WRITING BOOTCAMP - The Cliteratti Club Pushing through. Every day I meet someone who wants to write but can’t get around to it, wants to write but doesn’t know where to start, wants to write but can’t believe they have what it takes. When I stop looking in the mirror and venture outside, I often meet more of them. There’s no point going into the ins and outs of why we dither around – that’s just another way of stalling. We all understand procrastination and the wonder of a fully indexed CD collection. Shanti Gowans, a beautiful and brilliant meditation teacher once turned everything around for me by saying ‘stop thinking of it as meditation, just think of it as sitting’. Now I want to apply that philosophy to writing. We’ve entered Writing Bootcamp. Like any athlete honing their talent and ability to perfection, we are training for the big one. The great American dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp rises every morning at 5.30am and catches a taxi to her gym in downtown New York where she works out for two hours.
The Daily Routines of Famous Writers By Maria Popova UPDATE: These daily routines have now been adapted into a labor-of-love visualization of writers’ sleep habits vs. literary productivity. Kurt Vonnegut’s recently published daily routine made we wonder how other beloved writers organized their days. So I pored through various old diaries and interviews — many from the fantastic Paris Review archives — and culled a handful of writing routines from some of my favorite authors. Enjoy. Ray Bradbury, a lifelong proponent of working with joy and an avid champion of public libraries, playfully defies the question of routines in this 2010 interview: My passions drive me to the typewriter every day of my life, and they have driven me there since I was twelve. Joan Didion creates for herself a kind of incubation period for ideas, articulated in this 1968 interview: I need an hour alone before dinner, with a drink, to go over what I’ve done that day. E. I never listen to music when I’m working. Photograph by Tom Palumbo, 1956
David Whyte on How to Break the Tyranny of Work/Life Balance by Maria Popova “We are each a river with a particular abiding character, but we show radically different aspects of our self according to the territory through which we travel.” The equilibrium between productivity and presence is one of the hardest things to master in life, and one of the most important. In The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship (public library) — a book reminiscent of Parker Palmer’s beautiful Thoreau-esque writings on the art of inner wholeness yet wholly revelatory in its own right — English poet and philosopher David Whyte aptly calls “work/life balance” a “phrase that often becomes a lash with which we punish ourselves” and offers an emboldening way out of this cultural trap. One of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's original watercolors for 'The Little Prince.' Poets have never used the word balance, for good reason. In a passage that calls to mind Wendell Berry’s glorious meditation on solitude, Whyte details the trifecta of his inquiry:
Famous Writers’ Sleep Habits vs. Literary Productivity, Visualized by Maria Popova The early bird gets the Pulitzer … sort of. “In both writing and sleeping,” Stephen King observed in his excellent meditation on the art of “creative sleep” and wakeful dreaming, “we learn to be physically still at the same time we are encouraging our minds to unlock from the humdrum rational thinking of our daytime lives.” Over the years, in my endless fascination with daily routines, I found myself especially intrigued by successful writers’ sleep habits — after all, it’s been argued that “sleep is the best (and easiest) creative aphrodisiac” and science tells us that it impacts everything from our moods to our brain development to our every waking moment. I found myself wondering whether there might be a correlation between sleep habits and literary productivity. The challenge, of course, is that data on each of these variables is hard to find, hard to quantify, or both. Donating = Loving Bringing you (ad-free) Brain Pickings takes hundreds of hours each month.
The Sense of Style: Psycholinguist Steven Pinker on the Art and Science of Beautiful Writing by Maria Popova “Every generation believes that the kids today are degrading the language and taking civilization down with it.” “Man has an instinctive tendency to speak, as we see in the babble of our young children,” Charles Darwin wrote in The Descent of Man, “whereas no child has an instinctive tendency to bake, brew, or write.” While baking and brewing undoubtedly have their place in culture, it is writing that has emerged as the defining record of our civilization — our most enduring and expansive catalog of thought, of discourse, of human imagination. And yet our insatiable hunger for advice on writing suggests that it remains an unnatural act — even legendary Mad Man David Ogilvy knew this when he penned his ten commandments of writing a century after Darwin, prefacing them with this simple statement: “Good writing is not a natural gift. Pinker writes in the prologue: We now know that telling writers to avoid the passive is bad advice. Good writers are avid readers.
Creation: Ancient Indian Origin Myths, Brought to Life in a Breathtaking Illustrated Cosmogony by Maria Popova Consummate visual storytelling about life, death, the rhythms of time, and the beginning of art. “We don’t need to credit an all-seeing God with the creation of life and matter,” Douglas Rushkoff wrote in contemplating consciousness, “to suspect that something wonderfully strange is going on in the dimension we call reality.” Nowhere does this celebration come more vibrantly alive than in Creation (public library) by Bhajju Shyam — the best-known artist of India’s Gond tribe and the talent behind the extraordinary London Jungle Book. Air A master of the traditional folk art style for which his tribe is known, Shyam conveys the core symbols and stories of Gond cosmogony in this simple yet enormously evocative masterpiece of visual storytelling. The Unborn Fish Hand-bound in a limited edition of 5,000 numbered copies and silkscreened on handmade paper with traditional Indian dyes, this beautiful book comes from South Indian independent publisher Tara Books. Death and Rebirth
Be a better writer in 15 minutes: 4 TED-Ed lessons on grammar and word choice There’s no denying it — the English language can be mighty tricky. When writing a paper, a novel or even an e-mail, you might look at a sentence you just wrote and think, “Is that comma supposed to be there?” or “Is that really the best word to use?” Fear not! TED-Ed has put together a list of four of our favorite grammar and language lessons to get your next piece of writing in tip-top shape. First, let’s look at the often-confusing comma. What about the Oxford comma? Now, take an adjective such as “implacable” or a verb like “proliferate” or even another noun “crony,” and add a suffix, such as “-ity” or “-tion” or “-ism.” Finally, when it comes to good writing, don’t take the easy route!
