Rachael Stephen

Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, April 25-May 1, 2021

/ Melanie Marttila / 1 Comment

Let’s get your mental corn popping, shall we?

Alanna Durkin Richer and Lindsay Whitehurst: 1 verdict, and then 6 police killings across America in 24 hours. Associated Press

Ibram X. Kendi: compliance will not save me. The Atlantic

Judas and the Black Messiah, Explained – Self-Preservation Won’t Save You. The Take

Chi Luu: how being polite with the police can backfire. JSTOR Daily

Mimi Fox Melton and Karla Monterosso: if you want a truly equitable workplace, get over your fear of conflict. Fast Company

Michael Luo relates the forgotten history of the purging of Chinese from America. The New Yorker

Ryan Lenora Brown: Séverine Autesserre has seen peacekeeping fail. Here’s her advice on getting it right. Christian Science Monitor

I Kissed a Girl: the messy legacy of a queerbait hit. Melina Pendulum

Matthew Wills: eighteenth-century spies in the European silk industry. JSTOR Daily

Rachael Stephen shares some tools for soothing and survival.

Oliver Burkeman explores the idea of the clockwork universe: is free will an illusion? The Guardian

Gordon Johnston highlights the pink supermoon April 26 and celestial events over the next month. NASA Solar System Exploration

April’s “pink” supermoon around the world—in pictures. The Guardian

Calla Cofield: astronomers release new all-sky map of the Milky Way. NASA

Nina Munteanu wants you to watch Borealis.

Kate Kellaway interviews tree whisperer, Suzanne Simard: “They get along, they listen—they’re attuned.” The Guardian

Guy Kawasaki has a conversation about conservation with Dr. Jane Goodall. Remarkable People Podcast

Sophia Quaglia reports that scientists find a way to remove polluting micro-plastics with bacteria. The Guardian

Royce Kurmelov explains how solar power continues to shock the world. The Guardian

Communication while dreaming. SciShow Psych

Tessa Vikander: beavers chew through a 4.5-inch-thick tube, disrupting power to 900 BC customers. CTV

Thank you for taking the time to visit, and I hope you took away something to inspire a future creative project.

Until next tipsday, be well and stay safe, be kind, and stay strong. The world needs your stories!

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Feb 17-23, 2019

/ Melanie Marttila

Good evening, my lovelies! It’s time to peruse your informal writlerly learnings for the week 🙂

Leanne Sowul exposes the battle between time and energy. Later in the week, Bess Cozby shows you four ways to protect your creative brain. And then, Marielle Orff shares five steps to giving an awesome podcast interview. DIY MFA

Vaughn Roycroft: storytelling and stepping beyond the veil. Writer Unboxed

Rachael Stephen explains how to revise your story.

 

Phoebe Wood shares her strategy for turning your first draft into a second draft.

 

Angela Ackerman stops by Writers in the Storm to share the One Stop for Writers Fast Track Tool for character creation. Then, Tasha Seegmiller invites you to sit with your discomfort: negotiating difficult critiques. Later in the week, Laura Drake shows you how to exorcise redundant writing.

Becca Puglisi visits Helping Writers Become Authors: seven things your character is hiding.

Oren Ashkenazi: seven signs of bad media analysis. Mythcreants

Diego Courchay describes how an Italian writer’s fictional garden became a place of literary pilgrimage. Atlas Obscura

And that is tipsday for this week. Be sure to check in on Thursday for your weekly dose of thoughty.

Until then, be well!

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Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Oct 14-20, 2018

/ Melanie Marttila

Another lovely week filled with informal writerly learnings.

K.M. Weiland explores why writers cherish language. Helping Writers Become Authors

Janice Hardy stops by Writers in the Storm: plot backward to move forward with your novel.

Lisa Hall-Wilson offers five tips on writing a trauma backstory. Writers in the Storm

Roz Morris explains how to outline your novel without killing the fun of writing it. Nail Your Novel

Lisa Cron tells you how to nail your first three pages. Writers Helping Writers

Barbara Poelle answers another funny you should ask question: how fast-paced should a thriller be? Writer’s Digest

Janice Hardy tells you what you need to know about internalization. Fiction University

Rachael Stephen: how to write when you don’t want to. #preptober

 

Sara Letourneau helps you let go of perfectionism the DIY MFA way. DIY MFA

Dan Koboldt stops by Jane Friedman’s blog to explain how to research your writing to ensure technical accuracy. Also, check out Dan’s new book: Putting the Science in Fiction. I’m a fan 🙂

Kathleen McCleary: it takes a village. Writer Unboxed

Porter Anderson wonders, but how much are you reading? Writer Unboxed

Chris Winkle presents six wordcraft questions writers fight over. Then, Oren Ashkenazi points out seven common problems with speculative fiction technology. Mythcreants

Cold Crash Pictures debunks the four most annoying scientific inaccuracies in film.

