing is my spellwork, my ritual, my way of bending the rules of the world to allow the wholeness of my being to come out. Writing is my freak flag flying out there, timidly I admit, but with growing confidence that my voice matters. My writing shows my true self, exposes me to the world, and forces me to take a hard look at myself and the patterns of my own paradigms… I yearn to learn the ways to improve my writing, ways to strengthen the voice that has tremulously started to come through with my words. I need to change the world, connect to other people, and enthusiastically change the way we see each other and ourselves in this world we live in.

I want to learn and grow and open myself up to my creative passion. I want to encourage those who were beaten down in the way I was, through the school system or religious system or through domestic violence, to come back to their authentic selves, learning to debunk the myths of the special few. I am determined to challenge the “way things are” and “how things have to be” and re-writing the stories that we tell one another to keep each other down. I want to challenge the notion that writing is divisive and elitist, and show the world that ordinary people can change the world too..

I can change the world: One word at a time; One story; One challenge to the status quo. And slowly a voice grows stronger through the words of challenge and the stories of overcoming and making it genuine.

This I know is true.

Moon’sLark currently writes on her personal blog FrozenNowhere, which chronicles the inside of her head. She has started a spiritual blog as well; the purpose of which is to share her journey through what she thought she was (Wiccan) through her critical thoughts on what she really wants, needs, and thinks about her spirituality.

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Kyeli just had a post-surgery followup appointment. Everything looks good and she’s healing on schedule. You’ll probably be seeing more of her around here soon. (:

Ana Ottman, previously our online friend, has moved to Austin! She’s awesome in real life, too.

Mark Silver poignantly told the story of why marketing is so important for those seeking to do good in the world. (And if you’re one of those people who wants to do good in the world and wants to learn how to do so more effectively, don’t miss Mark’s course, Heart of Business Momentum.)

Rachael E. C. Acklin wrote something too beautiful for me to summarize. It’s about Love.

Shann Vander Leek wrote a book! It’s called Life On Your Terms, and it’s about redefining your notion of work and breaking free from what’s expected of you. I haven’t read it yet, but Shann is cool and it sounds freaky and revolutionary, so I thought I’d share. (:

Last but not least, The Egg. A story about spirituality that moved both me and Kyeli to tears.

What’s been going on with you lately?

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Today, Pace explains the difference between gender identity, gender expression, biological sex, and sexuality, and what all that has to do with the whole transgender thing.

Click here if you don’t see the video. (It’s 4 and a half minutes long.)

Featuring:

• Pace
• Chuck Norris
• Angelina Jolie
• Drag queens
• Biker chicks
• Charts and graphs!

What would you like me to explain next?

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I wake up to a new day. I am, figuratively speaking, a new person each day I awake, because I’m free to behave however I want to behave. But sometimes the person I was in the past has made choices which limit the paths open to me now.

Thankfully the Me that I was yesterday was a kind person. Kind to the Me that I am today. And the one before that was also kind. Today is Friday Me, so the last two Me’s were Wednesday Me and Thursday Me. They were kind enough to exercise and eat well, get enough rest, and to cross a number of significant tasks off our shared to-do list.

Tuesday Me was a bit of a git though. In fact, now I think about it, he was a fat lazy git, who stuffed himself with jam doughnuts and stayed up too late watching Battlestar Galactica. So the Wednesday Me was already screwed, and couldn’t get up out of bed so was late for work. That had a knock-on effect to Thursday Me who already had a busy day scheduled, but now had extra work from Wednesday Me to contend with. However, Today Me is compassionate and forgives Tuesday Me so that Tomorrow Me doesn’t have those negative emotions to deal with and can get on with his life.

1997 Me was a total idiot. 1997 Me was a drunkard who treated people badly. This adversely affected 2009 Me when one of those people started working in the same office and understandably refused to speak to 2009 Me. Not only did this make the workday awkward, but 2009 Me felt deeply ashamed and guilty for the behavior of 1997 Me. 2010 Me is working on transcending 1997 Me’s negative impact.

Today I think to myself – what can I do for Tomorrow Me? Well first of all, I could turn down the doughnuts that my boss offered me, and I could go for a swim. That would mean Tomorrow Me was a fraction less unhealthy than today Me. Also, I could do some writing. That would mean Tomorrow Me was a more practiced, and possibly accomplished writer than Today Me, even if only by a tiny margin.

