Saturday Potpourri

State of the Blog- I basically lost a week due to the dental stuff.  There's not much more than that going on.  I had intended to introduce the next "guest blogger" for Tuesday's rotation, but that's right when the pain and infection-caused fatigue was the worst.  I can try to put up some kind of content every day, even if it's just a link to something I think is neat with a few words of comment but writing isn't the effortless job that people who wonder "what you do all day" think it is, and if you're in too much pain (or ON too much Vicodin) to think coherently and with discipline for hours at a time, there's no way to write effectively.  I did some writing--just because I always do some writing--but it was pretty stream-of-consciousness.

I still want to work on populating a few more lists before I take my effort for getting new readers to the next level and start the kinds of projects designed to do so.  More and more of the Reliquary seems "in progress" rather than simply undone, but there are still a few places I'd like to flesh out.  I'd also like to be comfortable with the sweet spot of how much effort I give to the blog compared to other writing, and right now my writing is still blog heavy.  However I continue to be grateful of people who recommend me, share links on other sites, +1 stuff, or comment. You guys rawk!

Rory Marinich tackles Six Lies About Creative Writing You Should Never Believe.  I have to admit that some times I forget how far I've come.  It wouldn't even occur to me today that any of these could possibly be true, but I can distinctly remember a time when I thought each of them was true.

Here are 100 Best First Lines From Novels.  How many of them can you recognize before you reach the attribution?  (I got about 60-65ish.)  First lines are great to pay close attention to.  That's your chance to reach right out of your work and grab the eyeballs of your reader, so they have no choice but to keep reading.  If you like writing the Sunday Prompts, you should pay particular attention to this.

How to Get in the Mood to Write is a bit of a misnomer actually since the article (correctly) identifies that the whole "not in the mood to write" thing is actually a pitfall, and the best thing to do is write.  I love the Bradbury quote this article included:  “Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down.”






Not too many people who know me are unaware of how much I like Ted talks.  I think you could just about watch every one of them from beginning to end a couple of times and not have wasted a moment.

This one is an interesting take on what I was writing about yesterday with having less stuff.  It can actually make us considerably happier to simplify our lives and get rid of the stuff we don't really use or need.






Heard the one about the carrot, the egg and the cup of coffee?  It's a little on the trite side, but good to think about when facing adversity.  Not that my four days of teeth pain was really harrowing or anything, but that sort of thing has been on my mind.

If you still hate e-books, you really should join us all in the 21st century.  Because the "container" of an e-reader is full of possibility.  Libraries Launch a Collection of 80,000 e-books you can borrow off an e-reader.  Most of them are modern books.  Just for reference, your average small town library that is facing closures under budget cuts carries about 5000-10,000 books and it usually takes a county's "hub" library to break six figures.  You need an account through OpenLibrary.org which maintains a database of over a million e-books.  You need a major metropolitan library to break that.

What is this "Adult Beverage" crap?  Obviously you don't really want it.

Okay this is just goofy fun.  You want inspiration?  Take 40 inspirational speeches in 2 minutes!  It doesn't make much sense, you will feel manipulated beyond all reason, but you still probably can't get to the Bastian-on-Falcor part without wanting to go DO something.  (And for me that thing is always write.)

[Do you want to be featured in potpourri along with a few words from me about how awesome you are?  Do you know a great writing link that I should share? Please send it to me at chris.brecheen@gmail.com, and I will post it along with a shout out singing your praises (unless, of course, you don't want one).  There are four caveats to this.  Please read them before you send me stuff.  If I've posted anything that you feel is "yours" (or "your client's" --eeep!) please just ask and I will take it down if you wish or preferably give you credit and a link back to its source.  Most everything here that doesn't have an embedding code within its source is some kind of meme, so it would be quite difficult for me to do proper attribution.]