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When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
~VIKTOR FRANKL, author of Man’s Search for Meaning
WRITING
The plan made me feel dishonest and creepy, so it took me a long time to send my novel out under a man’s name. But each time I read a study about unconscious bias, I got a little closer to trying it.
- The simple truth about finding your writing voice, Finally Writing | Tweet
When you take the opportunity to write through challenging experiences, you heal and you do something powerful for your authorial voice.
Find Your Voice: A Methodology for Enhancing Literacy Through Re-Writing and Re-Acting
- Research, research, research with Ella Quinn, Romance University | Tweet
Contemporary writers may think it’s much easier for them, but if you set your story in a different country or even a different part of your own country, make sure you know what the culture is.
The Craft of Research, Third Edition (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)
- Balancing dialogue and description in your story, Jane Friedman | Tweet
To shape your dialogue scene into a compact and intriguing unit, dialogue and non-dialogue have to complement each other.
Writing Active Hooks Book 2:: Evocative Description, Character, Dialogue, Foreshadowing and Where to Use Hooks
SCREENWRITING
- Video: The use of doors in film, Go Into The Story | Tweet
Doors can signify separation… inclusion… warning… welcome… power… weakness. They are threshholds and crossing through one can lead to new experiences… and consequences.
- Unmet needs, Flying Wrestler | Tweet
I think the best television characters want something they can never have — and spend every episode pursuing it. What makes them compelling is that they are under siege, in some way, by the world around them, and unable to secure that version of their life that they continually fantasize about.
The Art of Screenwriting – Character: With Nicholas Kazan and Paul Attanasio
SELF-PUBLISHING
- How to sell more books and grow your fan base at author events, The Write Life | Tweet
When we talk about building your author platform, the inescapable challenge every author must face is marketing. Particularly, email marketing.
The Author’s Marketing Handbook
Today’s ever-changing publishing industry offers a land of innovation and experimentation to the players who are not afraid to redefine what “publishing” means, or how it should work.
PSYCHOLOGY
Our senses appear to show us the world the way it truly is, but they are easily deceived.
How Emotions Are Made: The New Science of the Mind and Brain
HAPPINESS
- What do scientists know about finding a purpose in life?, The Creativity Post | Tweet
Despite the large number of journalists, authors, and scientists who write on this topic, few provide a definition. Without clear language, it is hard to make inroads into understanding, detecting, creating, or living in accord with a purpose in life.
EDUCATION
- Advice for people in their early 20s, Zen Habits | Tweet
A young woman wrote to me recently about fears about the future.
HISTORY
White has a physical purity. White light contains roughly equal amounts of every color in the visual spectrum, and activates all three types of cone cells in our eyes related to color. As a result, we perceive materials that don’t absorb color, and reflect light back to us, as achromatic—white.
Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity
MOVIES
- Mission impenetrable: are Hollywood blockbusters losing the plot?, The Guardian | Tweet
From Fast & Furious to the Avengers, Terminator and Jurassic World, the trend for ridiculously over-complicated storylining is out of control this year. Is it time for a purge?