Also, Tomorrow Me has a piece of written work to edit if he wishes, to publish on his blog, or to offer to someone else to publish. So it would be like giving a gift to Tomorrow Me. Also, if the piece I have written is useful for other people, then it is also a gift for anyone who reads it.

Today Me could also spend some time truly listening and engaging in conversation with Today Her. Then Today Me would be improving life for Tomorrow Me, as well as for Today Her and Tomorrow Her because our relationship will be a little bit stronger and happier.

That’s three positives from one action – which have the potential to multiply because of the other people that Today Her, Tomorrow Me and Tomorrow Her come into contact with. But I won’t go into detail, or we might all get confused.

Don’t tell me that you can’t change the world – you can do it every single day. So let’s begin. What is Today You going to do to make the world a better place for Tomorrow You?

Milo McLaughlin is a writer, musician, & filmmaker who has a day job working as a web co-ordinator on environmental issues. He’s been published by a variety of print & web publications on topics as diverse as music, technology, and journalism and has interviewed a bunch of highly creative types including Will Oldham (aka Bonnie Prince Billy). He blogs at Products of a Gaseous Brain.

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I’m not good with hospitals. Plus, my legs were semi-bound with these cuff things that were constantly inflating and deflating (something to do with blood circulation and clot-prevention) – and I’ve got a thing about my legs being bound. Plus, I had a breathing tube stuck up my nose and laying on my throat, without which I couldn’t breathe well. Plus, I had an IV that was making my hand ache. Plus, I was incredibly, awe-inspiringly, ridiculously nauseous from the anesthetic. Plus, I had had major surgery about 6 hours prior and was in gobs of emotional and physical pain.

So, I wasn’t in the best shape, all told.

I’d been asleep, and I jerked awake in panic. I couldn’t move without intense pain everywhere and I was having trouble breathing, and the effort of doing either was making the nausea wash over me hardcore. I tried for a few seconds to calm down, then started begging Pace to help me – but she was at a total loss as to what to do, so she called the nurse.

The nurse came in an eternity later and asked, “Are you having a panic attack?”

I managed to answer in the affirmative, but I was really confused as to why she had to ask. It seemed pretty fucking clear to me that I was having a panic attack.

She proceeded to be really mean to me. Seriously. She threatened to withhold my pain medication if I didn’t calm down. She told me, “You just need to relax. Right now.” She said a bunch of other cruel, unhelpful things that the eventual application of morphine has happily erased from my memory – but I sure remember her attitude.

Seriously? She came into my room while I was in the middle of the worst, most terrifying moment of my life – and was mean? Anything less than utterly gentle and compassionate would have been wrong, but her outright uncompassionate cruelty was insane.

I had to stand up for myself, even then in that moment – in that worst, most terrifying moment of my life, when I couldn’t breathe or move and was sure that, at any second, I was going to die. But I would die before I would let this woman stand there and be cruel to me when I needed her love and compassion.

So I did.

I looked right at her (and managed not to hurl or punch her lights out!). I said, “You are not helping me. Either help me or go away.” I’m not sure how much of that was understandable, given that I was hyperventilating and sobbing, but she responded by dosing me with medication and going away, so I apparently got my point across regardless.

Even with Pace right there, it was up to me to stand up for myself. Pace was so worried about me and was utterly flummoxed by the nurse’s attitude, not to mention that she couldn’t even hear half of what the nurse was saying, that she couldn’t say anything fast enough to make my situation better fast enough – so it fell to me.

At all times, it’s really our responsibility to make our lives the way we want them to be. It’s up to us to protect ourselves if we need protecting. It’s up to us to defend ourselves if we need defending. Society tells us (especially women) that our parents or our spouses or our Knights in Shining Armor will ride in and save the day for us – but that makes us disempowered.

Yes, Pace would have jumped in and stood up for me. And yes, I knew I could depend on her to do so if I couldn’t – but even in that terrifying moment, I found that I could.

And I felt even more powerful and satisfied when I did it myself.

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We’ve just finished stuffing all the World-Changing Writing Workshoppy goodness into a big box, and we’re very excited to share it with you! We call it… *drum roll*

The World-Changing Writing Workshop-In-A-Box.

For those of you who missed the live version of the WCWW, you can now get it in this nicely packaged form. All the recordings, all the transcripts, all 63 pages of the Workbook, and all the bonuses.

Click here to find out more! (You can also see what the students thought of the live version of the workshop.)

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