When Your Writing Isn't Good Enough 5ives Keeps Cranking

5ives is a collection of lists of five things. While I toil over a hot drawing board to come up with content, a guy named Merlin Mann who is described as "a stony recluse who probably lives in a tree somewhere in Northern California" is producing entries about fives.

Here's what I've got to say about that.

        No fair!

Meanwhile, back at my house reading books on the topic of writing is having a surprising effect. No sentence that I put on paper - or computer screen - seems good enough.

The construction is all wrong. The words aren't precise enough.

On the other hand, good old Merlin keeps on cranking out his 5ives.

He is obviously not creatively challenged or only capable of producing - well - fives. Just take a gander at his self description at merlinmann.com.

"Little is know about Merlin apart from what can be gleaned by the caregivers who collect his waste and deliver fresh boxes of Kleenex™ for him to wear on his feet.

Merlin is believed to have been born in the 20th century of a virtuous woman with roots in a large midwestern city. Sparse photographic evidence suggests Merlin may have a vestigial tail and enjoy a taste for roulette and sand art.."

See? Funny. Literate, Imaginative.

Sigh. Maybe it's time to release another artistamp.