Moleskiners

Don George: Travel Writing and the Book Passage Potion

Administrator — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 05:44:53 +0000

Photo: Rand McNally on the Road

Two weeks ago the Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference – that annual four-day summer camp for travel creators – magically unfolded in Marin County’s Corte Madera once again. The conference is always one of the highlights of the year for me, and it proved so this year as well. Looking back, I’ve distilled five lessons from this year’s reeling, regaling, roller-coaster ride.

1. Travel writing makes you see the familiar anew: The conference actually kicked off for me with a pre-conference one-day in-the-field workshop. This year I took a hardy and convivial band of 11 writers to Point Reyes Station. This tiny town on winding Highway 1 seems the quintessential Northern California outpost to me. Though the population is only 350, the locally headquartered Cowgirl Creamery sells cheeses from as far away as France, England, and Italy (as well as its own signature, creamily delicious Mt Tam and tangy Red Hawk cheeses); on the one and only main street, Coyuchi sells organic textiles made in India, Cabaline offers Western and Australian saddlery next to Marin-made hats, and Zuma showcases jewelry crafted in Africa, Asia and down the street. In short, it’s a captivating mix of the local and the global, distinguished by its quality and its commitment to sustainable principles and practices.

The Basics of Writing

Administrator — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 05:31:40 +0000

Photo: KU.edu

This article gives some pointers that are basic in writing for profit. If setting out as a writer for the first time, the article gives some principles that can be taken as starting points and for those already in the field the principles can be considered as refreshers. After all, information is one of those commodities you can utilise as you choose, store for future use or pass on to others. The article gives a step by step approach in preparing oneself to write for a profit. The main points to consider are self awareness, theme, target audience, subject matter, research, then – writing. The principles are by no means exhaustive but may act as foundational for equipping the writer.

Taking Notes Ensures Effective Learning

Administrator — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:39:16 +0000

Flickr photo by pamelaadam

Students must learn how to take notes as this will help them “reprocess information in their own conceptual framework.”

In 1999, the National Research Council published a major study: How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School. The results confirmed what most forward-looking educators already understood: In order to learn, students must reprocess information in their own conceptual framework. And that starts with note-taking — a skill most students have very little training in before college.

Writing Techniques for Advanced Blog Writing

Administrator — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 02:45:58 +0000

Photo: freelanceapple.com

Erik Deckers of Professional Blog Service shares the techniques professional bloggers use.

Anyone can write a basic blog. It’s not that hard. And I’ve talked for hours, whether at seminars or at a one-on-one “brain picking” session about basic blog writing. But I rarely get the chance to talk about advanced blogging, the secrets that I use to improve my blog, and make it stand out from the hundreds of thousands of basic blogs.

Jennie Nash: Five Sure-Fire Signs That Your Writing Is Going Well

Administrator — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:01:50 +0000

Photo credit: advice.com

If you’re writing a novel, you may want to know if the task is turning out well.

How do you know when your writing is going well? Here are five sure-fire signs:

You can write for hours and hours and totally ignore the mounting pile of dirty dishes and the looming pile of laundry.

Save Money, Take Notes

Administrator — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 06:49:23 +0000

Taking notes may be one of the best money-saving habits you will ever have.

Whenever I’m traveling in new circles or meeting groups of people I don’t know well, the conversation usually turns into discussion of what everyone does professionally. When I explain that I’m a writer and mention The Simple Dollar, it’s not long before people at the table are usually tossing money-saving tips at me of all kinds.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting across from an elderly man when this same conversation thread came up. He looked at me and said, “Do you want to know what the best way I’ve ever found to save money is?”

“What’s that?”

“Take notes.”

I was baffled by this idea. What exactly did he mean?

Mike Swickey: Simplicity Has Become Much Too Complicated

Administrator — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 06:05:08 +0000

Photo credit: ThingsIHaveLearnedinMyLife.com

Having a love for paper often goes along with a desire for a simpler, minimalist life. That is true for me and I have enjoyed reading several blogs that focus on personal development, simplicity, decluttering, and minimalism. However, try to define all of that and you run into problems. Some of the blogs I once enjoyed in this sphere I have dropped all together because I saw a hypocrisy that didn’t sit well with me. Some of these bloggers became “celebrities” within their niche and quickly became everything that simplicity, to me, was not. I moved on to others. However, I have watched with a curious eye the latest developments among bloggers in this simplicity/minimalist niche and what I have seen is not the least bit pretty.

Top Five Travel Notebooks

Administrator — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 07:05:16 +0000

Photo credit: Jaunted.com

As irreparably attached to digital accessories like smartphones, e-readers and laptops as we are, there is still something to be said for setting pen or pencil to actual paper. In our laptop sleeve pocket, we’ve always got a notebook of some sorts, just poised to record odd thoughts and inspiration from our trips, thoughts that just don’t seem as magical when entered into a Word or Notepad file. All praise be to the almighty travel notebook.

Jamie Parsell: Eight Days and a Writer’s Heart

Administrator — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 06:54:58 +0000

Photo credit: Indiana University

BLUEFIELD — There are times when a blinking cursor on a computer screen or an old-fashioned white sheet of paper sends a jolt of urgency to a writer’s being. Like an electric shock, it travels through the fingers, up the arm and strikes the central part of the writer — the heart. The warm beating — the patterns of sentences — flows from the deepest part of a man, woman and child. Feelings, either written or spoken, begin in the heart. The mind simply strings together nouns, verbs and adjectives in a formula, learned through years of classroom diagrams. I am struggling to find enough space, paper and time to put feelings into words, sentences and paragraph. My heart is full, overwhelmed by experiences, memories and realizations.

Elizabeth Benedict: “Only Disconnect…” With Hemingway’s Notebook

Administrator — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 09:38:45 +0000

Photo: A Guy’s Moleskine Notebook

Call it going cold turkey. Earlier this summer, I knew I had to seize — and slightly alter — E.M. Forster’s famous command, “Only connect…” So off I went to a cabin in the woods of Maine with no Internet or cell phone service in order to “only disconnect.” I needed stillness to make headway on the novel I’ve been writing in fits and starts for years, and the cabin and its setting — 30 foot-tall pine trees in every direction — were serene, beautiful, and eerily out of touch.

But when I opened my laptop — to use as a typewriter — the cursor was frozen in the corner of the screen. Frozen solid. Until I could get home, I was advised to get an external mouse and an external keyboard, which I did in the nearest town. But the hardware turned my laptop into an octopus that needed a desk, not a lap, and there wasn’t one. Close to despair, I remembered the blank book I’d packed, with no particular plans for it — a still shrink-wrapped black Moleskine notebook I’d found in my sister-in-law’s apartment after she died — and dug it out of my suitcase. Inside the leather-like-covered book a pamphlet told its history.