“Having an open mind is an extremely important trait for a writer. No one writes a perfect draft on their own, and you need to be able to stay open to the way your work reads to other people. It’s extremely difficult for a writer to see what really is and isn’t on the page. You inevitably project things onto the page that aren’t there because you know what you mean. But there’s absolutely such a thing as having too open of a mind.”
How to avoid overcorrecting after receiving feedback :: Nathan Bransford
“These mergers and acquisitions are about increasing publishing profits. That’s okay. Just don’t tell me it’s good for me.”
When publishing houses get bigger :: Avi
This is an interesting look at approaching creativity. Makes me think of writer vs. author (private work vs. public work).
Exploit or Explore :: Austin Kleon
Of course it is!
L.M. Montgomery’s classic Anne of Green Gables named most translated Canadian book :: CBC
“There is no blank slate upon which works of true originality are composed, no void out of which total novelty is created. Nothing is original because everything is an influence; everything is original because no influence makes its way into our art untransmuted by our imagination. We bring to everything we make everything we have lived and loved and tessellated into the mosaic of our being. To be an artist in the largest sense is to be fully awake to the totality of life as we encounter it, porous to it and absorbent of it, moved by it and moved to translate those inner quickenings into what we make.”
Nick Cave on Creativity, the Myth of Originality, and How to Find Your Voice :: The Marginalian
“Believing, as I did, that other people are succeeding far more than we are is part of why we feel ashamed when we fail. A common response to that shame is to keep rejections to ourselves. Other people don’t know our score cards, and that encourages them to keep quiet too. It’s a type of coordination problem—no one wants to be the first to reveal their rejections lest they be seen as incapable.”
A Toast to All the Rejects :: The Atlantic
And finally, here’s a great one for graduation season. Risk and wisdom, travel and connection, poetic knowledge (–had no idea; wrote it down –) and the wisdom of Pooh.
10 Things I’d Tell My High School-Graduating Self :: Tsh Oxenreider
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Thank you, Caroline! I really needed to read that Nathan Bransford article right now.
Glad to hear it!
Just the inspiration I needed at the end of this week! Thank you!