Announcing Unkillable. New Novel coming in October.

Posted on | August 27, 2010 | 7 Comments

If you’ve been wondering what Patrick has been working on, here’s the scoop: He’s been working on talking about himself in the 2nd person and on a new novel called Unkillable. (Because talking about yourself in the 2nd person is kind of lame, the rest of this post will be about the novel.)

Unkillable is the story of a young man named Dan. We meet him as he is dragged out into an alley and stabbed in the heart with a screwdriver. Predictably, he dies. But then, less predictably, a rat comes along and offers him a chance at revenge. Of course Dan takes it and the rat brings him back to life. Sort of.

Dan has two weeks to kill the men who did him in. He’s not alive, but he’s not dead. He can’t be killed, but he can be hurt. He’s kind of like a thoughtful Zombie. It’s a ripper of a tale and was a hell of lot of fun to write.

Unkillable will be available for free in podcast form; On a donation basis in e-book form; and in a book form when the podcast is complete.

More updates soon, but for now, be of good cheer. More content is in the pipe.

Posted via email from PatrickEMcLean’s Posterous

Ignite Talk – Where do Ideas Come from?

Posted on | August 21, 2010 | 2 Comments

I so wish I had thought of this.

Posted on | August 21, 2010 | 1 Comment

http://gizmodo.com/5616783/zipper-motorboat-unzips-the-oceans-jeans

Posted via email from PatrickEMcLean’s Posterous

Please don’t write like this.

Posted on | August 13, 2010 | 1 Comment

How and Why to Blog — August 24 1:30-4:30

Posted on | August 13, 2010 | 1 Comment

How and Why to Blog (and Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn)
August 24th, 1:30-4:30 am @ Interact Studio
The world has changed. The way we communicate as organizations and individuals will never be the same. So what do you do about it?
You recognize that you have a tremendous power to create and distribute content. And that’s what this class is all about. Class topics will include:

• How to get started with social media.
• How to write effectively for the  online world.
• How to generate consistent content.
• How you can use new media tools to reach your real-world goals.

This is a hands-on, small format class. By the end of this three-hours, you’re going to have a working personal blog, integrated with Twitter and any other online presence you might have or want to set up.
Most importantly, this class includes two kinds of support and follow-up. First, Patrick will work with you to develop a content strategy and plan so you don’t run out of things to write about.

Class Requirements:
A laptop, an email account and an enthusiasm for new media.

The dangers of being quotable?

Posted on | August 11, 2010 | No Comments

A new keyboard, glorious and powerful.

Posted on | July 31, 2010 | 8 Comments

Once upon a time, I had a 1966 Chrysler 300. A durable goods item from a vanished age it was. This Chrysler, in addition to having a 383 cu inch engine (an engine, which, in and of itself is bigger than than a Toyota Prius) had something called torque-flight suspension. I won’t bore you with the technical details of this engineering marvel from Detroit. I will simply tell you that that car’s otherworldly ride derived from two twisted bars of steel. It would be like you taking a ruler and twisting the ends in opposite directions. The ruler wants to spring back to it’s normal, restful state. But in the Chrysler, this was not possible. The metal was constantly under strain.

If one can imagine that a piece of metal can feel pain, one could say that those piece of steel were in agony. And I believe this agony, carefully hidden from the passenger by flashy chrome and thick upholstery, is what created the luxurious ride. The feeling that all others in their newer, smaller cars were but peons and you were the comfortable royalty of the American road. No wonder that guy in that Honda looks pissed, he’s trapped in an angry little car.

Which leads me, not too obviously, to my new keyboard. It is a recreation of the an IBM Model M Keyboard that was first manufactured in in 1985. Which, in computer years, is back in the Jurassic period. This keyboard, manufactured by Unicomp (you’re going to want one, seriously) operates on a buckling-spring design. That is, instead of the mushy, yet sadly, universal membrane keyboard design that is ubiquitous today, inside each key there is a tiny little spring in pain. When I press the key, the spring is folded to the point where cries out, buckles in half and creates a firm and audible click.

The difference is remarkable. If you don’t spend a lot of time typing, or you are the kind of person who types with two or three fingers, then you won’t appreciate what this keyboard can do. But if you hammer out words, my friend this is the keyboard for you. It’s industrial strength. It’s Bona Fide. And when you are really humming, hammering through a surf of over 1000 words per hour, the individual, precise clicks of the keyboard blend into a roar. And the roar gains in volume and power. The faster it flows, the faster you want it to flow. Your fingers writhe and turn and toil in an orgiastic dance of letterforms that chase meaning through the ASCII and into print.

And you suspect, deep down, that if you could only type a little faster, the sound of the words flowing out of you would take on a high pitched whine — like a turbine or tuned, polished and ported German engine.

Lift your hands high like a conductor and slam them into a sentence — this keyboard doesn’t  budge from the surface of your desk. Hit the period and the return key like a knock out combo, putting enough force into the return to knock a strong man to the ground  – enough to kill a weak man with the power of your phrasing and this keyboard will not bat an eye. Do it all day long, hang up your bloodied gloves and the next morning this keyboard will be waiting for you as if it had Everlast sewn into it’s plastic.

