Category Archives: curation

Curating my readers

kindle-785695_640

Just thought I’d include samplings from some of the blogs I follow.

As you can see below, my interests run the gamut.

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From ShapeShifter Fitness

Best Black Bean Burger Recipe Ever

I’ve always thought it’s impossible to match a good beef burger when matched up against any black bean burger, but after eating making these it’s honestly a toss up, and I could go either way if given the choice.

Here’s the recipe link:
https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/the-best-black-bean-burger/

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From thewriterscafe247

Trying to Overcome My Shortcomings As a Writer and As a Person

Problem #1: Too Many Ideas, Not Enough Stories
Problem #2: Working on Too Many Projects at Once

What to do next?

Step 1: Turn off Streaming Services
Step 2: Give Myself an Achievable Goal (not based on word count)

[Note from me: I appreciate the writer’s honesty and his ‘solution-based’ approach to this post.]

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Musings From Dirty SciFiBuddha

His June 4 Musing

I think it’s totally possible to “follow my bliss” and be fulfilled.  

But first, I have to demonstrate the brutal/ruthless honesty required to know myself—to know what my “bliss” even is—by tracking the evidence/tendencies that reveal not just my shining glories, but also my darkest failings.

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From Roses in the Rubble

Brainy Blessings

Seems to me this prayer from Saint Thomas Aquinas is relevant for all of us!

Grant me a penetrating mind to understand, a retentive memory, method and ease in learning, the lucidity to comprehend, and abundant grace in expressing myself.

[Note from me: There is more to the prayer. I narrowed it down to what most clearly spoke to me as a writer.]

 

 

Twitter Gems May 13

Here’s a nice tweet I just ran across from 
 
Life is short, live it. Love is rare, grab it. Anger is bad, dump it. Fear is awful, face it. Memories are sweet, cherish it.
 
We writers can apply all these emotions to our work.
Even if all we’re doing is establishing some warmup momentum, these can definitely pay off.
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from Jordan Rosenfeld  @Jordanrosenfeld
Your writing projects are like children that don’t always get along. Attend to them separately. #fightoverwhelm #AWritersGuide2Persistence
Good advice, but not always applicable in my case. There are times when it occurs to me that some of my project need to be, if not merged, at least juggled simultaneously. [Juggling, of course, implies that sometimes creative gravity takes over and objects are dropped. But hey! At least I got them up in the air.]
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Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working. –PABLO PICASSO
Geez, I hate it when a well-targeted Tweet or nugget of advice arrives at the very moment I’m lip-diddling or ‘organizing’ my iTunes collections or god-knows-what. This is one of those Tweets.

Curation Thursday: Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write

More excerpts from Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write

In her chapter on specificity…

“For me, part of the ability to be specific has to do with writing to a specific someone, someone who ‘gets you’. I know that writers are often told not to think about their audience, but I think that advice can be difficult to use. The audience then becomes something vague and amorphous. How do you communicate with that?”

“Choose someone on whom nothing will be wasted, someone with an appetite for life in all its messy glory. That someone will enjoy your writing specifically. Write specifically to that someone.”  [This is helping me with a current middle-grade fiction project. TH]

“It is a great paradox that the more personal, focused, and specific your writing becomes, the more universally it communicates.”

Curation Thursday: Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write

More excerpts from Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write

In her chapter on specificity…

“For me, part of the ability to be specific has to do with writing to a specific someone, someone who ‘gets you’. I know that writers are often told not to think about their audience, but I think that advice can be difficult to use. The audience then becomes something vague and amorphous. How do you communicate with that?”

“Choose someone on whom nothing will be wasted, someone with an appetite for life in all its messy glory. That someone will enjoy your writing specifically. Write specifically to that someone.”  [This is helping me with a current middle-grade fiction project. TH]

“It is a great paradox that the more personal, focused, and specific your writing becomes, the more universally it communicates.”

Curation Sunday: Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write

Today, I’m sharing excerpts from Julia Cameron’s varied works. She is the author of 40 fiction and non-fiction books, including The Artist’s Way and Finding Water. Look for curated content from her other works in the future.

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Here are three gems from The Right to Write…

“When we ‘forget ourselves’, it is easy to write. We are not standing there, stiff as a soldier, our entire ego shimmied into every capital ‘I’. When we forget ourselves, when we let go of being good, and settle into just being a writer…When we are just the vehicle, the storyteller and not the point of the story, we often write very well—we certainly write more easily.”

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“The trick to finding writing time, then, is to write from love and not with an eye to product…The lies we tell ourselves about writing and time are all connected to envy, to the fairy tale notion that there are others whose lives are simpler, better funded, more conducive to writing than our own.”

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“Early in my writing life, I tried to polish as I went…Writing this way was frustrating, difficult, and disheartening, like trying to write a movie and cut it at the same time.”

