Books -- reading and writing.
Home, cooking, the weather.
And whatever connections I can make between these chapters of my life.

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Being Still and Listening

July seems like a good time to re-post advice I'm still working on.
Of course, it never hurts to be in a place where your choices for Internet Background Noise are limited.

My husband's great-grandmother hung this where she could read it every day during the summer months she spent in this quiet place.




 (Here's a reposting from two years ago.)
"The discipline of the writer is to learn to be still and listen to what his subject has to tell him."
                 Rachel Carson

This morning I read Candice Farris Ransom's post about switching off the internet and listening Here it is. What do you think? I don't think I can completely unplug. But I'll try to strike a balance.

I'm leaning toward the advice of Laurie Halse Anderson, 
in her blogpost about Social Media.

Cut the amount of time you spent on social media and reading blogs about writing and getting published by 75%. Yep. If you spent 10 hours a week on that stuff, then from now on, spend 2.5 hours. Use the time that you get back for writing your novel and for reading great books. That will make your chances of getting published much stronger than any Facebook post ever will.

Of course, I'd spent an entirely productive time cruising around on Laurie Halse Anderson's blog.  She's got some great advice and fantastic visuals so I'll be back.  She'll be in my 25%.




It's the other internet background noise I may be able to live without. 
It's a lot easier to be still and listen when the background noise isn't clutter.






3 comments:

Rosi said...

This is all good advice. I think Michael Chrichton must have been speaking directly to me. It is such hard work. Thanks for a kick in the pants. Always needed!

Carol Baldwin said...

Thanks for posting this. Just what I needed to hear.

Augusta Scattergood said...

You can't hear good advice too many times, as my grandmother was fond of saying.
Of course, as a child, I didn't agree at all! But now I see what she meant.
At times, kicking each other in our collective pants is a good thing.
That's what friends and grandmothers are for, right?