Silent Monks

If you haven't seen this, get ready. I was the 8,508,753rd viewer so perhaps you saw it before me. It's still worth another look to make you smile.

GO Saints!!

Saints 62
Colts er, 7

Nuff said.

Yeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

Slip Box - Uncanny, Practical, and free

If you’re a writer, or an academic, or just someone who has a lot of ‘stuff’’ you need a place for, there’s a cool little program for Mac called Slip Box. Originally created for academics, it’s an effortless, intuitive receptacle for any and all miscellaneous notes you need to list, categorize, and find immeditately.


My problem has always been how do I categorize my info, what topics do I use? Invariably I choose too many or incorrectly. With Slip Box you just BEGIN. All you have to know is the parts of the window and an overview of how it works. THIS is made easy by the excellent help section with searchable index and screenshots.



The designer of SlipBox created the program for his own use so don’t go complaining too much about the lack of exotic features. It’s made to be simple. And uh, did I mention it’s free. (There is also a Ipad and Iphone versionfor $9.99 and a lite version which is free.

So start with the first note. Add a few keywords by simply typing one in the keyword box, followed by a comma, type another. They are case-sensitive so if you want to be able to just type, for instance, ‘pl’ and have the program auto-complete, keep it simple. You can always change the keywords later from the scent screen.



Oh yeah, scents.
My problem was keeping track of a bunch of miscellaneous ideas, scenes, world-building issues for my paranormal. Some of it will connect, cross-over, and some not. But what does I want to be able to see the relationships between.
The beauty of SlipBox is that I don’t have to figure that out ahead of time. As I create new notes for ideas, issues, scenes, parts of my world, SlipBox figures out the relationships based on common words and keywords. It then tells me with a list which notes are connected to common keywords and which are interconnected through what the developer, Markus Guhe calls ‘scents’ and alternate ‘scents’.



In this screen you see a list of alternate scents. The same issue listed under one keyword is also listed under another and all cross-over notes can be viewed in this screen view.

Now let’s say you’ve input all your notes and you want to search for a certain keyword. Simply hit the spotlight icon in the center section of icons and go to the search screen. Set the Boolean parameters if necessary, search by keyword, scent, text, type and let ‘er rip.




Click on any result to see the detailed note. Anytime you’re in the note you can add or delete keywords, add a type (I chose to type my notes by the series or book they are listed under. I will probably create a difference SlipBox for research and another for a topic such as information about the industry.
What I love most about SlipBox is the amazing ability to find what I’m looking for after giving very little thought to the way I input information.

Even better news - Markus is running a sale this weekend. Check out the ‘sales pitch’ and information on his website at
SlipBox website
Markus' blog
(his short sales pitch)
http://bit.ly/q9plVl Twitter URL in case you want to tell your friends.

This program is so easy to use, you can’t go wrong taking ten minutes to give it a run. And then you can sync with your Ipad and Iphone versions. Never forget a thought or plot idea again!

(The program has additional features for academics, take notes, categorize, hold research, a source section where you can list websites, references.)
And there are no limits. No sign up for more capacity like some other programs.

So…
Simple
Practical
Powerful
Unlimited
And FREE!
Try it.

Too Lazy to Exercise?

I think I've made my last excuse.

Maybe six or seven years ago, I watched a report on CNN about a woman who (at a certain age when most people let exercise slide for good) began jogging. On the day when this report was made she was 74. The doctors told her she had the energy, organs and health of a forty year old woman. I'm at that certain age when she began and I've been saying to myself before I pass that certain mark I am going to be exercising on a regular basis. I had a good start and then I broke my little toe. But after seeing this, I'm saying, hey, surely there's exercise you can do to meet that commitment if you want it bad enough ...

Today the news covered an extraordinary woman as she crossed the finish line of the Chicago Marathon, and promptly went into labor.

Talk about a good excuse to skip the marathon.

And the kicker, her husband couldn't keep up with her; he was actually fifteen minutes behind.