To paraphrase Tom Robbins, “If this keyboard can’t do it, then fuck it, it can’t be done.”

If this typewriter can’t do it, then fuck it, it can’t be done.

This is the all-new Remington SL3, the machine that answers the question, “Which is harder, trying to read The Brothers Karamazov while listening to Stevie Wonder records or hunting for Easter eggs on a typewriter keyboard?”  This is the cherry on top of the cowgirl.  The burger served by the genius waitress.  The Empress card.

I sense that the novel of my dreams is in the Remington SL3–although it writes much faster than I can spell.  And no matter that my typing finger was pinched last week by a giant land crab.  This baby speaks electric Shakespeare at the slightest provocation and will rap out a page and a half if you just look at it hard.

“What are you looking for in a typewriter?” the salesman asked.

“Something more than words, ” I replied.  ”Crystals.  I want to send my reader armloads of crystals, some of which are the colors of orchids and peonies, some of which pick up radio signals from a secret city that is half Paris and half Coney Island.”

Where do ideas come from? August 4th?

Posted on | July 30, 2010 | No Comments

Writing a lot of television spots today.

Posted on | July 23, 2010 | No Comments

Posted via email from PatrickEMcLean’s Posterous

At lunch I read the future in floating grains of rice.

Posted on | July 21, 2010 | No Comments

Posted via email from PatrickEMcLean’s Posterous

Don’t ever use this word.

Posted on | July 14, 2010 | 6 Comments

Captain Ahab: Old School Badass

Posted on | July 13, 2010 | No Comments

I’m re-reading Moby Dick. Happened to pick it up this weekend and it sucked me right in. (The fact that I picked it up on a Kindle and also got sucked into buying a Kindle will be the subject for another post, I’m sure.)

But here is one of my favorite passages:

That’s more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as school-boys do to bullies, – Take some one of your own size; don’t pommel me! No, ye’ve knocked me down, and I am up again; but ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab’s compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? Ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! Man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush! Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an angle to the iron way!

Yes, he is picking a fight with the gods. Bragging that they cannot swerve him from his path to his fixed purpose. The only way you’re gonna stop me from killing this whale is if you come down here yourself and kill me.

Man, that’s one tough old salt.

Posted via email from PatrickEMcLean’s Posterous

You want to know what professionalism is?

Posted on | July 12, 2010 | No Comments

“Be sure of this…” What a great line.

Posted on | July 11, 2010 | No Comments

Oh, TerraCotta Buddha hears you…

Posted on | July 8, 2010 | 1 Comment

…he just doesn’t TerraCotta care.

Posted via email from PatrickEMcLean’s Posterous

Real-time and other kinds

Posted on | July 7, 2010 | 10 Comments

The Universal Error of Our Technologically Hypnotized Age

Posted on | July 1, 2010 | 4 Comments

We like to focus on the tools we use to communicate more than the messages we are trying send. We don’t say, “I’m going to spread my message,” we say, “I’m going to send an email,” or “I’ll make a call.” It is the universal error of our technologically hypnotized age. And it makes things like Social Media much harder to understand.

Strip it all away for a moment. Superbowl ads, text messages, billboards, emails, tweets, FB posts and ransom notes — throw them all out and what is fundamental to communication remains. There is a sender, a recipient, and a message. Lose any one of these three things and communication does not take place. All media exist so that a person can communicate with another person. And the way that people attempt communicate is through story.

So, why don’t we all start with the story? Sure, you can use Powerpoint or Keynote to help you communicate, but if the story you are trying to tell isn’t very good then, no matter how many animations you add, your presentation is going to be crap.

This equally true for an ad, a book, a twitter stream, a conversation on Facebook or a phone call with your long-lost college friend. If you don’t have anything to say, technology can’t make it better. As Exhibit A, I cite the entire Internet.

If you work with me, we start with the story and find manifold ways to exploit your story to it’s maximum advantage.

And if you are not working with me, you should start with your story anyway. Because nobody cares about the bells and whistles. Nobody falls in love, goes to war, changes their mind or buys anything because of a medium. They do it because of a message.

War Metaphors are Never the Answer.

Posted on | April 27, 2010 | No Comments

Either Time magazine needs to be slapped or the US Army needs to change it’s strategy. Either way, I can’t advise using war metaphors for anything other than war.

Why the Seanachai had to Come to an End

Posted on | April 5, 2010 | 8 Comments

There are three reasons.

1) Old projects have to end for new projects to begin.

2) A 10 minute funny/interesting little audio bit on the internet can’t really evolve. It will only ever be a 10 minute funny/interesting little audio bit.

3) The name was a problem, as so eloquently pointed out by Scott Sigler ==>Sigler

My First Book in Print

Posted on | March 25, 2010 | 1 Comment

It’s got an ISBN number. It’s even available on Amazon. It’s all kinds of awesome.

It’s called “Stories I Told Myself” and it features the best of my work on the Seanachai Podcast. It also includes two never before released stories. “Getting Shot” the story of me, well, getting shot when I lived in L.A. and “The Rhetoric of Audio” which sums up everything I learned about writing for audio while creating “The Seanachai.”

So go ahead and buy one… for everyone you know.

BOOK PROMO MP3 —> Stories I Told Myself Promo <---