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Quote of the day
What is it that leads people from vastly different cultures to view drinking water as special with strinkingly similar tales of water providing eternal youth, passages to the afterlife, miraculous cures, and mystical wisdom?
In all of these stories, the physical act of drinking these special waters creates a medium to the supernatural, a means of connection the physical and the metaphysical. And the mythmaking continues today, implicit in the marketing campaigns of many large bottled water companies.
~JAMES SALZMAN, author of Drinking Water: A History
WRITING
- Shawn Coyne explains the story grid and why every author needs it, Indie Reader | Tweet
A twenty-five year book-publishing veteran with his years of experience as an editor at the Big Five publishing houses and Hollywood lit agent has created a methodology called THE STORY GRID to evaluate, edit and write stories to remind writers that they are not the problem (the problems are the problem).
→The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know
- Tighten your scenes, Pat Verducci | Tweet
You know that feeling… You’re staring at a bloated, overlong, rambling scene that has no structure and seems to spool out into infinity. People talk and talk, blah, blah, blah…. yet nothing happens. You grab your red pencil or place your fingers on the keys, determined to trim the scene down, find its purpose. You are stumped.
→Make a Scene: Crafting a Powerful Story One Scene at a Time
- Disembodied dialogue, Bear & Black Dog Editing | Tweet
Based on the manuscripts I’ve seen and worked on, I have to assume that a lot of writers these days are dialogue-first writers, which is a great strategy for first drafts because dialogue can be a really effective and interesting way to give information and move the plot forward. However, subsequent drafts need to add more details, otherwise you’re left with disembodied dialogue that fails to elicit a reaction in the reader.
- Writing about guns: 10 errors to avoid in your novel, Jane Friedman | Tweet
You’ll find common myths and misconceptions about weapons in thrillers, mysteries, and crime fiction. These tropes are easy to trip over, so avoiding them will help your credibility.
→Police Procedure & Investigation: A Guide for Writers (Howdunit)
SCREENWRITING
- The Writer’s voice: Why no two writing voices will ever be alike, Script Mag | Tweet
If you look the writer’s voice up on Wikipedia’s website it defines it as “the individual writing style of an author, a combination of their common usage of syntax, diction, punctuation, character development, dialogue, etc., within a given body of text (or across several works).” But a writer’s voice is much more than the sum of its linguistic parts.
→Finding Your Voice: How to Put Personality in Your Writing
- Fight the giant, or moving up the showdown, John August | Tweet
In most stories built around a heroic quest, the big confrontation comes at the end. The heroes face off against their well-established nemesis, and likely prevail. After that, there’s a little time left for wrap-up and rebuilding.
→Bible Heroes: Writing Lessons in Structure and Style
SELF-PUBLISHING
- Winner takes all, Publishing Insider | Tweet
This has been the center of debate in different industries. The question of who overpowers who is still a hot question. And no one wants to back down. Now, who will really win the battle between traditional marketing and digital marketing? Here are the facts and it’s for you to decide who is the winner.
→Digital Minds: 12 Things Every Business Needs to Know about Digital Marketing
Social media is the key to every self-publisher’s dreams when it comes to marketing. Though complex, it’s the foreground to any successful book marketing strategy… and it’s free! Being a self-published author means creating great content, but does it also mean you need to be an expert marketer?
CREATIVITY
- Creativity as understanding or exploration, Creative Something | Tweet
When we talk about what it means to be creative, we start at a foundation of originality. But creative ideas are rarely as original as we would hope they might be. Some of the best ideas are often entirely unoriginal, such as the lightbulb or telephone.
→Language and Human Understanding: The Roots of Creativity in Speech and Thought
HAPPINESS
Avoiding extrems–both surfeit and deficiency–is a wisdom preached by Aristotle, Confucius, Aquinas, and many other thinkers and writers.
→Measuring Happiness: The Economics of Well-Being
HEALTH
- We don’t trust drinking fountains anymore, and that’s bad for our health, The Washington Post | Tweet
Fountains were once a revered feature of urban life, a celebration of the tremendous technological and political capital it takes to provide clean drinking water to a community. Today, they’re in crisis.
EXERCISE
- The 7 things I do to stay fit while traveling, Zen Habits | Tweet
One of the big successes so far in my Grand Travel Experiment has been my fitness while on our long European trip.
RELATIONSHIPS
- When attractive people do or don’t choose equally good-looking mates, Science Daily | Tweet
Partners who become romantically involved soon after meeting tend to be more similar in physical attractiveness than partners who get together after knowing each other for a while, according to new findings.
