As I say in my book, “How To Be A Writer Who Writes”, (a phrase I love saying and really should say more), different phases of the writing process call for different kinds of writing. In Phases 1 (Gathering) and 3 (Drafting), critical thinking is unnecessary and can even be counter-productive. In Phases 2 (Planning) and 4 (Rewriting), critical thinking is crucial.

If you’re in Phase 2 or 4 of your project, or you’re helping someone else with their project, you might be able to use some of these 7 Tools for Critical Thinking from philosopher Daniel Dennett, posted in this article in Open Culture (“The best free cultural & educational media on the web”)

1. Use Your Mistakes

2. Respect Your Opponent 

3. The “Surely” Klaxon

4. Answer Rhetorical Questions

 5. Employ Occam’s Razor

6. Don’t Waste Your Time on Rubbish

7. Beware of Deepities

Amazing art is all rolled paper by artist Lisa Nilsson

Hollywood is enamored with the franchise. A profitable one can sustain sequels across multiple decades that are worth billions of dollars in ticket sales alone. But, as the box-office ups and downs of the “Star Trek” films have shown, the formula is far from a guarantee. The New Yorker has charted a part of the expanding galaxy of movie series, ranking them by franchise gross, per-movie gross, and franchise profitability in this great interactive info-graphic.

Bless the Writers Guild of America – and not just for their awesome health plan (which includes dental coverage!). There’s lots of great info on their website, including this set of articles about writing for TV that really lays out the landscape and what to expect when you’re expecting – to write for TV.

Thanks to 101books for this funny post on what the astronauts can teach us about writing dialog.

101 Books doesn’t specify, but I’d say this excellent snippet of dialog can teach you that repetition, misunderstanding, surprise and plain talk are all great ingredients for comedy – plus, of course, poop. Poop is almost always funny, especially in an unexpected, serious, high-tech situation.

Click here for more space talk.