Alchemy Ink

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, March 6-12, 2016

/ Melanie Marttila / 1 Comment

A few videos, some abandoned (and recovered) places, a bit of science, and some feels. Enjoy!

Susan Engel believes that joy is a subject schools lack. The Atlantic.

Reshma Saujani’s TED talk: Teach girls bravery, not perfection.

Caitlin Moran lists 12 things about being a woman that women won’t tell you. Esquire. Funny and true 🙂

Justin Trudeau: Gender equality is an opportunity, not a threat. The Globe and Mail.

Finland’s parliament: pioneer of gender equality. This is Finland.

Converted church—including graveyard—for sale as family home. Would you? If I had the money, I certainly would!

This 300 year old house has been completely renovated. Bright Side.

The Daily Mail shares these amazing pictures of a secret underground WWI hospital.

Francine Christophe: Human.

 

Scientists studying the DNA of ancient Europeans find evidence of a major population upheaval at the end of the last Ice Age. Doug Bolton for The Independent.

Another fast radio burst update from Phil Plait. Slate.

How do we know global warming is real? Phil Plait recommends a Tamino blog post that does a really good job answering that question. Slate.

Solar energy product rolls out like a carpet. Inhabitat.

To get you in the mood for St. Patrick’s Day, here’s part one of the National Film Board’s The Fairy Faith. Bailey Cotton.

 

For the feels. Eric and Peety, a mutual rescue story.

 

See you on Saturday!

Thoughty Thursday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, March 6-12, 2016

/ Melanie Marttila / 1 Comment

A nice bit mix of craft, career, and creativity 🙂

K.M. Weiland continues her most common writing mistakes series with number 49: weak conjunctions. Helping writers become authors. Later in the week, she helps us keep things straight: Plot isn’t story.

C.S. Lakin explores cinematic scene openings in her scene structure series.

Lisa Cron tells us the shocking truth about info dumps. Writer Unboxed.

Christine Frazier helps us take charge of our novels’ symbolism. The Better Novel Project.

Janice Hardy offers the basics of punctuating dialogue. Fiction University. Later, she talks about getting readers to the end and making them glad they came.

Chris Winkle shares five haunting backgrounds for creating deep characters. Mythcreants. Then, Oren Ashkenazi shares five more reasons your story is sexist.

Laura Drake overcomes rejection: Don’t give up your power. Writers in the Storm.

Jaym Gates talks about making hard decisions and refocusing on what matters.

I’m so glad more writers are blogging about this. So important. Self-care for writers, by Jami Gold.

This is the dystopia we’ve built. Kameron Hurley reflects on life experiences and reviews The United States of Japan.

Laini Taylor offers some writing advice. The Book Life.

Publishing business news from Publishers Weekly: The Supreme Court rejects Apple’s appeal.

BBC presents ten women who changed science fiction for the better.

Bustle shares eight feminist science fiction novels. Moar recommended reading (!)

This is just amazing storytelling. The Maker.

 

Another brilliant piece of storytelling, but with a dystopian bent. iMom will creep you out. i09.

Entertainment Tonight online interviews Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe on season two of Outlander.

Thanks for stopping by.

Come back for some inspirational material on thoughty Thursday.

Tipsday

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, Feb 28-March 5, 2016

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

The days are getting longer. I must think on solar power 😉

Jessica Lahey explores how the focus on academic achievement in schools can lead to failure. The Atlantic.

No, honey. You can’t be anything you want to be, but that’s all right. The Washington Post.

The men of the Oscars humiliate brilliant costume designer, Jenny Beavan. Heather Mallick for The Toronto Star.

New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, bans “conversion therapy.” Several other states have already done so, but this barbaric practice needs to be abolished. Now. The American Psychiatric Association.

Monarch butterfly numbers are on the rise over winter. YAY! The Toronto Star.

These orphaned crows return to check in on their adoptive human family every year. UPI.

Why do dogs tilt their heads when we speak to them? Short answer: nobody knows for sure. Entertaining post, though. IFLS.

An ancestor of the domestic cat chose humans, not the other way around. Seriously? Hasn’t this always been the way with cats? Samme Chittum for Life with Cats.

This jaguar is blissing out!

 

Jill Suttie shares five ways nature can help you become kinder, happier, and more creative. Greater Good.

What’s the one thing you need to be truly happy? Read on and find out 😉 Inc.

Yes. This is a laundry commercial. #sharetheload

 

A photographer visited a lost, Mongolian tribe and took these amazing pictures. Shareably.

Online parish records will change the way we research genealogy. Irish Central.

