Alchemy Ink

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, June 29-July5, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila

Thoughty Thursday

A bunch of good stuff for you this week. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll get edumacated 😉 Have fun *waves*!

The space shuttle program may have ended, but NASA’s still working on new ways of launching us into space. The Atlantic.

Plants can “hear” themselves being eaten. I fucking love science (IFLS). I kinda do, though sometimes it creeps me out.

More IFLS: Your brain on magic mushrooms.

And even more IFLS: Did you know there’s a place on earth that gets struck my lightning 1.2 million times a year?

One more IFLS, just for good measure: These skyscrapers will clean the pollution from the surrounding air and water.

David Gallo’s TED talk about underwater astonishments. The final frontier here on earth.

Treat the classroom, not the kids. ADHD, autism, and other conditions are not more prevalent in children, says Allen Frances in this Psychiatric Times article. The kids might just be misdiagnosed. My favourite quote: “It is shameful that simple immaturity due to being younger is now mislabelled as mental illness and mistreated with a pill.” In other words, being a kid isn’t a mental illness.

Amazing TED talk by George Takei: Why I love a country that once betrayed me.

How many last names started out as nicknames. Cool research for your characters?

St. Patrick was never canonized by the Catholic Church. I did not know this. IrishCentral.

A (mostly) intact 1700s woodworking shop was being used as a shed. Core77.

An old correctional facility not far from Sudbury makes UK news. “A stunning piece of Canadian history.” Could this be the setting for your next ghost story, or post-apocalyptic tale?

For Canada Day, Chris Hadfield and his brother Dave created this lovely song:

 

Doctor Who: 50 years of time travel, an infographic from the BBC.

A periodic table of fictional elements. Remember flubber? Fast Company.

A guy sings, impersonating 29 different celebrities, in one four-minute song. Offbeat.

Animals making puns from FadNation.

How would you like to have a thunderstorm in your house? Colossal.

Ideas.ted.com asks, what are you revealing on line?

What’s your favourite?

 

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, June 29-July 5, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Heading off to yoga shortly, so getting this week’s offerings up all hasty like.

Despite the title, K.M. Weiland offers writers some comfort: Why every story you write is a guaranteed failure.

C.H. Griffin posts about what Firefly can teach us about writing. Love Joss Whedon and Firefly, so this geek was caught at the title 😉

Infuse your fiction with Donald Maass on Writer Unboxed.

Ruth Harris blew me away with all of these writerly resources, many of them free!

Neuromarketing advises us to forget the fold. Interesting news for those of us who have usually posted loooong.

Roz Morris counsels a young aspirant about what path she should take to become a writer. This is good advice for anyone considering taking a course, workshop, or degree to bolster their “qualifications.”

The CBC’s list of the 100 novels that make us proud to be Canadian.

Brainpickings presents the greatest books of all time, as voted by 125 famous authors.

Why people in the 19th century thought reading fiction was bad for you. The Huffington Post.

A TED Ed video on the art of metaphor by Jane Hirshfield.

Four lessons in creativity from Julie Burstein. A TED Talk.

And that she be it.

Tipsday

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz June 22-28, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila

Another thoughty week runs the gamut from the sublime to the absurd. Just for you, my thoughty friends 🙂

This is from the learning and development side of my life, but, I figured, why not share the love? The social learning blog offers 22 free elearning and graphic design resources.

Author Media created this infographic that gives you ALL the sizes for all images on the most popular social media. Cheat sheet? AWESOME!

New technology for books! Check out the booktrack. Posted by Laurence MacNaughton on Jane Friedman’s blog.

All work and no play makes Johnny . . . crazy? Watch this TED talk and see what you think:

 

Five ways animals suffer from mental illness from ted.ideas.com. Phil and I have always been convinced we raise neurotic pets . . .

From the Telegraph: phobias may be memories passed down in our genes from our ancestors. Whoa, dude.

Brainpickings presents the theology of rest. “Rest, instead of being something passive, is actually an act of resistance.”

Try the Celtic version of the zodiac. The Celtic tree calendar from Irish Central.

A literary travel guide to the UK from ShortList.

Ted.ideas.com asks which country does the most good for the planet?

Six sites gain world heritage site status. Discovery news.

How much room would we need to supply the entire world with solar energy? I Fucking Love Science has the scoop.

Have a closer look at Europa with National Geographic. I love Europa. Wrote a poem about her once 🙂

The Atlantic present more of the entrants in the 2014 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest.

Love pugs? How about Game of Thrones? A couple of creative souls decided to put the two together and this is what they came up with:

 

HelloGiggles brings us an ode to sloths.

Wired’s absurd creature of the week: the assassin bug. More like creepy creature. Gives me the wiggins.

