I love a good information graphic and this is a great one.
Go to the link and work your way through the layers…
and to think your mortgage/credit card debt was an issue?!
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/10/23/sunday-review/an-overview-of-the-euro-crisis.html
A zine (pronounced zeen and short for fanzine) is a small circulation, self published work usually photocopied and stapled. A base version of a magazine…the sort of thing you would have made for a uni project.HOW TO BECOME A SUCCESSFUL WRITER.
A FREE seminar with Michael Domeyko Rowland.
Author of ABSOLUTE HAPPINESS
Did I say I was expecting little more than a strange experience to fill a Monday evening?
It certainly began that way…one of the expected septuagenarians waxing lyrical about how much she enjoyed a FREE PEN on entry; only to be told that they were JUST for loan if needed.There was however small wads of paper on offer….but our pen collecting lady proudly stated that there was no need as she held aloft her own notepad..’PLANNING YOUR RETIREMENT LIFESTYLE’ - a slate grey logotype emblazoned across its base.
At least I could set aside any previous thoughts that I had unknowingly signed up for a Scientology Recruitment Drive..has that been the case, the pens would have been FREE!
The microphone didn’t work; which was fine because our speaker began delivering the history of his working life..so I arrogantly began to doodle.
“Who would like to be a successful writer”…I stopped doodling and looked up – he had a glint in his eye. 4 hands went up.
He began by telling us about first time writers who were not university educated in creative writing but who did succeed…and then some!
J.K.Rowling and THE FLOW that led to a multi million dollar series of books.
In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry “came fully formed” into her mind. She told the Boston Globe that “I really don’t know where the idea came from. It started with Harry, then all these characters and situations came flooding into my head.”Back at her Clapham Junction flat, and later at the now famous cafe…she simply transcribed what she called THE FLOW.
Stephenie Myer..
The Twilight series.Chapter 13 apparently “entered her mind like a conscious dream”…
NIcholas Evans – a 10 page overview of a gypsy that talked to horses that he remembers from his childhood became a $4 million advance from Robert Redford – later to become the Horse Whisperer that grossed $187 million whorldwide.
There were more…Robert Mawson and The Lazarus Child; Philip Kerr and Gridiron….a novel about a high-tech building that eats its occupants….and who bought the rights for 2.2 million? Tom Cruise of course!
He then began to discuss our psychological make up…the personality being just a persona that is the mask that we create for society. Beneath that lies our plethora of sub personalities and that is what makes us each unique.
Yeah yeah….I started doodling again.
I started half listening again as he discussed “which mind should we use when we are writing?”
I was about to get out the oil paints but he seemed excited so I got lateral and listened….
“You can write with your conscious mind but that will be pedestrian at best. You can write with your sub-conscious mind; your reposition of memories past; but that will be dark.You MUST try to write with your SUPER CONSCIOUS mind…your intuition, your genius.
Your MYTHOPOETICA.”
I must have frowned with the cocked eyebrows of open disdain at this point because he glared at me and stated this salient fact..
“WE ALL DREAM. Each time you sleep you create characters, emotions, locations, well written thrillers and documentaries that are all YOU. Your dream. Each and every character is a sub-personality that is part of you. It has to be because the dream is from within your own mind.”
Oh My God…that is so bloody true. What a magnificent thought.
“ Your mythopoetica functions constantly,” he continued, “so let it drip feed. Download it. Receive the flow. Allow the super conscious to give it to you and simply write it down.”
Apparently Robert Louis Stephenson is quoted as saying, “I am not a writer, I just take dictation”
He then talked about the ‘alarm clock syndrome’ as proof of our super conscious.
If you set an 3 alarm clocks for 4 am…you wake at 3.55 am, before any of them has begun to ring.
So which part of us is awake when we are sleeping? The super conscious.
Next followed the obligatory BUY THE LECTURE SERIES and so I went back to the doodle but with intent.
Will I buy the supporting lecture series?
Who knows but I will be looking back over countless diaries of thoughts and dreams and travel stories that could become a bestseller when viewed through such positive binoculars.
Do I have more faith in myself as a writer or an artist?
Yes I bloody well do because I have incredibly detailed, convoluted and humorous dreams; see monsters and clowns in the every day; create characters out of driftwood….
I am now trying to find a diary from my early 20’s …taking my lascivious grandad on a trip to Morocco..think drugs, midgets, nude men in elevators, human trafficking, corruption, lesbians and abysmal hotel foyer bands!