Allison Meier shares fantastic images of holloways, roads that have been tunnelled into the earth over time. Atlas Oscura.

Medieval oaks found in Winston Churchill’s old back garden at Blenheim Palace. The Daily Mail Online.

Wales Online features 33 amazing castles in Wales. Though the article calls them Welsh castles, a kind reader pointed out to me that many of these castles were actually built by the English. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. Seriously cool.

Phil Plait explains leap days and how they work. Because astronomy. Slate.

Astronomers posit that the moon was created by a head on collision between Earth and a protoplanet. UCLA science and technology.

See you Saturday!

Thoughty Thursday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Feb 28-March 5, 2016

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Fun stuff this week 🙂

C.S. Lakin tells us what we might not know about scene middles. Live, write, thrive. Later in the week, she asks, are your scene endings inevitable, or predictable?

K.M. Weiland shows us how to create awesome scene arcs that surprise readers. Helping writers become authors.

Nils Ödlund offers a primer in Kishōtenketsu, or Japanese four-part story structure. Mythic Scribes.

Donald Maass rethinks the mentor archetype for Writer Unboxed.

High concept vs. deep theme. Vaughn Roycroft asks, are you reaching or digging? Writer Unboxed.

Angela Ackerman explores how your character’s failures can map a route to growth. Writers helping writers.

Orly Konig Lopez shares the secret to balancing writing and life. Writers in the Storm.

Jofie Ferrari-Adler interviews four young, literary agents for Poets & Writers.

A&M Publishers have been all over SoMe this week. They got a feature from Victoria Strauss on Writer Beware. Chuck Wendig also voiced his displeasure with this post: How much should writers pay to be published? Terribleminds.

If I may use some of it: Simon Chandler writes about expanding your vocabulary. Full Stop.

Bustle lists fifteen literary heroines you wanted to be when you grew up.

Karen Swollow Prior explores Jane Eyre and the invention of the self. The Atlantic.

The only thing I envy men, by Rivka Galchen, for The New Yorker.

Hanya Yanagihara wonders what it means to be a brave author. The Guardian.

Molly Templeton looks at Catherynne M. Valente’s Fairyland series. Tor.com

Liz Bourke tackles the topic of SFF television and female mentorship. Tor.com

Have you ever wondered what wizarding money might be worth in the real world? Look no further. Jacob Stollworthy converts galleons to pounds in this article. [Mel’s note: the Tri-Wizard cup prize money is actually worth £425,000.] The Independent.

I’m putting this video in Tipsday, because it’s a fairy/riddle song that tells a sad and lovely story. Mike Masse and Sterling Cottam cover Simon & Garfunkel’s “Scarborough Fair.”

 

Someone shared these whimsical fantasy felines by artist Kyoung Hwan Kim and I just had to pass along the awesome. Fiercely kawaii!

Are you looking forward to the new Ghostbusters as much as I am? Here’s a little teaser:

 

Come on back Thursday, you hear?

Tipsday

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, Feb 21-27, 2016

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Gah. Can’t brain. Well, maybe a little. Little brain.

The fight to preserve the Cree language. The Walrus.

Building James Webb, the biggest, boldest, riskiest space telescope, yet. Daniel Clery for Science Magazine.

Sean Carroll talks about whether the universe had a beginning. Yes, we still don’t have definitive evidence. Slate.

Astronomers find another small, icy body beyond Pluto. Slate.

Listen to the otherworldly beauty of overtone singer, Natascha Nikeprevelic. Good.

Despite anti-vaxxer resistance, the Gardasil vaccine has already drastically cut HPV infections in young women. Slate.

This is something that might affect me personally. The Liberals are “unravelling” the Conservative’s plan to recoup savings from the public service’s sick benefits plan. Negotiations are ongoing. We’ll have to see if this has a real impact. The Ottawa Citizen.

The Dala girls wrote a new song!

 

The next Chapter will be up on Saturday.

Take care until then.

Thoughty Thursday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Feb 21-27, 2016

/ Melanie Marttila

A yummy week of Writerly Goodness for you:

Roz Morris shares three diagrams that you can use to check your novel’s pacing. Nail your novel.

Becca Puglisi also tackles novel pacing for Writers Helping Writers.

K.M. Weiland offers four tweaks that will help you write original stories and characters. Helping writers become authors.

C.S. Lakin looks at scenes as capsules of time. Live, write thrive. She added establishing your setting to her Scene Structure series later tin the week.

Jami Gold helps us find the right balance in story description.