 

Jenna Moreci lists her worst sci-fi tropes ever.

 

And Cold Crash Pictures tackles four more sexist tropes.

 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you found something helpful in this curation.

Be well until thoughty Thursday!

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Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Sept 2-8, 2018

/ Melanie Marttila

It’s been a tasty week for informal writerly learnings 🙂

Donna Galanti explains how to build suspense: meet your readers in the middle and they will come. Writers in the Storm

It’s been a while, but Fae Rowan is back with part three of her series on five conflict-making choices your characters can make. Writers in the Storm

Anna Elliott: heartbeats. Writer Unboxed

Kathryn Magendie is letting go of the negative dark cycle. Writer Unboxed

Greer Macallister offers 25 truths about the work of writing. Writer Unboxed

Therese Walsh: that time Jane Friedman’s advice saved my novel. Writer Unboxed

Donald Maass has some suggestions in case you’re feeling stuck. Stories don’t get stuck; only writers do. Writer Unboxed

Related: Kristen Lamb wonders if your story is stuck and offers five reasons your novel is breaking down.

And another perspective: sometimes it’s okay to quit the thing you’re writing. Sometimes you have to quit writing a thing. As long as you don’t quit writing all the things. Chuck Wendig @Terribleminds.

Rachael Stephen: Solve any writing problem (with brainstorming!)

 

Then, she argues that you have to define your theme before you write (and dares you to fight her):

 

If you have sloppy writing habits, K.M. Weiland shares four strategies to deal with it. Helping Writers Become Authors

Merilyn Simonds drops by Jane Friedman’s blog: how long should it take to write a book?

James Scott Bell takes his turn in the Writers Helping Writers coaching corner: where’s your edge?

Leanne Sowul shares seven lessons learned from tracking her time. DIY MFA

Sera Fiana recommends five self-care tips to improve your writing process. DIY MFA

Jami Gold: what does it mean to write layered characters? Later in the week, she reflects on how goals, needs, and false beliefs create character conflict.

Ellen Brock shows you how to plot your novel fast.

 

Fay Onyx examines five common harmful representations of disability. Mythcreants

And that was Tipsday.

Come back for your weekly dose of Thoughty on Thursday!

Until then, be well, my writerly friends.

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The next chapter: August 2018 update

/ Melanie Marttila

Greetings, my writerly peeps!

I won’t say it again. I will not. If you’ve read the last few next chapter updates, you know what I’m resisting writing.

It’s still true, but I think that by this time, it goes without saying.

On to the writing progress report.

AugProgress

Once more, I fell short of my modest 5k writing goal on my current work in progress, Playing with Fire. I did write 3,828 words, or 77% of my goal, but I had some competing priorities that made it both necessary and the best I could do given the circumstances.

One of those priorities was a quick run-through of Marushka, as I broke the monolithic manuscript into chapters for posting online. I’ve just finished this task and will be writing up some further notes for me new critique group. In the process I bumped the word count for the draft up by about a thousand words. Draft 2.5 (‘cause this wasn’t really a true revision in any sense of the word) is now just shy of 78k words and I’m sure I’ll be able to take it into the 80-90k range once I have my critique notes.

So, technically, I revised 65,196 words of my 60k-word goal, or 100%

I also sacrificed some personal reading time to do an initial reading of the draft of another writer in the group. As one does in a critique group 🙂 Critiques were initially due by the end of August, but an extension has been granted. I have the time to so a second reading (at least) and put together some juicy notes.

August saw the recurrence of the due date for my DIY MFA column, which should be out on the 11th. It’s another big one, 1,632 words worth, and 163% of my goal.

Finally, I published 3,235 words on this blog in August, or 116% of my 2,800-word goal.

Overall, it’s been a good month with more hits than misses.

In September, I’ve set myself what I hope to be my final 5,000-word goal on PwF. I shouldn’t need that many words to finish off the draft (yes, I’m that close—so close I can taste it, as my mom would say) but I’ve given myself the “space” in case I need it.

Then, I’m going to organize my novel notes into a true series “bible” and begin outlining the final book in the Ascension series, Tamisashki, for NaNoWriMo 2018.

I’ll get to work on my critique and possibly take on another.