Do yourself a favour and read this.
A brilliant set of short stories/essays that reminds us that getting the society at large to buy books has always been an issue!
I was recently having to write a story for a magazine…500 words or less….actually that would sadly be nothing more than an ‘opinion piece’.
Anyway…how to get a quick wordcount?
I tried the menu bar in MAIL, I checked TEXT EDIT and then I googled.
I came across (and threw it immediately in my toolbar for easy access) a site that makes it as simple as currency exchange makes checking your dollars!
WORD COUNT .
It does have the added extra that you get to look at fat men become slim on a dieting advertisemnet as you wait for your stories word count to be affected!
I loaded up The Australian newspaper app and was disappointed.
The app reads well and the interface makes for great skimming and concise overviews but the screaming lack of the weekend ‘good bits’ left me slumped.
I have emailed twice asking how, and if there is a way to get Mystic Medusa, WISH magazine, The Review and the Weekend Australian….no response.
I would happily pay extra.
First of all; let me rant……iBooks nearly made me throw my iPad in the bin!
What a rude, lazy, crap and unreasonably marketed piece of software if you live in a country that is not America (or possibly Europe).
Half the reason that I bought an iPad was to read whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and so I jumped on and downloaded iBooks then started pulling my hair out!
Yes, I got a free bloody book that I didn’t want; then spent ages searching like a loony for a book to buy. All I could find were free classics and free classics and free fuckin’ classics.
I trawled forums to work out how to find the reader store – all the time wondering how I could be so moronically inept at such a ‘must be’ simple task.
Finally the truth was there….6 pages into some apple/iPad forum…..iBooks has no books to sell to Australian users at this point!
Why not direct the sales staff to let you know this; or have a pop up letting you know that this title is not yet available in Australia (as kindle manages to do) or something!
However – there are very good alternatives that do work on the iPad so that you can delete iBooks and move on.
Kindle by Amazon has a great range of books…they still have the issue that many books are unavailable to our ‘sad, lowly populated and therefore not worth the bother extending virtual copyright nation’ but at least you can see that.
I was looking for a book called Ilustrado, by Miguel Syjuco…I couldn’t find it in 3 physical stores nor any apps, but ‘good old, Kindle had it sitting there with the ‘one click and it’s yours’ button flashing merrily to the right of the book cover!
Their interface is ok and has a great dictionary tool that works clearly without you having to leave the page.
You can’t copy and paste or share any text which is a pity.
Borders app is fine if you want a bestseller.
Stanza started as an iPhone app.
It has the ability to share lumps of text by emailing them directly to yourself or a friend.
There is a dictionary function but you have to use a pop up and then return to the page which is a pain in the ass.
The book store is also a pain in the ass as Stanza acts as a landing site whereby you have to search through one of 5 or 6 different providers. there is no overriding search function that finds the book, then let’s YOU choose which provider you will pay.
There was the Sony READER which I used, as you can download books that are for US readers only, simply by putting in a fake American address (i.e: Martin Lindstrom’s Brand Sense is only available for download through the Reader Store
However, it seems that none of the readers on the iPad will accept the books purchased through the Reader Store.
So, Kindle it is…..although I flare nostrils and shake my head as I have to say that iBooks interface wins hands down!
Have a look at the lowly dictionary setting on the book I wanted by Kindle vs. iBooks lovely dictionary on its patronising ‘giveaway’.
It was suggested that ‘Fahrenheit 451′ sits alongside ‘Brave New World’ and ’1984′.
I just finished the book and yes, it’s the same big brother future, but not a patch on the others….but a quick read that gets you thinking.
Fahrenheit 452…the temperature that book-paper catches fire and burns.
Published 1953.
Here’s my quote from it…..
“Grandfather’s been dead for all these years, but if you lifted my skull, by god, in the convolutions of my brain you’d find the big ridges of his thumbprint….”I hate a Roman named Status Quo!” he said to me. “stuff your eyes with wonder”, he said, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world…….”
Cyril Pearl was an author/journalist/a man and maker of Australian history.
This article was in the Weekend Australian (Oct 31) : Review
This is a strange site indeed. However, if your day is taking you to places that you don’t want to be then this is the place to get some perspective back into your life.
If you want to shake your head but laugh none the less…http://www.rathergood.com/moon_song
If you hate Simply Red..http://www.rathergood.com/bunny_too_tight
But, best of all, if you need a cathartic moment then have this in your toolbar http://www.rathergood.com/buffy
Type in MATCH.
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