Thoughty Thursday: Things that made me go hmmmm on the interwebz, Feb 11-17, 2018

February 22, 2018February 18, 2018 / Melanie Marttila

Happy Friday Eve! Here’s a little something to get the mental corn popping.

Sad stuff first …

Kyle Edwards: the Gerald Stanley verdict is a terrifying blow to reconciliation. McLean’s

Rachel Giese wonders why Colton Boushie’s mother has had to work so hard to prove her son’s humanity? Chatelaine

Tage Rai: the myth that mental illness causes mass shootings. Behavioral Scientist

Max Fisher and Josh Keller examine the reason there are so many mass shootings in the US. The New York Times

Sean Illing interviews Steven Pinker for Vox: the case for optimism.

Katherine Ellen Foley explains why we cringe when someone else embarrasses themselves. It’s all about empathy. Quartzy

Chuck Wendig offers some quick thoughts on managing anxiety. Terribleminds

Emily Hartridge gives us an update on her anxiety and how she deals.

SciShow Psych: myths about schizophrenia.

SciShow Psych: dissociative identity disorder.

How Tim Lomas discovered there are (at least) 14 different kinds of love by analysing the world’s languages. The Conversation

Mireia Movellán Luis profiles the rise and fall of the mighty Minoans. National Geographic

SciShow: thunder snow. We have that up here 😉

Katherine Zuckerman thinks that if birds left tracks in the sky, they’d look like these amazing photos by Xavi Bou. National Gerographic

Check out this collection of leaf insects—love the ones that look like little flowers! Daily Motion

The BBC News reports on the fall of a 1,000-year-old tree in Wales.

Zoey Peresman reviews Kate Bush’s The Kick inside on its 40th anniversary. Stereo Gum

Be well until the weekend!

thoughtythursday2016

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, December 13-19, 2015

December 22, 2015December 22, 2015 / Melanie Marttila

Here’s your Writerly Goodness for the first day of winter, 2015.

K.M. Weiland offers four ways to reignite your sense of wonder in your writing.

Later in the week, Katie shared three smart tips for structuring powerful scenes.

Roz Morris wonders how much you talk about your work in progress?

I’m fond of the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI) and similar assessments. Jami Gold shares some MBTI resources in her exploration of personality and how it affects writing process.

Janice Hardy offers some strategies for describing your first person narrator. Fiction University.

Angela Ackerman discusses how to use weather to create mood, not clichés on Writers in the Storm.

Carly Watters explains why we need time, fear, and talent to make it as writers.

Amy Craft explores the science behind the best way to read for CBS News.

Kids should read whatever they want, whenever they want. Rachel Cordasco for Book Riot.

Tech Insider shares six websites that let you download ebooks for free. You may not know about all of them.

Steven Pinker reveals some of the most misused word in the English language. Business Insider.

Scrabble’s Anagram Christmas turns negatives into positives 🙂

X-rays reveal the secrets of medieval books. Medieval Books.

Mansplaining Lolita. Rebecca Solnit for LitHub.

Buzzfeed shares 38 literary quotes that may help you when you’re feeling down. ‘Tis the seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

Blastr shares Arthur C. Clarke’s top 12 science fiction movies.

Den of Geek celebrates the dogs of speculative fiction.

Molly Templeton reviews the first episode on SyFy’s The Magicians (based on Lev Grossman’s novels) for Tor.com. Phil and I caught it and were very impressed. Looking forward.

Leah Schnelbach liked the SyFy adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End well enough, but Phil and I weren’t impressed. Now Phil is a scientist and a SF purist, so his reaction was understandable. My disappointment? Not so much. I’m still working it through, but I think it has something to do with the storytelling decisions made. The critical error in my estimation (so far)? Whose story is it? What character is there from beginning to (almost) end? Karellan. That’s who. Now that’s a story I would have liked to see. It would have been a bigger departure from the book than what SyFy gave us, but I think it would have been better. That’s just my opinion, though.

Because the costume makes the period drama part of Outlander shine, Frock Flicks is giving us droughtlander sufferers a sneak peek at the season two wardrobe.

Good words to you, my friends. The light is returning! Or maybe it’s just the Earth turning/tilting? Meh. Precession and all that.

See you in two days for some Thoughty on Thursday 🙂

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Feb 8-14, 2015

February 17, 2015 / Melanie Marttila

K.M. Weiland offers advice regarding your climax’s place, not structurally, but setting-wise 🙂

How to achieve originality in your fiction. Katie’s Wednesday vlog.

Roz Morris exposes four dialogue crimes.

How to tell your critique partners exactly what you need. The Write Practice.

Jamie Raintree shares her strategy for scheduling breaks to avoid burnout.

Kurt Vonnegut maps out the shapes of stories. The Washington Post.

Sylvia Plath on life, death, hope, and happiness. Braipickings.

Seven women in the book industry who champion diversity. Quill & Quire.

Is the science in your science fiction accurate? Plausible? Why it matters. Charlie Jane Anders of i09.

Nina Munteanu presents lessons from a linguist. Reverse engineering with Steven Pinker.

Want to add some colour to your diverse characters? Idiom from other languages. TED blog.

Tyler Cowan asks us to be suspicious of simple stories. TEDx Mid-Atlantic.

New Outlander footage from E! online. For the anguish of droughtlander. It will be over soon (ish).

And that’s a wrap for this week.

See you Thoughty Thursday when I have more to contribute to your inspiration files.

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Dec 21-27, 2014

December 30, 2014 / Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

K.M. Weiland offers beta readers a guide.

Sarah Lovett of DIY MFA shares the reasons why you need to start a writers’ group or critique circle.

What traditional publishing learned in 2014. Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Town hall debate: what every literary writer needs to know about the digital disruption. Hosted by Porter Anderson and featuring (among others) Jane Friedman. The focus may be on literary writers, but this is informative for all writers. Vimeo.

Steven Pinker, author of Sense of Style: The thinking person’s guide to writing in the 21st century, interviewed by the CBC’s Anna Maria Tremonti.

Steven Pressfield on his “overnight” success.

Giving yourself the gift of writing, by Barbara O’Neal.

Madeline L’Engle on creativity, hope, getting unstuck, and how studying science enriches art. Brainpickings.

This kid’s theory about The Princess Bride is AWESOME!

The ancient origins of modern science fiction tropes. Blastr.

Words that used to be considered poor English that are now accepted. Gives you a little perspective on your current grammar bug-a-boos, doesn’t it? Mental Floss.

Hope you have fun tomorrow night!