People who skim online articles are just as cultured as book snobs There’s no way around it, the headlines are disturbing. And they come, not from tabloids or click-bait blogs, but from papers published in scientific journals. They describe fish and birds responding with altered behavior and reproductive systems to antidepressants, diabetes medication, and other psychoactive or hormonally active drugs at concentrations found in the environment. Exactly how many drugs are in use and how many may be detectable in the environment is difficult to pinpoint. Regulatory and health authorities, including the US Environmental Protection Agency, the FDA and the World Health Organization, note that levels of individual pharmaceutical compounds being measured environmentally—typically in water—have not been shown to harm human health. Where are these compounds coming from? Prescribing trouble About 90% of pharmaceuticals found in the environment arrive there after being excreted. Sophisticated testing How big of a problem? What can we do? Just beginning
Advice on Novel Writing < Back to darkwaves.com Foreword by the Author Developing Efficient Work Habits Elements Of A Successful Story In the opening... In the body of the story... Afterword by the Author Foreword by the Author A little later tonight (Thursday, Nov 5 [1992]), I'm going to start sending in a series of items about writing fiction for the mass market. Altogether I'll be sending 17 separate “handouts” from my commercial fiction course. The files total about 180K--enough for a short book. Why am I doing this? Crawford Kilian Communications Department Capilano College 2055 Purcell Way North Vancouver, BC Canada V7G 1H7 Usenet: Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca Developing Efficient Work Habits Different writers face different advantages and drawbacks in forming good writing habits. Writing habits flourish best in routine, but the efficient writer also exploits opportunity. Keep your writing equipment (paper, pens, software manuals, etc.) in your writing place, close at hand. Compile a “project bible.”
Read Less. Learn More. - Todoist Blog What would you say if I told you that reading one book can be more valuable than reading fifty? That re-reading something familiar is more valuable than reading something new? What would you say if I told you that you could learn more by reading less? With 1,500 – 2,000 TV shows aired, 600,000 – 1 million books published, 1 billion active websites & approximately 200 billion tweets posted every year, we live in a world packed with information. In our pockets, a thumb-press away, we carry libraries so vast that even imagining them would be an impossibility. On his website What If? Even more impossible than imagining its size is the notion that we should somehow be able to keep current with reading these oceans of information. It’s a habit that technology companies are certainly aware of: Information is coming at us from all directions at all times. Without even picking up a book, we are continually overloaded with information on a daily basis. 2015 was my year of brain gluttony.
9 Books on Reading and Writing by Maria Popova Dancing with the absurdity of life, or what symbolism has to do with the osmosis of trash and treasure. Hardly anything does one’s mental, spiritual, and creative health more good than resolving to read more and write better. Today’s reading list addresses these parallel aspirations. If anyone can make grammar fun, it’s Maira Kalman — The Elements of Style Illustrated marries Kalman’s signature whimsy with Strunk and White’s indispensable style guide to create an instant classic. The original Elements of Style was published in 1919 in-house at Cornell University for teaching use and reprinted in 1959 to become cultural canon, and Kalman’s inimitable version is one of our 10 favorite masterpieces of graphic nonfiction. On a related unmissable note, let the Elements of Style Rap make your day. Anne Lamott might be best known as a nonfiction writer, but Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life affirms her as a formidable modern philosopher as well. On open-endedness:
7 Speed Reading Tricks by a Former Book-Hater I was never a big fan of reading… I blame it on the education system, of course. (Well, it can’t be my fault, can it?) You see, it’s difficult to enjoy reading when every book your teacher throws at you is of no interest to you whatsoever. So I hated it. It was a chore, not a pleasure. Then I finished school and went my own path. It is obvious that there are only so many hours in a day, so if I want to be able to read more I have to learn to read faster. 1. This is the thing that really slows us down. 2. The idea is simple. 3. This may sound obvious but it’s worth mentioning here. 4. Here’s what you do: start reading each line on the third word, and end each line on the third word from the end. As an example consider such a line of text: “Marry had a little lamb but she ate it for supper.” The words in bold indicate the focus points. 5. The easiest way of doing this is to read from a bigger distance (like 2ft). 6. This is a very common problem. 7. That’s it for this list.