Inspirational Writing Quotes, Writing Quotes by Balboa Press With writing there are struggles. And sometimes it's easy to get lost in the struggles, whether you can't find the time, have a bad case of writer's block or are simply unsure how to start writing. It's important for an author to push through these occasional road blocks and reach their ultimate goal (Click to Tweet). There are many remedies for authors during the hard times of writing. While searching for your remedy, remember that motivation is key. "If I can awaken just one person ..." - Nicola Gibbs By writing and publishing your book, you have the potential to touch many readers. "My voice is valuable. An author's voice is unique and no one will tell your story like you will (Click to Tweet). "I AM a writer." - Michelle A. Be proud of your work. Get inspired by more Balboa Press authors' affirmations in the slideshow below (Click to Tweet).
The Genes of the Soul: Amin Maalouf on Belonging, Conflict, and How We Inhabit Our Identity As a teenager in Bulgaria, the great joy of turning sixteen was finally qualifying for a passport. But this long-awaited event also marked my first brush with the violence of bureaucracy. One Friday morning, I stepped into a municipal office to apply for the coveted certificate of identity and lined up behind — or, rather, herded with, as is customary in Eastern Europe — a large lot of my fellow humans also in need of some government document. Across the mass of dejected strangers, resigned to countless hours at the mercilessness of bureaucrats, I spotted a boy from my high school. “It takes a lot to wrest identity out of nothing,” James Baldwin told Margaret Mead in their extraordinary conversation on identity and belonging, and yet wrest we do when we must: The boy and I locked eyes in relieved recognition of affinity amid alienating otherness. As philosopher David Whyte aptly observed, “our sense of slight woundedness around not belonging is actually one of our core competencies.”
The Future Of Word Processing Is SO COOL! | The Writer's Circle It’s strange. Every time we talk about typewriters our friends always bring up Hemingway. Why is it that Ernest Hemingway always evokes images of a typewriter? Hemingwrite Typewriter / Via Hemingwrite/KickStarter Using your computer for word processing is great! The idea behind this new “typewriter” is that it is the best of multiple writing technologies. Ernest Hemingway with a Typewriter in London’s Dorchester Hotel / Via Ernest Hemingway Collection. It also has an E Ink screen to give your work a more organic feel while using very little power. The issue with this, for those of us who spend oodles of our free time writing, is how do we know which technology to use? Is this something you would use?
NSW Premier's Literary Awards: Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu wins Book of the Year Updated A thesis that challenges Australian history and a novel exploring the treatment of outsiders are among the major winners of the 2016 NSW Premier's Literary Awards, announced at the State Library of NSW on Monday night. Key points: Bruce Pascoe says award honours Indigenous cultureLocust Girl. A Lovesong by Merlinda Bobis wins Christina Stead Prize for FictionMany winning works explored themes of being an outsider Thirty judges had the difficult task of narrowing down a record number of entries, eventually selecting Dark Emu by Indigenous Victorian writer Bruce Pascoe as Book of the Year. Using early explorers' journals and other evidence, Pascoe argued pre-colonial Aboriginal people were not hunter-gatherers, but had a democracy that ensured peace across a continent which was extensively farmed, skilfully managed and deeply loved. Pascoe welcomed the award, saying it honoured Indigenous culture. The judges described Bobis lyrical prose as "transfiguring fiction".
The Amazing Benefits of Creative Time – The Writer's Circle Did you know that your health and personal well-being can benefit when you make time to be creative? It’s true! Whether you write, draw, scrapbook, or create quilts, when you engage in something creative, your mind and body benefits. Here’s some of the latest research and vignettes from people finding their lives are more grounded and rich after dedicating time to their favorite creative pursuit: Writer Michael Grothaus has been journaling for twelve years and finds it helps him feel better after putting his thoughts to paper. Fewer stress-related visits to the doctorImproved immune system functioningReduced blood pressureReduced absenteeism from workQuicker re-employment after job lossImproved working memory Michael offers eight great tips for how to start or improve your journaling experience. By now you’ve probably heard of Google’s 20% rule, which allows employees to spend 20% of their time on side projects they are passionate about. Said Eschleman:
Creating Healthy Writing Habits | Balboa Press Writer Wisdom “The habit of doing more than is necessary can only be earned through practice.” ― Seth Godin by Balboa Press Writing a book is a big goal. To reach the point where you have a fully prepared manuscript that’s ready for publication, there are many smaller, less exciting goals you’ll have to achieve along the way. From collecting materials and meeting word-count goals, to organizing chapters and editing every sentence — there’s much to be done. Being a writer is a lifestyle choice. Many writers approach their writing schedules in different ways. You’ll benefit from the power of practice The key to succeeding in your writing is the same as the key to reaching mastery in any activity: practice (Click to Tweet). You’ll stay connected to your work When you go long stretches without working on your book, it can be easy to lose focus and produce writing that feels choppy and disconnected. You’ll write with freedom You’ll open the floodgates