Boosting Your #Creativity

I’m going to share two ways to boost creativity—a website and a particular article on that site… 

The site is called Medium and here’s a bit of what they say about themselves:

“Medium is a different kind of place to read and write on the internet.

“A place where the measure of success isn’t views, but viewpoints.

“Where the quality of the idea matters, not the author’s qualifications.

“A place where conversation pushes ideas forward and words still matter.”

The thing is, you can read there; but also, you can write there:

“However, the real value of Medium isn’t our tools. It’s all about the network, the connections with other people, and the stories you create. Well-designed networks reduce friction and help good stuff be found. Connections allow the whole to become greater than the sum of the parts and new paths to discover and build meaning. After all, isn’t that what every writer wants?”

Interaction is Key:

“Reading these stories is not passive. Every highlight you leave changes the way others interpret the story — and maybe even the way the author thinks about what they wrote.”

So, boost your creativity by reading great articles on Medium (you can follow particular writers and/or follow tagged ideas) and share your creativity on Medium by writing articles.

And, here’s their Huge Promise:

“When you sign up for Medium, you are joining a community of millions of thinkers and doers offering their best ideas and moving conversation forward on the biggest issues and interests of the day. Because great writing deserves a great audience.”

• Here’s a beginner’s guide to using Medium.

And, here’s an article from Medium to start you off—9 Ways To Dramatically Improve Your Creativity.

To encourage you to take that link, here are the topics discussed in the article:

1. Learn Through Collaboration
2. Do Something You Love
3. Find Inspiration From Other Industries
4. Unplug (Or Just Do Nothing)
5. Walk
6. Set the Right Mood
7. Use the Six Thinking Hats Technique
8. Ask For Advice or Feedback
9. Pick a Terrible Idea

I dare ya to go read what Larry Kim says about those ideas; and, that link of his name will take you to other articles he has on Medium :-)
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Grab A Free Novel…
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The “Mechanics” of Writing My Next Book…

For those just tuning in to this blog, I’m currently not publishing new posts 5 days a week, like I did for four years.

Image Courtesy of http://www.freeimages.com/profile/nicole_n

I’ll be returning to more intensive blogging; but, not until my next book is finished.

However, while I’m working on the book, I’ll be in here to give updates—like today :-)

So…

I’ve just finished organizing all my preparatory notes—reduced about 25,000 words down to somewhere around 9,000.

Next step is re-reading my last novel, Notes from An Alien <— grab a free copy…

The book I’m working on is an expansion on that book—a deeper-telling—different characters—but, it must fit into the time-line of the last novel…

So, as I read, I’ll be taking yet more notes—notes that will turn into an “outline”…

Then, I can throw all the notes into the blender of my mind and heart; then, get on with the actual writing………

Again, if you’re new here, do, please, while I’m not posting as often, take advantage of the over 1,000 posts already here—either pop some words in the Search Box at the upper right or explore the Top Tags widget further down on the left.

Enjoy! :-)

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By the way, my last novel was published by FastPencil.

The next one will be published through Smashwords (with a possible paperback through FastPencil…).
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To Leave A Comment, Use The Link At The Top-Right of The Post :-)
For Private Comments or Questions, Email: amzolt {at} gmail {dot} com

I’m Still Here . . .

Breaking my sabbatical a bit—long enough to let you know I’m deep into a family crisis that will, more than likely, end up clearing the emotional decks for unclouded sailing… 

Image Courtesy of http://www.freeimages.com/profile/doriana_s

Doing a little “side-research” before I get back to the next book—though, any research I do ends up being about the book…

Friendly Reminder: There are over a thousand posts on this blog—accessible through a search at the upper right or a visit to the Top Tags widget, down a bit on the left…

Also, the tabs at the very top are full of rich resources…

If you’re a reader, Happy Reading!

If you’re a writer, write!

If you’re a publisher, become more aware of the needs of your writers and readers…

Etymologies & Thesaurus Trees

I think it’s time to show the Word Histories and Synonyms for the three Main Topics of this blog:

Reading, Writing, & Publishing.

The etymologies are from the Oxford Online Dictionary Pro:

READ :
Old English rae-dan, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch raden and German raten ‘advise, guess’. Early senses included ‘advise’ and ‘interpret (a riddle or dream’)

WRITE :
Old English wri-tan ‘score, form (letters) by carving, write’, of Germanic origin; related to German reissen ‘sketch, drag’

PUBLISH :
Middle English (in the sense ‘make generally known’): from the stem of Old French puplier, from Latin publicare ‘make public’, from publicus

And, the synonyms are from the ThinkMap Visual Thesaurus:

Any Comments?
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* Google Author Page

Here’s a re-blog of a post from the early part of this year, which is fast closing… It’s good to look back when preparing to look forward :-)

Notes from An Alien

I’ve written many posts about new opportunities for readers, new challenges for writers, and new business models for publishers.

I’ve linked to many other sites to give a rounded view of the transformation we’re going through in the Book-World.

I’ve found a wonderful article that’s a great summary of most of the changes and we’ll get to that soon.

First though, while trying to find, amongst the 330 posts on this blog [edit on 25 Dec 2012: 552 posts now :-)], appropriate ones to link-to in this post, I decided to use my own search function ( it’s in the upper right of the blog :-)

For posts about readers, check out this link about Reading.

For posts about writers, try this link about Writer.

For posts about publishers, look to Traditional.

There are other search terms you can use but these seemed appropriate for this post.

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