Grandiosity lessens as work proceeds.
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927), U.S. aphorist.
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Posts Tagged ‘Writers’
Work Proceeds!
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, Thoughts, Writers, writing on July 19, 2024| Leave a Comment »
On Resurrecting Habits
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, habits, persistence, Thoughts, Writers, writing on July 18, 2024| Leave a Comment »
A lot of my work relies on habit. Be it the day job, chores, calling the parental units, these daily posts or other creative work, I made space for everything in my week. When the time came, I’d do the thing. Easy and good, a puzzle with all the pieces in place.
The problem with a system like that? Change. When one of those pieces breaks, is lost, grows in size, or (running out of puzzle-related associations, but you get the idea) otherwise shifts in ways that alter the system, the associated habits can break too.
For a long time, my habit was to spend an hour or so writing with breakfast, then shift over to the day job. But when my work schedule changed, my dedicated writing time disappeared too.
In sum: I’m not writing enough. Grr.
Time to get back to basics and rebuild my schedule.
Step one? Remember that urgency isn’t everything. Make time for what’s important.
“Everything is habit-forming, so make sure what you do is what you want to be doing.”
— Wilt Chamberlain
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What Magic Is
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, cli-fi, Fiction, inspiration, Joy Donnell, Writers on July 17, 2024| 1 Comment »
This story just came across my desk, part of the Grist Climate Fiction collection, which I’ve mentioned before. I haven’t read this piece yet but I’m looking forward to it. If you’re the sort of reader who enjoys hopeful views of the future, perhaps you’d like to join me.
Heirloom | Grist (by Joy Donnell)
A slight pressure on the mattress moves Dru’s foot. She looks down her body to see Helene sitting beside her toes. Her ancestor is a stunner. Perfect red lips. Her hair is curled and controlled, yet slightly tousled. Helene is also wearing the party dress but her version is composed of starlight regalia shaped like luna moths and floating bubbles of light.
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Word Power
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, persistence, purpose, Thoughts, Writers, writing on July 14, 2024| Leave a Comment »
“A word after a word after a word is power.”
— Margaret Atwood
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Creative Advice for a Saturday
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, neil gaiman, Thoughts, Writers, writing on July 13, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Most writers, and indeed, most creatives could tell you that quite often we are at our most creative when we’re staring into the middle distance, our mind engaged only with itself, silent and otherwise unoccupied.
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Outlook is Good
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, poets, Thoughts, Writers on July 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »
“I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.”
— Emily Dickinson
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Play A Bigger Game
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, Thoughts, Writers, writing on July 10, 2024| Leave a Comment »
“If you’re only going to accept winning as the condition for your participation, you play a very small game.”
— Michael Bungay Stanier
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Sun Above, Shadow Below
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, fantasy, free fiction, inspiration, Scott Lynch, sff, Writers, writing on July 9, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Scott Lynch is the author of a favorite series, The Gentleman Bastard (start with The Lies of Locke Lamora). His writing is crisp, clear, and clever, but not what I’d call copious. So imagine how pleased I was when a notification popped up in my inbox, letting me know that he has a short story out. Even better, it’s part of a free multi-author newsletter dedicated to sharing science fiction and fantasy every Sunday: The Sunday Morning Transport.
Here’s the story. If you’d like more weekly fiction, subscribe at the link above.
Selected Scenes from the Ecologies of the Labyrinth by Scott Lynch
Akayla Sethrys’s boot hits the door just below the lock.
She’s been kicking these things in for eight or nine years now and she knows where to put her emphasis. She favors a pair of bespoke basilisk leather and steel sabatons for this purpose; today some additional luck is with her in the form of rotten wood. Jagged wet splinters fly as the broken door slams inward, peeling out of its frame. Another dungeon chamber breached.
“Onward!” cries Sethrys, crouched over her shield, blade up for quick thrusts past the rim.
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Beyond All Doubt
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, creativity, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers, writing on July 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »
“Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try. For one thing we know beyond all doubt: Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, ‘It can’t be done.’”
— Eleanor Roosevelt
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How to Make Your Soul Grow
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2024, advice, art, artists, creativity, inspiration, Writers on July 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Kurt Vonnegut’s letter to the graduating class of New York’s Xavier High School is good advice for all artists, or anyone hoping to “experience becoming.”
Here it is read by another artistic treasure, Gandalf Ian McKellen:
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