Science Fiction Writer Robert J. Sawyer: On Writing — Heinlein's Rules SFWRITER.COM > How to Write > On Writing: Heinlein's Rules by Robert J. Sawyer Copyright © 1996 by Robert J. Sawyer. There are countless rules for writing success, but the most famous ones, at least in the science-fiction field, are the five coined by the late, great Robert A. Heinlein used to say he had no qualms about giving away these rules, even though they explained how you could become his direct competitor, because he knew that almost no one would follow their advice. In my experience, that's true: if you start off with a hundred people who say they want to be writers, you lose half of the remaining total after each rule — fully half the people who hear each rule will fail to follow it. I'm going to share Heinlein's five rules with you, plus add a sixth of my own. Rule One: You Must Write It sounds ridiculously obvious, doesn't it? And don't you dare complain that you don't have the time to write. Rule Two: Finish What You Start Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the Market
Speed Reading Techniques: How to Read 1000 Words per Minute ”One trouble with developing speed reading skills is that by the time you realize a book is boring, you’ve already finished it.” – Franklin P. Jones We all spend hours reading each week. However sometimes it is hard to keep up with this activity because of other responsibilities and activities. What if you could cut down your reading time without compromising the quality or quantity of your reading? Or if you could memorize more of the things you read in a better way? According to research, the average reading speed for the general population is around 120 words per minute (wpm), and that is while taking into account their ability to comprehend the text. With the help of speed reading, you can read seven or eight times quicker than the fastest readers. Myths about Reading There are some myths and misconceptions regarding reading in general which cause people to refrain from practicing speed reading. Reading Quickly Hampers Retention: The reality is quite the opposite of this perception.
57 Tips For Writers, From Writers The entire writing process is fraught with perils. Many writers would argue that the hardest part of writing is beginning. When asked what was the most frightening thing he had ever encountered, novelist Ernest Hemingway said, “A blank sheet of paper.” Other writers believe that ideas are easy, it’s in the execution of those ideas that the hard work really begins. You have to show up every day and slowly give shape to your ideas, trying to find just the right words, searching for the right turn of phrase, until it all morphs into something real. So just how do you go about facing an empty page, coaxing your ideas into the world of form, and steering the end result toward shore? Tips For Writers From Stephen King “If you want to be a writer,” says Stephen King , “you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” King, who has written over 50 books, emphasizes that writers have to be well-read. Tips For Writers From John Grisham Tips For Writers From Erica Jong 1. 2. 3. 4.
It’s Okay to “Forget” What You Read – The Polymath Project – Medium I write a lot about reading, and one of the most common questions I get is “What’s the point of reading if I just forget it all anyway?” Paul Graham, essayist and founder of startup incubator Y Combinator, asks much the same question in his essay How You Know: “I’ve read Villehardouin’s chronicle of the Fourth Crusade at least two times, maybe three. Many of us feel this near-existential fear that we might “lose” what wisdom we extract from the books we read. Such fears are unfounded. First of all, if you love books, memory is never a problem. But many of us read books for reasons other than pleasure. There is much written on retaining what you read (note it, connect it, summarize it, teach it, yawn…), but Paul Graham, I think, has something new and interesting to say. Let’s take a look. Forgetting Is Not Forgetting Reflecting on the forgotten pages of Villehardouin’s Chronicles of the Crusades, Graham comes to a realization. “Reading and experience train your model of the world. I. II.
Seven Tips From Ernest Hemingway on How to Write Fiction Image by Lloyd Arnold via Wikimedia Commons Before he was a big game hunter, before he was a deep-sea fisherman, Ernest Hemingway was a craftsman who would rise very early in the morning and write. His best stories are masterpieces of the modern era, and his prose style is one of the most influential of the 20th century. Hemingway never wrote a treatise on the art of writing fiction. He did, however, leave behind a great many passages in letters, articles and books with opinions and advice on writing. 1: To get started, write one true sentence. Hemingway had a simple trick for overcoming writer's block. Sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. 2: Always stop for the day while you still know what will happen next. There is a difference between stopping and foundering. 5: Don't describe an emotion--make it.
How to Remember What You Read “I cannot remember the books I have read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Why is it that some people seem to be able to read a book once and remember every detail of it for life, while others struggle to recall even the title a few days after putting down a book? The answer is simple but not easy. It's not what they read. There is another difference between these two types of readers: The quantity of reading affects them differently. The more that active readers read, the better they get. Think back to the books you studied in school. Having a deliberate strategy for anything we spend a lot of time on is a sensible approach. For us to get the most out of each book we read, it is vital to have a plan for recording, reflecting on, and putting into use the conclusions we draw from the information we consume. First, let's clear up some common misconceptions about reading. Quality matters more than quantity. Before Reading For example:
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