The truth about public toilet seats from Lifehacker.

And now that you’re suitably grossed out, I shall bid thee adieu!

The best in edutainment. Nothing’s too good for my writerly friends 🙂

Thoughty Thursday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz June 22-28, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Happy Canada Day, writerly peeps!

Red-Maple-Leaf-for-Canada-Day

Publishing news of the week: Writer’s Digest dumps Author Solutions. What David Gaughran thinks of the move.

Roz Morris explains how to write from an outline and still be creative. My subtitle: How to bend it like Morris 😉

The third and final instalment of K.M. Weiland’s flat character arc series: The flat character arc in the third act.

MJ Bush wrote a guest post for Writers Helping Writers on how regret can deepen your character’s arc.

Training your internal editor with Mary Robinette Kowal.

Writers, what do you fear? Dan Blank offers some compelling thoughts on how to deal on Writer Unboxed.

66 facts you may not have known about the English language from The Huffington Post.

John Vorhaus lets his wordy whimsy out to play on Writer Unboxed.

14 pieces of brilliant short fiction from Art.Mic.

Five hundred fairy tales discovered in Germany, brought to you by The Guardian. I can’t wait to get into these!

See you on Thoughty Thursday!

Tipsday

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz June 15-21, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

I think I have to declare this the week of TED. A fair amount of TED talk here. All excellent, as TED talks tend to be.

Just a bit of politics here. The Northern Gateway pipeline is that other pipeline, but it’s a Canadian thing, so some of you may not have heard. Here’s an interesting article about the lies that have been told in an attempt to push the project through.

Kudos to the UK where teaching creationism is now banned in state-run schools. I Fucking Love Science.

A man dedicated to fighting woo: The Huffington Post interviews James Randi (The Amazing Randi).

Just to offer some balance, a post on meditation from one of the woo-pitchers Randi debunks. Actually, I don’t think Randi has an issue with meditation, or its potential benefits, just all the other stuff that tends to get glommed in with it.

More IFLS: How neurons decide whether you cope or become stressed.

TED talk from David Anderson: Your brain is more than a bag of chemicals.

And related, from the Wall Street Journal: Our brains are made for enjoying art.

A TED talk from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the secret of happiness, flow.

Another TED talk from Steven Johnson: Where good ideas come from.

TED talk from Colin Stokes. What are today’s movies teaching our kids? This kind of goes with the article on strong female characters from this past Tipsday. Hint strong doesn’t equal pew-pew-pew!

Jim C. Hines responds to a blog post entitled “The naive idiocy of teaching rapists not to rape.” Read to get the goods.

An interesting article from Irish Central on the black Irish and their history.

Entertainment Weekly interviews David Benioff and Dan Weiss about the season 4 finale of Game of Thrones.

And Maisie Williams on her character, Arya.

One of my favourite pair of singer/songwriters: Dala 🙂

 

And just for laughs: What do you Poupon?

It was a fairly thoughty week! Enjoy, my friends 🙂

Thoughty Thursday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz June 15-21, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

There’s a little bit of everything this week. A little craft advice, some blogging tips, love for the word nerds and the book worms, writerly brain science, and a couple of thoughtful pieces about women in fiction and making it in the world of fandom.

Part two of K.M. Weiland’s how to write a flat character arc series.

Later in the week, Cathy Yardley wrote a guest post for Katie: Six tips to outline your novel faster.

Jan O’Hara discusses McKee’s four tips on writing a BIG story on Writer Unboxed.

Anne R. Allen’s blogging essentials for authors.

In related news, Roz Morris answers the question, how much time should an author spend blogging and building websites?

10 words that started out as errors from Grammar Girl, Mignon Fogarty.

Moar wordnerdery from ideas.ted.com: 20 words that used to mean something completely different.

24 quotes that will inspire you to write more from Buzzfeed.

Also from Buzzfeed, 37 books every creative person should read.

Back with ideas.ted.com, six science fiction and fantasy books for the app generation.

Benedict Cumberbatch reads Kurt Vonnegut’s letter to McCarthy after the burning of (among other books) Slaughterhouse Five.

 

I just saw Lisa Cron tweet about this NY Times article: This is your brain on writing, by Carl Zimmer.

Tasha Robinson’s post on The Dissolve, We’re losing all our strong female characters to Trinity Syndrome, caused a bit of a furor on the SFCanada listserv, and elsewhere on the interwebz.

Jim C. Hines shares his Continuum guest of honour speech. It’s kick-ass. Then again, Jim’s good at that kind of thing 😉

Enjoy, my writerly peeps.

Tipsday

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz June 8-14, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila

Right now, I’m down in Orillia, Ontario, attending CanWrite! 2014. Started the day with a light breakfast and yoga, and I’m going to get Thoughty Thursday out before the sessions start up after lunch. Life is good.