“The danger of writing and rewriting at the same time was that it was tied in to my mood. In an expansive mood, whatever I wrote was great. In a constricted mood, nothing was good.”   [Note: I’m pretty sure you can figure out her solution.]

Curation Sunday: Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write

Today, I’m sharing excerpts from Julia Cameron’s varied works. She is the author of 40 fiction and non-fiction books, including The Artist’s Way and Finding Water. Look for curated content from her other works in the future.

***

Here are three gems from The Right to Write…

“When we ‘forget ourselves’, it is easy to write. We are not standing there, stiff as a soldier, our entire ego shimmied into every capital ‘I’. When we forget ourselves, when we let go of being good, and settle into just being a writer…When we are just the vehicle, the storyteller and not the point of the story, we often write very well—we certainly write more easily.”

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“The trick to finding writing time, then, is to write from love and not with an eye to product…The lies we tell ourselves about writing and time are all connected to envy, to the fairy tale notion that there are others whose lives are simpler, better funded, more conducive to writing than our own.”

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“Early in my writing life, I tried to polish as I went…Writing this way was frustrating, difficult, and disheartening, like trying to write a movie and cut it at the same time.”

“The danger of writing and rewriting at the same time was that it was tied in to my mood. In an expansive mood, whatever I wrote was great. In a constricted mood, nothing was good.”   [Note: I’m pretty sure you can figure out her solution.]

Curation Friday: Austin Kleon gems…

inbox internet overload

I confess to allowing my inboxes to be overloaded with quality resources that I don’t consistently pursue. Not so with Austin Kleon’s weekly newsletters…

Here are two Austin Kleon items that I vouch for:

1. Working On It [5 Quick Thoughts on Writing]

2. How to Keep Going [Take time to watch his 26-minute talk OR, if you’re pressed for time, lock in his list of ten tips and bookmark the page for a later viewing.

Two of my favorites:
—The ordinary + extra attention = extraordinary.
—Build a ‘bliss station’. [borrowed from Joseph Campbell]
Quote from Austin: “Airplane mode is not just a setting on your phone; it can be a way of life.”

Another of his tips: You are allowed to change your mind. Well, here goes…I was going to add a third A. Kleon gem, but other commitments arose and I just plain wanted this out in the world, so I’m changing my mind and sharing only two. Thanks, Austin, for the license to do so!

And believe me, these two items are value-packed. So, turn on Airplane Mode and enjoy.

Curation Monday: If You Can Talk, You Can Write [more gems]

More worthwhile points from If You Can Talk, You Can Write by Joel Saltzman. [Not an affiliate link. I just couldn’t easily find his own website.]

  • ” ‘Who needs another book on writing?’ ”
    I did.
    I needed to write this book for myself–to see if I could take what I had learned over the years and write about it my way, with my particular slant on things.”
  • “Remember: There’s nothing new under the sun. So don’t let an old idea stand in your way, not for a second. Don’t sit around waiting for the Big Idea; start with a small idea (like “two women go on a road trip”) and make it big.”
  • A quote from John Cougar Mellencamp: “All I can really do is entertain myself, and hope along the way I can entertain somebody else.”

 

Curation Saturday: If You Can Talk, You Can Write

One of my favorite recent purchases [August 2017 is recent for me] is the book, If You Can Talk, You Can Write by Joel Saltzman. [Not an affiliate link. I just couldn’t easily find how own website.]

Here are a few points I’ve revisited today in my reading session:

  • “Whether you’re struggling with a single sentence or polishing a book-length manuscript, let progress be your guide, not perfection your nemesis.”
  • “Along the way, you’ll develop technique, stamina and—if you’re lucky—the ability to make your next effort better than the last.”
  • “Conquer your worry about not writing by writing every day—either by counting the minutes or counting the pages.” In my case, I’ve been counting the words. I’ve done so ever since the January 500 Word Challenge.

Curation Saturday

Let’s focus on Jon Winokur‘s tweets for today.

1. When you’re speaking in the truest, most intimate voice about your life, you are speaking with the universal voice. [Just last night I dove into a fairly serious topic. It was okay, but it just wasn’t fun to write, especially in the revision stage. I’m not sure if I’ll find that universal voice…and do I even care to?]
CHERYL STRAYED #amwriting#writing #writinglife

2.  #Editing is the same thing as quarreling with writers. Same thing exactly. HAROLD ROSS #amwriting #publishing [Whew-boy, was I rediscovering that this morning…]

3. “When you’re #writing and come to a rough spot and the ideas just aren’t flowing, put down dummy text and keep on moving…” bit.ly/2F4kUvt #amwriting #writetips

4. There’s always room for a #story that can transport people to another place.
J.K. ROWLING #amwriting #fiction

5. #Creativity is the residue of wasted time.
ALBERT EINSTEIN #amwriting #writing #writinglife   [I must be extremely creative.]