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Marriage was an economic institution in which you were given a partnership for life in terms of children and social status and succession and companionship. But now we want our partner to still give us all these things, but in addition I want you to be my best friend and my trusted confidant and my passionate lover to boot, and we live twice as long. So we come to one person, and we basically are asking them to give us what once an entire village used to provide: Give me belonging, give me identity, give me continuity, but give me transcendence and mystery and awe all in one. Give me comfort, give me edge. Give me novelty, give me familiarity. Give me predictability, give me surprise. And we think it’s a given, and toys and lingerie are going to save us with that.
~AZIZ ANSARI, author of Modern Romance
WRITING & SCREENWRITING
- How to know when to stop editing and move on, The Write Life | Tweet
You’ve done it: written a novel, revised it, sought outside opinions and revised some more. Maybe your magnum opus has gone through endless drafts.But something’s still not right. Either it’s not shaping up into the book you hoped it would be, or it’s not getting the reception you want from agents and publishers.
→Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print
- Will readers find your protagonist worthy?, Writers Helping Writers | Tweet
There are many facets of a strong protagonist. And as we juggle the different pieces of characterization with the goal of building someone truly exceptional, one of the biggest jobs is to make sure readers connect to protagonist, understand his or her goals, and most importantly, find them worth rooting for.
→Creating Strong Protagonists (Screenwriting Blue Books Book 7)
- 10 Lessons I learned while writing my first novel, The Write Practice | Tweet
It’s been a long road… I started this novel about four-and-a-half years ago. It was my first novel, my first serious creative writing venture, and I’ve grown a lot as a writer and as a person along the way. Here are the top ten lessons I learned while writing my first novel.
→Writing Your First Novel: Lessons Learned
- How actions determine character and arc, Writers in the storm | Tweet
The writer who can master the art and craft of defining their characters by their actions is going to be the author whose work gets read. By lots and lots of folks… Enough, hopefully, that you’ll never again have to say to someone about the novel you’ve written that it’s “only available in my room.”
→Writing Active Setting Book 3: Anchoring, Action, as a Character and More
- Show me the love: Chivalric love, Script mag | Tweet
Got Love? Got enough Love? Got the right kind of Love? No matter your writing genre or style, a good story needs some kind of Love to engage us emotionally.
→Writing Love: Screenwriting Tricks for Authors II: Story Structure for Pantsers and Plotters
- Stop telling me to turn my brain off during movies, ScreenCrunch | Tweet
There’s an old expression about how “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.” Truer words were never spoken about the world of movies. Art is completely subjective and there really is no accounting for taste.
SELF-PUBLISHING
- How to choose the right wordpress theme for you, Jane Friedman | Tweet
When starting your own website from scratch—using WordPress—one of the first and most important choices you’ll face is what theme to use. Your WordPress theme will affect how your site looks and feels (the aesthetics), but it will also affect its functionality (the bells and whistles). Some themes are extraordinarily simple and bare bones, while others have a learning curve of their own!
→WordPress Themes the Top Rated and Most Useful Themes – Intro Price
- Is social media killing your small business?, Small Business PR | Tweet
Today, everyone wants to be the King (or Queen!) of social media. We need to be on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and, of course, Pinterest. But is it possible that being everywhere at once might actually be hurting your business?
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SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
- The Shakespeare algorithm, The New Yorker | Tweet
Can linguistic analysis settle the question of who wrote an early modern play?
→Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?
RELATIONSHIPS
- The (Re-)Invention of the soul mate, The Atlantic | Tweet
Through jokes about text messages and tales of a terrible person named Tanya, Modern Romance explores what happens when looking for love also means looking for one’s “other half.”
SOCIAL MEDIA
- Is Twitter an echo chamber?, Huffington Post | Tweet
While both are “social” in the broadest sense, Facebook for me is really like a rolling conversation, a somewhat gossipy block party where friends and family catch up on personal experiences and share some joys and sorrows. Twitter is much more contentious and political, a place for the opinionated to share their grievances and meet with others, similarly aggrieved.
AMAZON
- Amazon Kindle Paperwhite
(2015) Review, The Verge | Tweet
(2015) Review, It’s a Kindle. It does Kindle things.
TIME MANAGEMENT
Is your Google Calendar overbooked with tons of microprojects? Does Trello take up hours of your day? Have you made so many lists that you can’t even keep them straight anymore?
→Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity