Sure, the superpowers and other fantasy elements make for fun, quirky takes on high school drama and social issues. But it’s the small, even quiet moments that I love in Jillian Tamaki’s told-in-episodes graphic novel; the sincerity mixed with insightful humor in these scenes have a special magic of their own.
Wish I had found this song earlier, but then again, maybe I need it most now. I love how the sheer authenticity of “One Chance” cuts to the core of how compelling yet challenging the call of creativity is. I’ve been listening to this song since January, and it’s the first song on my current playlist.
Tim Be Told has been dazzling my auditory cortex since I saw them perform at ECAASU‘s 2010 conference. I lost track of them for a while as my musical tastes went through various phases, but it’s so great to know they’re still making amazing music, really embodying the ethos they layout in “One Chance”.
I am so ready for this weekend, and I am psyched to be helping GrubStreet get ready for a weekend of extraordinary literary energy at The Muse and The Marketplace 2015! It’s been wonderful working with GrubStreet staff and fellow volunteers on some of the behind-the-scenes operations.
If you’re attending this conference on craft and publishing, I may have handled your mini-program/badge, amid the piles of them here, which we’ve been painstakingly yet lovingly attached color-coded lanyards to…
As a “snapshot” of what I’m currently listening to, this chart doesn’t show how much some of these songs have impacted me in past months and years. If there were a chart like this for songs I was listening to a year or two back, some of ones near the bottom of the chart shown here would be near or at the top that one. Tastes change over time, and what we compare our experiences to changes over time as well. But all of the songs here have at some point really brightened my days and often continue to do so.
tNY Press’ The Electronic Encyclopedia of Experimental Literature (the EEEL) just published my flash fiction story “My Lovely Nemesis”! If you could use a compact dose of quirky creative writing, please give it a read!
“…you gotta watch the ones who you let speak straight into your life…”—Tim McMorris.
Of course this says more about my personality and tastes as well as what I tend to encounter and look for, as opposed to commenting on how “important” or “valuable” the works of these amazing people are. Although it is perhaps concerning that the chart is rather male heavy…
I love this bike shop cafe. Great pour over coffee and delightful atmosphere.
Follow your curiosity. Because passion is sort of a tower of flame that is not always accessible, and curiosity is something that anybody can access any day. Your curiosity may lead you to your passion or it may not—it may have been “for nothing” in which case all you’ve done your entire life is spend your existence in pursuit of the things that made you feel curious and inspired, and that should be good enough. Like if you get to do that, that’s a wonderful way to have spent your time here.—Elizabeth Gilbert
TED talks are always a great source of new and insightful perspectives, and I love how NPR’s TED Radio Hour takes us deeper into
“… if you live with your head in the clouds every now and then, it helps you keep your feet on the ground.”—Gavin Pretor-Pinney
“When you say `creative people,’ that’s redundant. We are creativity.”—Elizabeth Gilbert
“…forget about having an identity crisis and get some identity capital. By `get identity capital,’ I mean do something that adds value to who you are. Do something that’s an investment in who you might want to be next… Identity capital begets identity capital.”—Meg Jay
That’s from her talk “Why 30 is not the new 20”, but check out Meg Jay’s Q&A on NPR.org.
“Science is curiosity acted upon.”—James Cameron
…there was PowerBook.
These are the earliest Apple laptops I used; though I did try them out briefly as a youngster hanging out in computer stores playing Spectre, I never owned any of the trackball versions of the PowerBook. I was also an iBook and PowerBook G4 12-inch user.
So why are these still in my closet? They became obsolete before the days of Gazelle and responsible e-waste disposal. They’ve also racked up sentimental value.
Here are some perspectives David Morley shares in his fantastic book The Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing.
Writing proceeds forwards slowly, like a sand dune moving through night and day, simultaneously accreting and eroding. Much is lost or invisible, millions of grains of sand, millions of grains of language
You have now begun to walk in the open space of the page. The journey becomes an elaborate series of gambles, and there is no sense of forward progression as such; there is shaping and reconfiguring, stepping back, inking in and beginning over.
A notebook is a movable workplace… A notebook will make the difference between a book being born and one that never achieves conception.
…we have to use the right words and the right words in the best order.
Most writers agree that the best way to write well creatively is to write for yourself.
It follows that the best way to read as a writer is to read for yourself.
A Contemplative Compilation 