Don'tcha just love it.

Quite an inspiration and yet so many people are speaking out against what she did even though she is fit and had her doctor's support. She's run for along time and during her son's pregnancy as well.

People get a grip! You're just jealous!

What's Under Your Bed?

Queue background music from Jaws…da…dum…da…dum…

dadum.. Dadum, DaDum!

Under my bed are a few dust bunnies (okay, maybe more than a few) and my first, oh, fifteen tries at writing. And Oh. My. God, were they scary to look at! Why, they scare themselves just like the fierce little monster above. (Come to think of it, he resembles me watching a scary movie... like Star Wars. Yeah, I know.)

Lately, I’ve been REcontemplating the writing process, something that happens whenever I start to doubt my ability, my story, my existence, lol. So this was the impetus to find my favorite box of writing books which I’d misplaced after the MS River fiasco. Serendipitously, a little book by Heather Sellers, Chapter after Chapter, jumped out of the box and into my hands.

I’d left off reading quite some time ago so I flipped to where the dust jacket was primed, to the chapter on Serious Writer Man. “When we’re unsure, or in quicksand, in order to deal with the fear of the unknown, we suit up and call on Serious Writer Man, but it’s fake…and always produces weak writing…When we’re driven to please, to fit in, to try to be heard, (to write for the wrong reasons) we’re prone to producing work that rings hollow. We don’t trust the greatness within us.”

Wow.

And…”Serious Writer Man must never be allowed into our writing

space.”

This was followed by advice on counteracting the “I should” mechanism.

Ms. Sellers likens writing a book to swimming across a vast lake. It’s scary and lonely. The swimmer is doing fine when she’s stroking, not worrying about the other side being far, far away, or what she should be doing. Every so often she stops and reassesses and then keeps going. She said we need to replace “’Should’ with curiosity and attention to the tiniest details. If I cup my hands will I swim faster? If I write in present tense, do things flow differently?”

Ironically, when I go back to some of my earliest serious attempts at writing, I find a fun freshness to the writing - not so many contrivances and attempts to style my writing to fit a mold or please anyone but me.

So what’s under your bed? What were some of your early stories about? Have you considered pulling any of them out to revise and submit? Which ones the scariest artistically? Did you always write in the same genre as you do currently, or did you explore your limits?

And most of all, when you re-read some of your earliest work, what do you see in those honest clueless samples of your voice? Has any of it resurfaced in the more advanced versions of your voice or style?

And readers, what’s beside your bed? Tell us what you like about what you’re reading lately? Did you ever make a stab at storytelling? Tell me about it. I hope you kept it somewhere precious, because everything we create is an opportunity to tap into our own unique soul center.

Visit Blame It On the Muse this month for a chance to win the coffin basket on the 31st filled with over $100 worth of books and gifts.

Goodbye, Steve

Do yourself a favor and watch this video of his Stanford address:

Steve did us all a favor - no, not just the entire Apple world he created, the technology we benefited from, but the concept that we have but one life to accomplish our dreams.

How high is the bar he set...

you'll be missed.

Must-see Donations to Scottish Poetry Library

Please believe me when I say this is not an intentional lazy post. I just could not do it justice. An author friend tweeted this link yesterday and I just had to share these extraordinary gifts to the Scottish Poetry Library. 

"One day in March, staff at the Scottish Poetry Library came across a wonderful creation, left anonymously on a table in the library. Carved from paper, mounted on a book and with a tag addressed to @byleaveswelive - the library's Twitter account - reading:

It started with your name @byleaveswelive and became a tree.… 

... We know that a library is so much more than a building full of books… a book is so much more than pages full of words.… 

This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas….. a gesture (poetic maybe?)"

Jump to this page to see these marvelous sculptures. My favorite is the Gramaphone.

Please go to the site and view the other superb sculptures. 

If we all did a 1000th of what this artist is doing for our libraries, they would not be in jeopardy.