Gems #4

 Some gems shining a little light this week.

I loved Justine Lee Musk’s recent post on Tribal Writer on ’5 ways to put more ‘soul’ into your writing’ . Justine reflects on what makes writing invoke an emotional engagement, how to make writing original and distinctive and issues of vulnerability in writing. I found this post to be an insightful and deeply reflective piece, enacting the ‘soul’ in writing it was talking about. There are also practical tips and exercises for how to put more soul into writing. These tips are around the adage of  ’show rather than tell’ but Justine fleshes this concept out with fresh perspectives you can apply to your writing.

Pushing Social post  ‘Lady Gaga’s 8 point guide to larger than life blogging,’ has attracted a lot of interest in recent weeks. Stanford Smith cleverly unpacks the genius of Lady Gaga’s  business and social media presence and how this might apply to blogging and your own ‘digital show’. The message is about being distinctive and unique, and the outcomes from a combination of hard work, clear vision and an incremental approach.  Lady Gaga has just reached 10,000,000 fans on Facebook, the first person to do so, so she certainly has some tricks up her sleeves for building an online presence that we can learn from.

I enjoyed the recent Creative Penn podcast interview with Dan Poynter on self-publishing and book marketing tips. Dan is a long-time player in self-publishing having started in 1969. From his long and varied experience, the interview provides valuable tips on self-publishing options, digital publishing, business models, marketing options and multiple streams of income from writing and related activities. As always, Joanna Penn’s podcast interviews open your mind to a wealth of possibilities for where your writing can go and how you can carve a writing life based on these options.

 Image, Gypsy Gem by Robyn Gallant  from flickr and used under a Creative Commons license.

Gems #3

Some gems shining a little light this week:

I absolutely loved Chris Guillebeau’s recent post, ‘Free Advice’. Talk about challenging things you generally accept without thinking and turning them on their head! This post does this in a fabulously thought-provoking way. I have been reflecting on the thoughts therein for the past week and have certainly found myself challenging some common concepts that are often blindly accepted. Like ‘the customer is always right…’ Are they? Equally fascinating was the stream of comments that emerged from readers with waves of fresh thinking. Like ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it too.’ As one wise reader, Patrenia, comments, ‘Why have the cake if I can’t eat it?’ Indeed. Some great fresh perspectives on all manner of things – customer service, checking emails in the morning, twitter, projects and team – in this post and its flow on comments.

I thoroughly enjoyed Joanna Penn’s podcast interview with Scott Sigler on ‘How to be a NY Times Best-selling Author’. It was another ‘blow your mind’ moment in terms of shifting my thinking about publication, especially self-publishing and podcasting as ways to get written work out there. The world of publishing has changed radically in recent times with technology and it is fascinating to hear the stories of writers such as Scott and their success across different platforms. Joanna Penn’s podcasts at The Creative Penn are full of such dynamic and inspiring stories of innovation in all genres of publishing and social media. Scott Sigler’s newest novel, Ancestor, has its own book trailer developed by him which is amazing and perfectly geared for other visually based media such as YouTube.

Loved this post from literary agent, Rachelle Gardner, on ‘Resources for Writing Memoir’ (via Twitter, Joanna Penn). Not only does it have great  tips and resources for writing memoir, it also has an excellent list of memoirs to read, some of which were familiar and loved and others that were new and endorsed by many - so a great list to delve into. I also love Tristine Rainer’s, ‘Your Life as Story’ about writing memoir and highly recommend it if this is an interest.

Image by Opals-on-Black.com,  from flickr and used under a Creative Commons license.