C.S. Plocher shows us what we can learn from J.K. Rowling’s series grid. The Better Novel Project.

Janice Hardy explores how to build internal and external core conflicts. Fiction University.

Chris Winkle shares some tips about narrating dreams and visions. Mythcreants.

The 49th Shelf shares a round-table discussion about world building.

Oren Ashkenazi offers some tips for writing a diverse story. Mythcreants.

Marcy Kennedy writes about valuing yourself and your work. Remember that thing from last week? Yeah. More of that.

Jim C. Hines discusses the importance on not only having anti-harassment policies at cons, but also of enforcing them.

Heather Webb explores how a writer lives with yearning on Writer Unboxed.

Dan Blank advises us to create every day. Life is chaotic. There is no time but now. Writer Unboxed.

And here’s another Dan Blank video. Invest in relationships, not blueprints.

 

Jessie Burton writes about her journey, as a creative, through depression and anxiety.

Kirsten Oliphant guest posts on Jane Friedman’s blog on how authors can use Pinterest best.

Then Jane posted on Writer Unboxed about a common misunderstanding authors have about web sites.

Brent Underwood goes behind the scam to discover what it takes to become a “bestselling” author on Amazon. The Observer. The answer? $3 and five minutes.

Jamie Raintree helps you design your writing career from the top, down. Writers in the Storm.

Mark Medley profiles Jennifer Robson, the most successful Canadian author you’ve never heard of. The Globe and Mail.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, read in the original Akkadian. Open Culture.

Just a quick reminder about the importance of the Oxford comma. The Poke.

Electric Lit shares an infographic analyzing the 15 most populated novels. Guess what? A Song of Fire and Ice isn’t the worst offender 😉

An accented tour of the British Isles:

 

How to be a person. Shane Koyczan.

 

A first look at five new character portraits for season two of Outlander. It’s getting closer! Yahoo!

And that’s it until Thursday!

Tipsday

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, Feb 14-20, 2016

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Feeling light headed again this week.

Anna Lovind: When will you be enough?

The opposite of rape culture is nurturance culture. Dating tips for the feminist man.

This revolutionary cancer therapy yields extraordinary results in human trials. When are some of these therapies going to make it to the public? IFLS.

Irish Archaeology shares photos of Ireland in the 1930s.

Vikings didn’t dress the way we thought. With the return of the History series Vikings, this past week, this article caught my attention. EurekAlert!

Hunting with wolves helped humans outsmart Neanderthals. The Guardian.

The BBC presents striking images of our solar system.

Rosetta’s comet is ‘fluffy.’ Phil Plait for Slate.

And that is your teeny tiny thoughty Thursday.

See you Saturday, for realsies, this time.

Thoughty Thursday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Feb 14-20, 2016

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Pub news, literary deaths, and videos, oh, my!

The big issue of the week: The Huffington Post is proud that it doesn’t pay its writers.

Related: How do writers get paid in a world addicted to free? Kristen Lamb.

Two literary losses this week.

K.M. Weiland shares five important ways storytelling differs between novels and movies. Later in the week, she posted about hacking readers brains by using all five senses in your description. Finally, she explains why cool for cool’s sake character traits are not, in fact, cool.

Roz Morris wonders whether you’ve left an important scene out of your story.

C.S. Lakin shows us the benefits of breaking down scene structure into three parts. Later, she looks at scenes as segments and capsules of time.

Densie Webb explores writing as compulsion on Writer Unboxed.

Andrea Phillips guests on Terribleminds: Throw everything at the wall. On the messiness of modern careers.

Christine Frazier analyzes fight scenes on The Better Novel Project.

Christian Cameron shares his thoughts on faith, piety, and writing about religion.

Foz Meadows: we can’t just adapt science fiction and fantasy novels—we have to transform them. Tor.com

Dan Blank started his own YouTube channel (and, yup, Ima share all of them):

 

 

 

 

 

 

Porter Anderson reviews the progress of Shelfie and Bitlit at three years.

Catherine Ryan Howard updates us on the progress of her two novel deal.

Jim C. Hines: My mental illness is not your inspirational Post-it note.

Haruki Murakami writes about how he became a running novelist. The New Yorker.

Phylogenetic analysis suggests that fairy tales are much older than we thought. Phys.org

The good people of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast interview Beth Revis.

 

I really like Shane Koyczan’s poetry. Here are several samples for your listening enjoyment.

 

 

 

 

Valentine laments the lack of original book titles. The Guardian.

Mental Floss lists 15 things you may not know about Beatrix Potter.

Altas Obscura shares 15 real-world locations of science fiction dystopias.