Dame Judy Dench and Daniel Craig explore the question: Are we truly equal? See what you think . . .

What’s new in the war on Alzheimer’s Disease? from the Psychiatric Times.

Why we need creative confidence from Ideas.TED.com.

The quest to understand consciousness, a TED talk by Antonio Damasio.

Let these stunning photos of incredible storms inspire you. Also from Ideas.TED.com.

More inspirational ideas from i09: 12 futuristic forms of government that could one day rule the world.

All our patent are belong to you (did you catch the pop culture reference?). Tesla Motors makes its patents open source.

The most important sci-fi film never made from the Japan Times. Jodorowsky’s vision of Dune launched the careers of several notables in the field, including Geiger, and influenced moviemaking to the current day. I really want to see this documentary now.

Wired’s absurd creature of the week: the lion’s mane jellyfish. When I visited the Vancouver Aquarium last fall, they were featuring jellyfish. Apparently, they really do like global warming.

This week was pretty thoughty 🙂

Enjoy, my writerly friends, and I hope you garner some inspiration for your writing from this crop of curation.

Thoughty Thursday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz June 8-14, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila

Another fine crop of lovely stuff to share. I’m even curating the curators this week 😉

Ten ways to tell a story – all about point of view from Writers Write out of South Africa. Solid article with good examples.

Are shifts in point of view and head-hopping always bad? Roz Morris answers.

How to ‘stay lit’ from The New York Times. An article Roz brought to my attention.

Finishing the novel: the daily task of “getting it done.” Elissa Field shares her process.

Elissa’s also a fellow curator. Here’s her Friday links for writers.

Writing the flat character arc, part 1: the first act. K.M. Weiland’s next character arc series begins!

What kindergarten got (and still gets) really, really wrong. The continuation of Lisa Cron’s standardized testing adventure on Writer Unboxed.

Robin Lafevers discusses what writing as therapy means to her. Also from Writer Unboxed.

Agent Noah Lukeman shares fifteen tips to help sell your ebook series.

The Atlantic: No, The Fault in Our Stars is not young adult fiction’s saviour. A few weeks back, I posted an article that posited Greenlit (for John Green, author of the above named YA novel) was a thing. Is this article the other side of that coin? Read and find out.

Guy Bergstom’s Red Pen of Doom: The six horsemen of the writepocalypse.

Enjoy, my writerly peeps.

I’m heading down to CanWrite! tomorrow. While I’ll keep the blog fires burning, I might be a little scarce around the interwebz otherwise. Good news, though: I’ll have more panels and sessions to blog!

Whee!

Tipsday

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz June 1-7, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

Not tonnes to share this week. A thought-provoking photo essay, a little psychology, and a couple of funnee animal videos. Educational and entertaining, what more could you ask for? Well, maybe more of one or the other, if not both. What can you do? Some weeks are thoughtier than others.

The recent commemoration of D-Day brought this interesting photographic essay to my attention. The Huffington Post.

Ever wonder what motivates a psychopath? This article in the Psychiatric Times could be interesting research for your next thriller or mystery.

Another tasty article on the mind of a mass murderer.

A wee Ted.ed video on sleep paralysis. Parasomnias rock.

The world’s first wingsuit base jumping dog. That’s quite a claim, but I think it must be true 🙂

 

A guy interviews his guinea pig. Serious LOLs. Now gimme some toilet paper!

 

Enjoy! Tomorrow is Friday! Whee!

Thoughty Thursday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz June 1-7, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Here’s the loot from the last week.

Ellen’s 12 rules for novelists from the Girlfriends Book Club.

How to make the most of your writing time from Aliventures.

The right way to layer desire in your story from MJ Bush of Writingeekery.

Vaughn Roycroft wrote a wonderful post on death and the writer for Writer Unboxed.

Roz Morris answers the question, “How do you keep motivated when your books aren’t selling well?”

K.M. Weiland takes a break from character arcs and returns to her most common mistakes series with this post and podcast about describing character movements.

TED talk on how Sting got his groove back. It’s all about storytelling.

 

Further insight from Carly Watters on why your query and/or sample pages aren’t generating interest.

A Rewording Life. A worthy, and wordy, project from Sheryl Gordon, in honour of her mother, and all those who have lost their words to Alzheimer’s Disease.

Famous authors and their favourite writing tools, a fun infographic from Bookbaby.

Clarkesworld Magazine interviews Chuck Wendig.

And for more Wendig-ishness, here’s the SFsignal podcast with Chuck and Gail Carriger.

Interesting news: Oryx and Crake series in development.

It’s all Writerly Goodness 🙂

Tipsday