A good little read, if you’re into literary culinaria (or even if you’re not):
Aesop’s Fable for Food Writers, by Jeannette Ferrary
Good advice from Jeannette: “Take notes… If you want to be a writer whose work is lit up and energized by the telling detail and the palpable freshness of the moment, get yourself a nice, little easy-to-carry notebook. And don’t leave home without it.”
Enjoy!
For you NaNoWriMo folks (or anyone else looking to increase your writing productivity, I’ve just stumbled upon a really interested tool:
Write or Die gives you three options to select the intensity of WoD’s negative reinforcement:
* Gentle Mode: A certain amount of time after you stop writing, a box will pop up, gently reminding you to continue writing.
* Normal Mode: If you persistently avoid writing, you will be played a most unpleasant sound. The sound will stop if and only if you continue to write.
* Kamikaze Mode: Keep Writing or Your Work Will Unwrite Itself
Come on, what’s not to love about that?
I wrote another post over the the Writer’s Technology Companion about making the most of the RSS link on your blog. Check it out here.
Hey all, quick note: I wrote a few guest posts over at Dustin Wax’s writing blog, The Writer’s Technology Companion. My first post is about adding printing functionality to WordPress blogs. Enjoy!
Gregory Kompes writes an excellent post about putting together a business plan for your writing business here. Michelle Goodman also talks about creating a short “business plan to go” in her new book, My So-Called Freelance Life: How to Survive and Thrive as a Creative Professional for Hire.
Regardless of how long your business plan is, it’s always important to A) document your goals, and B) lay out a plan for achieving them. If you’ve got a map of your journey laid out before you, it’s generally easier to get where you want to go.
A great article from the New Yorker about how we can’t all find success right away. Revel in your late bloomer-ness. There’s a lot to be said for having to fight your way to the top!
This link may not seem directly related to writing or productivity, but I suffer serious brain fog after I chow down on the junk food, followed by an energy crash of epic proportions. As such, my 30+ year sugar habit is becoming a major obstacle placed directly in front of the life I want to be living. I don’t need it, but try telling physiology that.
I know I’m not the only one who could use a kick in the pants to get off the refined white stuff. So, my fellow glucose-fiends, I give you “Beat the Sugar Habit: 3 Steps to Cut Sweets (Mostly) Out of Your Life.”
I was surfing through the web for productivity hacks (because, you know, procrastination is a problem we all deal with) and I came across this comparison of four popular OS X task managers. I personally use Things, but I’m constantly on the lookout for better ways to improve my day to day life. I tend to be one of those “paralysis by analysis” types, so comparisons like the one below make me giddy.
OSX Task Manager Showdown – iGTD2 vs Inbox vs OmniFocus vs Things
An interesting podcast I found on NPR:
“Will Barack Obama’s slogan, ‘Change We Can Believe In’ or John McCain’s, ‘Country First’ rank up there with ‘Tippecanoe and Tyler Too’ in the annals of political sloganeering? We remember some of history’s most important slogans, catchphrases and metaphors in the world of politics and beyond.”
Here’s a link, and I’ve embedded the podcast below.
While flipping through the NPR website, I came across an episode of the show “On the Media” concerning the liability that bloggers potentially face every time they make a post. It’s an interesting discussion of options that are available to bloggers who have been threatened with a lawsuit. If you blog, I recommend you check it out.