My next DIY MFA due date isn’t until October and so, because this won’t be a writing-heavy month, I’ve decided to take on a couple of learning opportunities, just for shits and giggles.

The first of these is the NaNoWriMo/Wesleyan prep course, offered through Coursera. The cost is nominal, and I get to see what Wesleyan offers.

The second is that I’m formally participating in Rachael Stephen’s Prep-tober this year (are we seeing the theme here?).

Writing is and always has been my happy place and that’s where I’m “spending” my creative energies.

Other aspects of my life are still in strange limbo-land, but there is hope/an ending in sight.

In other news, here are some Torvi pictures:

And my attempts at sunrise/sunset/moon pictures:

I’m no professional and all I’ve used here was the camera in my cell phone, but I thought I captured some lovely moments.

And that’s it for this month’s next chapter update.

Until the next time I blog, be well, be kind, and stay strong. The world needs your stories!

The Next Chapter

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, July 22-28, 2018

/ Melanie Marttila

Give yourself the treat of informal writerly learnings on this last day of July 🙂

Jane Friedman excerpts from Diana Kimpton’s Plots and Plotting on her blog: how to skillfully use subplots in your novel.

K.M. Weiland shares four steps to turn an idea into a story that rocks. Helping Writers Become Authors

Anne Greenwood Brown explains how to write emotional scenes when you’d really rather not. Writer Unboxed

Heather Webb encourages you to build a world, hook a reader. Writer Unboxed

Joanna Penn interviews Samantha Keel about writing effective injuries for your characters. The Creative Penn

Kathryn Craft: our capacity for brilliance. Writers in the Storm

Rachael Stephen: how to punch perfectionism in its dumb face.

 

Leanne Sowul is writing for life. DIY MFA

Brenda Joyce Patterson explores voice across genre: by any other name. DIY MFA

Laura Stradiotto interviews Gail Anderson-Dargatz: overcoming the fear of writing. I attended her workshop on Saturday—stellar! The Sudbury Star

Jeff Vandermeer shares his views on the art and science of structuring a novel. Electric Lit

Anne Quito: the graceful restoration of a 200-year-old serif typeface reveals the problem with digital fonts. Quartzy

Hope you found something to move your craft forward.

Come back on Thursday for some thoughty.

Until then, be well, my friends.

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Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, July 1-7, 2018

/ Melanie Marttila

And here is another week’s worth of informal writerly learnings.

Jane Friedman says, author income surveys are misleading and flawed—and they focus on the wrong message for writers. Jane kindly offers a TL;DR summary up front, but it’s worthwhile reading her whole post. Verra interesting.

K.M. Weiland asks you to judge yourself less, trust yourself more, and write better stories. Helping Writers Become Authors

Rachael Stephen offers her tips on self-care for writers (and humans).

 

Tamar Sloan helps you level up your character’s wound. Writers Helping Writers

Elise Holland explains how to writer your best cover letter. DIY MFA

Fae Rowan brings us part one of a series: five conflict-making choices for your characters. This one’s about the need for control.  And here’s part two: conceit and coveting. Writers in the Storm

Black, white, gray, rainbow: what is heroism now? Donald Maass on Writer Unboxed.

Anna Elliott is keeping her hustle joyful. Writer Unboxed

Natalia Sylvester offers her thoughts on writing a novel that people call political. Writer Unboxed

Jo Eberhardt delves into the challenge of writing dialog separated by a common language. Writer Unboxed

Jim C. Hines gathers contributions from the speakers of different languages. Why? Because, rather than being able to ask for a beer or a toilet anywhere in the world, Jim wants to know how to ask people for their permission to pet their dogs. A very important linguistics post about petting dogs.

Ryan Van Cleave applies Stephen Covey’s seven habits for writers’ groups. Fiction University

Chris Winkle discusses creating a magic system for superpowers. Then, Oren Ashkenazi looks at five story elements that worked in one story but not in another. Mythcreants

Gabriela Pereira interviews Jeff and Ann Vandermeer on the Writer’s Digest podcast: anthologies, the genre fiction divide, and deep reading.

Wynona Earp returns. It’s not the greatest series ever made, but it’s fun, doesn’t take itself too seriously, and I’m kind of in love with the grrl power.

 

And this looks good: The House with the Clock in its Walls

 

And that was Tipsday.

Be well until Thursday when you can return for some thoughty.

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Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, Feb 18-24, 2018

/ Melanie Marttila / 1 Comment

Here are a few links to get your mental corn popping (making creative connections).

