Weekend Edition – Be Your Own (Writing) Idol Plus Good Reads and Writing Tips

A thought for today.

Live to Write - Write to Live

Be Your Own Idol

idol joeyI have a confession. I watch American Idol.

There are worse things I could do, I know, but spending several hours each week plugged into my DVR definitely feels like a guilty pleasure.

My beau is my enabler. We’ve been watching together for a few years now, and have become self-educated aficionados on the art of the song choice, the correct way to do runs, and the fine balance that must be struck between a great vocal performance and mesmerizing stage presence. What keeps me watching the show is not, however, the display of technical vocal prowess or even the thrill of finding out who wins. What keeps me watching is the chance to witness the transformation of these young performers as they unfurl and stretch into being their own artists.

A couple of months ago, I shared my phrase for 2015: Believe in your…

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Weekend Edition – The Magic of Clarity Plus Good Reads and Writing Tips

Live to Write - Write to Live

The Magic of Clarity

lightning treeWriting is an alchemical process that transforms modest words into entire worlds. We begin with an amorphous idea and the ability to string words together in a way that taps into our senses and emotions. We weave a spell that evokes a sense of time and place and experience. Using only these humble tools, we build an alternate reality. We give life to the players on our stage and send them off into adventures of our own devising. If that is not magic, I don’t know what is.

Imagination and creativity are oft-cited ingredients in the story-crafting elixir, but there is another, less frequently cited ingredient that is at least (if not more) important: clarity.

Clarity is both your inspiration and your North Star.

Though you may not know it, it is often the spark that ignites your imagination. It is that bolt of lightning that…

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Magic Realism

Quote I just came upon. What think ye?

“Well, I really want to encourage a kind of fantasy, a kind of magic. I love the term magic realism, whoever invented it – I do actually like it because it says certain things. It’s about expanding how you see the world. I think we live in an age where we’re just hammered, hammered to think this is what the world is. Television’s saying, everything’s saying ‘That’s the world.’ And it’s not the world. The world is a million possible things.”

—Terry Gilliam: Salman Rushdie talks with Terry Gilliam

Plans

So I started a Facebook group trying to get some of my friends into doing a bit of writing. A drabble group.

Owe one friend two fanfics, an acquaintance a sequel to a different fanfics, and the continuation of yet another fanfic.

Plus I have half a mind of trying to do something with this.

image

Yeah,  Proud Slytherin.

Just need to get my determination to match my ability.