Buzzfeed lists 27 products for book lovers.

And that was Tipsday.

See you Thursday!

Tipsday

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, Feb 7-13, 2016

/ Melanie Marttila / 1 Comment

It’s been a bit of a disturbing week, but there’s always hope for the future.

Last week marked the trial of Jian Gomeshi. Here are a few posts and articles that discuss the issues at the heart of the frenzy.

The judge will render sentence March 25, 2016.

Related and equally terrible: Zoë Quinn explains why she just dropped the harassment charges against the man who started GamerGate.

A neuroscience researcher shares four rituals that will make you happier. The Business Insider.

Canadian artist, Calvin Nicholls, creates beautiful sculptures from paper. The Bright Side.

Argentinean and Brazilian doctors investigate mosquito insecticide as a possible cause of micorcephaly. The Ecologist. Just to keep things balanced, a scientist friend provided me with a link to the original New England Journal of Medicine article on the Zika virus’s association with microcephaly.

Julia Roberts is Mother Nature.

 

Michael Shermer, founder of Skeptic Magazine, states improving animal rights improves the quality of human life. Big Think.

Phil Plait says that a small asteroid will definitely miss Earth on March 5th. Slate.

Uluru, as seen from space. Phil Plait for Slate.

Here’s the big astronomy news of the week: The laser interferometer gravitational-wave observatory (LIGO) sees gravitational waves for the first time ever as two black holes eat each other. Slate.

Big in a different way: Researchers have discovered a 300 mile wide crater under the Antarctic ice which could date back as far as the Permian-Triassic Extinction. Ohio State University Research News.

Priceless art discovered in a Paris apartment, abandoned since 1939. Faith Tap.

How two sisters and one murder inspired 500 songs. Atlas Obscura.

Lots of thought-worthy material here. I hope you find some inspiration for your creative endeavours.

See you Saturday for more CanCon 2015 reportage.

Thoughty Thursday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Feb 7-13, 2016

/ Melanie Marttila

Load up your plates my friends, I have lots of nommable readables here 🙂

K.M. Weiland shares her insights into being a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder and a writer. She also offers some tips on how to remain healthy even if you live at a desk.

C.S. Lakin explains how writers can benefit from outlining their scenes. Her scene structure series continues with the opening hook.

Janice Hardy shares five common problems with novel beginnings and how to solve them.

Jamie Raintree shows how the power of consistency builds writing careers.

Lisa Cron shared an older post with our Story Genius class: Three misunderstood pieces of writing advice that can derail your novel. Writer Unboxed. And here’s her most recent post for WU: Where real drama comes from.

Anne R. Allen lists five reasons writers need to use Google+ even though the new Google+ is awful. I must admit, I’ve fallen out of love with G+ these days. I still post there, but if I’m in a time crunch, it’s the first SoMe to be sacrificed.

Kameron Hurley admits her fallibility: We all drop the ball. Another excellence post on the importance of self-care and forgiveness in times of stress.

Related: Allie Larkin writes about the myth of balance for Writer Unboxed.

Jim C. Hines explores the pros and cons of antidepressants.

Chris Winkle gleans lessons from the cinematic writing of I Am Number Four. Mythcreants.

Local author and writerly friend, Paulette Dahl, publishes Love Letters. The Northern Life.

Ken Pisani says, finding an agent is the worst this ever. Publishers Weekly.

You should read this chat on diversity in publishing from The Toast.

The Kenyon v. Clare court case has been all over the feeds this week. Here’s where I heard about it first. Courthouse News Service.

J.K. Rowling will be publishing the script of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Publishers Weekly.

This is cool. Mental Floss lists eight things invented by famous authors.

Mental Floss also lists eleven authors who hated the movie adaptations of their books.

Bitch Media presents, Anya to Zombies, an alphabet of graphic novels by women.

This video is sad and beautiful and all kinds of wonderful: The Life of Death. Great storytelling.

Fantasy Fiction Focus features Tim Reynolds.

 

Historical novelist Tracy Chevalier calls Charlotte Brontë her hero. The Guardian.

William Gibson shares his experience writing Neuromancer. The Guardian.

The secrecy and speculation around the Doctor’s new companion (or not). Radio Times.

A Discovery of Witches series is in development. Deadline Hollywood.

I can hardly wait! Outlander, season two, begins April 9! And here’s the official trailer in case you need a little something something to get excited about 😉

Now, to settle down with some tea and let all this awesome digest!

I’ll be back with some thoughty for you on Thursday 🙂

Tipsday