Anna Mehler Paperny begs your attention: no, Canada does not spend more on refugees than on its seniors. It’s a big misunderstanding that needs correction. Global News

Adam Gopnik: four truths about the Florida school shooting. The New Yorker

Ed Brayton says, the problem is toxic masculinity, not mental illness. Patheos

Peter Kruger cribs from The Princess Bride. Why does the NPR station have so much propaganda against Trump? Quora

Elizabeth Chuck reports on women, harassed in medicine, await their #metoo reckoning. NBC News

Olga Khazan examines a paradox: the more gender equality, the fewer women in STEM. The Atlantic

Rachael Stephen describes the cognitive behavioural therapy method in this next instalment of her series on mental health.

 

Phil Plait: Osiris-X looks home from far, far away. SyFy

An amateur astronomer spots a supernova, right as it begins. Ryan F. Mandelbaum for Gizmodo.

Megan Senseney surveys hygiene practices of the middle ages. Healthy Way

Anna Lovind writes an ode to winter.

Enjoy the evocative work of women artists of the Canadian Inuit. Women Arts Blog

Chris Wright wonders, can you hack coral to save it? Outside

John Vidal: a eureka moment for the planet; we’re finally planting trees again. The Guardian

Andy Coghlan reports how trees have been seen resting their branches while they “sleep.” New Scientist

Ephrat Livni: heart of barkness. Japanese “forest medicine” is the art of using nature to heal yourself, wherever you are. Quartz

Bored Panda shares Grace Gogarty’s hilarious guide to dog breeds.

Be well until the weekend.

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Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, Jan 21-27, 2018

/ Melanie Marttila

It’s time to get your mental corn popping!

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg reflects on the #metoo movement. Nina Tottenberg for NPR.

Jia Tolentino: the rising pressure of the #metoo backlash. The New Yorker

Lili Loufbourow exposes the female price of male pleasure. The Week

The secret to living longer may be your social life. Susan Pinker’s TED Talk.

Why we act introverted: it’s not just nature. Brenda Knowles, Space2Live.

Rachael Stephen: depression and anxiety 101.

 

“Good” and “bad” are incomplete stories we tell ourselves. Heather Lanier’s TED talk.

 

Julie Beck: the new age of astrology. The Atlantic

Thomas Merritt looks for clues to the mystery of handedness in kangaroos and shopping malls. The Conversation

Garret Beard explains how artificial intelligence is going to supercharge surveillance. The Verge

Lessons from a solar storm chaser. Miho Janvier’s TED Talk.

 

Woman librarians delivered books by horseback in the 1930s. A pictorial retrospective. Deb Street for History Daily.

The history of Appalachian English, or, why we talk differently. Appalachian Magazine

Be well until the weekend 🙂

The first next chapter update of 2018 is on deck!

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Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Jan 21-27, 2018

/ Melanie Marttila

Get your informal writerly learnings right here!

K.M. Weiland looks at the words that changed your life and how that helps you discover what made you a writer. Helping Writers Become Authors

Emily Wenstrom shows you how to kickstart 2018 with an author website audit. DIY MFA

Gabriela Pereira interviews Joe Fassler for DIY MFA radio.

Lila Diller lists five types of books writers should read. DIY MFA

Lisa Cron stops by Writers Helping Writers to pose this question: what does your protagonist want before the story starts?

Elizabeth Huergo: woke writing. “… we shouldn’t wait to write and ask questions until we have lost the ability to do both …” Writer Unboxed

Barbara O’Neal explains what writers do in times of trouble. Writer Unboxed

Heather Webb writers about harnessing the kinetic energy of writing—and what happens if you don’t. Writer Unboxed

Jenny Hansen: what kinds of social media posts go viral? Writers in the Storm

Janice Hardy explains the difference between a scene and a sequel. Fiction University

Rachael Stephen shows you how to organize your novel using a bullet journal.

 

Jami Gold: romance and the language of consent.

Oren Ashkenazi lists five good stories that turned creepy. Good points all. Though I enjoyed some of the shows mentioned, it was an eye-opener to realize how deeply ingrained misogyny is. As writers, we should aim higher, strive to do better. Mythcreants

Jane Hirshfield explains how the liminal frees us from the prison of self (excerpted from “writing and the threshold life”). Brainpickings

David James Nicoll is fighting erasure: women SF writers of the 70s, A through F. Tor.com

I’m absolutely devastated by Ursula K. Le Guin’s death. It was to be expected, but, as other authors have pointed out, she could have died at 108 and it still would have felt too soon.

Here are a few of the slew of tributes:

The Handmaid’s Tale season two trailer.

 

Be well until Thursday, my friends!

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