The job is what you do when you are told what to do. The job is showing up at the factory, following instructions, meeting spec, and being managed.
Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people.
Art isn’t only a painting. Art is anything that’s creative, passionate, and personal. And great art resonates with the viewer, not only with the creator.
An artists is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artists takes it personally.
~SETH GODIN, author of Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
WRITING & SCREENWRITING
- The 2 deep, dark secrets of high-producing novelists, Live Write Thrive | Tweet
Magicians are not to reveal their secrets. No such code exists among novelists, so allow me to let out of the bag our two deep dark secrets.
→Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets A Novelist Can Learn From Actors
- Narrative summary vs. Immediate scene by Carolyn Haines, Romance University | Tweet
The building blocks of writing include narrative summary and immediate scene and learning when to use one or the other can move your writing to the top of the pile.
→Make a Scene: Crafting a Powerful Story One Scene at a Time
Writing is hard. If you’re a writer, you don’t need me to tell you that. In the unlikely event that you’re not a writer, then all you have to do to be convinced that writing is hard is to take a quick sampling of writer humor.
→The 90-Day Novel: Unlock the story within
When you’re writing a character, it’s important to know why she is the way she is. Knowing her backstory is important to achieving this end, and one of the most impactful pieces of a character’s backstory is her emotional wound.
→The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide To Character Expression
- Movie analysis: Ex machina, Go into the story | Tweet
A young programmer is selected to participate in a breakthrough experiment in artificial intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a breathtaking female A.I.
- LEGALLY SPEAKING, IT DEPENDS: The Character of Characters, Script mag | Tweet
“He’s such a character,” isn’t an insult when you’re a writer. Often it’s a compliment. You’ve created a memorable, albeit fictional, person – recognizable, relatable, and real in many ways. Just how real they become and how much of their makeup is really yours are interesting questions. I wish I could say they were easily answered questions, but as always, it depends.
→Supporting Character Secrets (Screenwriting Blue Books Book 12)
SELF-PUBLISHING
- The 4-hidden dangers of writing groups, Jane Friedman | Tweet
Writers love the idea of writing groups. Writing is, after all, a very lonely pursuit. You sit alone in a room wrestling your ideas onto the page, struggling to fend off the constant attacks of doubt. Your regular friends probably don’t quite get what you are doing and can’t help. So it makes perfect sense to join other writers who can help you navigate the joys and sorrows of the creative process.
→Team Writing: A Guide to Working in Groups
- Book marketing: How to make a book seen, My bookish life | Tweet
One of the biggest issues publishers and authors are confronted with in terms of book marketing is how to make a book seen. Gaining visibility for a title is particularly difficult to achieve in a market that sees millions of books published every year.
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MOTIVATION
- The rejectionists, Seth’s Blog | Tweet
We can choose to define ourselves (our smarts, our brand, our character) on who rejects us.
→Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
CREATIVITY
- What’s the hardest part of the creative process?, Creative Something | Tweet
I’ve spent some time thinking about this question over the last year or so. What is it about the creative process that prevents us from utilizing it more often? If creative thinking is so powerful, why aren’t we doing it all the time?
→The Creative Process Illustrated: How Advertising’s Big Ideas Are Born
THE MIND
Eyelids open; flowers blossom; tiny beaks tap cracks in eggshells; crops sprout; creatures stalk, slide, and wriggle from their burrows; teenage elk scrape hooves in the dust, lower antlers, and charge their competition.
PSYCHOLOGY
Cognitive behavioral therapy is a commonly used treatment for depression, anxiety and other conditions. With it, the therapist doesn’t ask you about your mother–or look at the past at all.
FINANCES
- How taking care of my finances changed my life, Zen Habits | Tweet
Looking back on my life a decade ago, I just wasn’t taking care of myself. I was overweight, deeply in debt, a smoker, junk-food addict, stressed out, clutter piling up all around me, I didn’t floss … my life was a mess. And the solutions were so simple: little acts of self-care that really add up over time.
→TIPS! How To Take Care Of Your Finances In 7 Easy Steps
