As authors we are always looking for new ways to tell a story. Sometimes, we have to find new ways to tell an old story. Apparently, the same is true for the creators of Lego who have recently hired a new art director to fuse together different characters, thus creating fresh and new lego. It’s fiction meets lego.
Take a look at their new creations:
here.
If you could merge any two characters, which would they be?
It’s okay to splurge on Thanksgiving. After all, it only comes once a year and if you’re like me, saying no to pumpkin pie is just not possible. But, after the holiday has passed, then it’s time for the skinny on Thanksgiving leftovers.
Here are three ideas for enjoying the turkey throughout the holiday weekend without over-indulging in too many calories:
Turkey Lettuce Wraps
Top shredded white meat with red onion, shredded carrots, chopped nuts and cilantro. Wrap in lettuce leaves for a low carb lunch.
Turkey Vegetable Soup
In a pot, saute chopped onion, add a few cups of vegetable broth along with white and dark meat turkey. Toss in as many chopped vegetables as you can find such as carrots, celery, and squash. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until veggies are tender.
Chilled Quinoa Salad
Mix leftover green beans or any roasted vegetables with cooked quinoa and fresh herbs like parsley or cilantro along with basil for a lean, but satisfying salad.
What does Monday mean to you? If you’re like me, there are aspects of Monday that you just don’t like. Back to work…kids are back to school…no sleeping in. These are the normal complaints. What tops my Monday to-do list is having to make the sack lunches. Over the course of my children’s lives (now ages 10, 13, and 15), I think I must have made hundreds, perhaps ten thousand sack lunches, maybe more.
I wake up every Monday and make a sack lunch, continuing that habit every day until Friday. Now here’s what I hate about that activity…It’s not resentment toward my children. I love them dearly and readily make their lunch because the school based ones are not only pretty disgusting, but also not particularly healthy and healthy eating is my schtick. What I resent about the ten thousand sack lunches that I’ve prepared over my days is that I do it without any hesitation. I realize that I need to approach my writing in the same way as making the sack lunches.
I ease into my writing. I take notes. I research. I procrastinate with a little social media. I don’t follow the Nike slogan — just do it. It’s not the first thing I do in the morning…every morning without fail. So, why is it harder for authors to sit in front of the computer and write every day of the week?
I think we often wait for inspiration to strike, but I believe that if you just dive in, you can stir up that inspiration just like stirring the peanut butter jar for that sack lunch sandwich. I believe authors need to reach for the keyboard as readily as we put on our pants, get in the car, or for me, make those sack lunches. We just do it and we do those things every day as if they are the most normal things in the world.
So, I know what my New Year’s resolution is going to be…have a word with the cafeteria lady about the mystery stew! Nah, just kidding. I’m going to write…every day. Or at least, every sack lunch day.
When it comes to launching a new story, what comes first for you? Is it the setting, the plot, or a character quirk? In other words, what’s your own personal chicken or the egg of story telling?
What I love most about being a writer, or perhaps it’s the reason I am a writer, is that inspiration and ideas can strike at any moment. I was reading an article in Travel & Leisure magazine about the best adventure destinations and I was immediately struck that any one of these would make a great setting for a book.
For this reason, I believe with all of my heart and soul that a writer must also be a voracious reader. Sure, we don’t always have time to launch into a full book, so when life gets busy at least read a magazine. The point is to read anything you can get your hands on.
I’m sure if you’re a writer you have a vivid imagination, but that doesn’t mean your ideas don’t get stale every once in awhile. It’s good to stir things up and turn to new sources for inspiration.
Besides, it’s fun to get lost in ideas. With regards to the article and photos that recently inspired me, they were also a welcome reprieve considering that I didn’t get away this past summer on a vacation. Here they are for you to enjoy…and perhaps gain inspiration from as well.
Travel and Leisure Best Vacation Destinations
Authors: how do you measure success? If you believe that your success is directly correlated to the size of your social media following or your monthly sales and downloads, I challenge you to change your perspective and when you do, I believe you will achieve true life success.
Let’s talk about sales and downloads. Whether you use Amazon or Smashwords or any others, your personal dashboard is like a beacon, beckoning you to check it. I see that dashboard in a similar light to a bathroom scale. I always seem to have five stubborn pounds that I’d like to lose, but even if I diet and increase my exercise, stepping onto that bathroom scale every day is counter productive. Pounds go up; pounds go down. It’s much better to check once a week and reevaluate your course.
The same is true for book sales. If you go onto your dashboard every day, chances are the results aren’t as phenomenal as you had hoped for a 24-hour period. You don’t want that knowledge to affect your desire to write because that’s the only thing that will ever increase your sales. More books means readers have more choices. You’re more likely to find a new audience and then, the sales will follow.
The same is true for social media. Do you feel happy or sad with every follower gained or lost? Just like those pounds, people come and people go. What you have to focus on is developing your core message so that when you blog or post, you will connect with like-minded people. Once you do that, you’re more likely to increase your following. There’s truly no point in getting upset when looking at a fellow author’s page who has triple the following. It could mean that they’ve been pursuing this effort longer, in which case, you’ll one day catch up.
As authors, we have a tendency to segment our writing life into followers and sales. But that is not our entire life and it shouldn’t be a measure of our success. Authors are also parents. We are friends. We are even the children to our own parents. So when you go to evaluate your life. Look at the people around you. That is the measure of your success.
As writers we are accustomed to describing the emotions of our characters, but describing and doing are two different things. Can you read someone’s emotions accurately in real life?
A new study published in the Journal of Science found, “that after reading literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction, people performed better on tests measuring empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence.”
This study even went so far as to suggest reading Chekhov or Alice Munro as opposed to lighter reads such as Danielle Steele if you want to improve your abilities “to read” people. The reasoning was that literary fiction leaves more to the imagination and encourages readers to deduct what the characters are feeling and thinking.
If you’re interested in taking the quiz to determine how well you can read someone, the link is here.
Personally, I love reading it all…I often have two books going at the same time, one more “literary” and one that is a lighter read. I think to be a well-rounded person one should get their hands on as many books by as many different authors as possible, and of course…I’m a bit biased toward indie authors!
