Or do they tell me I need to build better characters? Maybe that is more true. I keep looking at character building websites, and chapters out of books like this one, and try to get my characters to be more, well whatever they are supposed to be more of, and I think I finally figured it out. My characters don't have "main character energy." They are perpetual wing men, looking for someone to support.

There is probably a YouTube video where I can learn this in five minute chunks, but small video chunks not only do not help me learn, they infuriate me because just when we are getting to the meat of the subject, it's time to move to the next video. Clue attention residuals floating around my brain. The distraction of the video ending, the next one starting, with it's mandatory ad, since I am too cheap to pay for YouTube, and then the obligatory recap of the video we finished watching not a full minute ago (depending on ad length.)

Some time ago, I stumbled upon Gabriella Pereira and her Do It Yourself MFA (diyMFA). I read it and tossed it back on the shelf. But I decided that I wanted to read it again, and this time actually do it. I have the book and the starter kit, but I am going to work through the book. And by working through, I mean I started a new Scrivener project devoted to doing the exercises and logging the homework.

“Ends are not bad things, they just mean that something else is about to begin. And there are many things that don't really end, anyway, they just begin again in a new way. Ends are not bad and many ends aren't really an ending; some things are never-ending.”― C. JoyBell C. Photo by Ann H on Pexels.com It's the end of the April A to Z challenge, and except for the fact that I could not find X or Z quotes, I pretty much finished the challenge of Commonplace Entries A to Z.

You need to learn how to start saying no to things you do want to do, with the recognition that you only have one life. Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks Something a college mentor used to say, Don't let the good get in the way of the best. But I think now that he was talking about maximizing my life, productivity, and dare I say, the definition of "best" was up for debate?

Instead, Didion believes the notebook's value lies in its record of "How it felt to be me" at a particular time. Louise DeSalvo, The Art of Slow Writing. So many notebooks, so little time. I even purchased a reMarkable tablet, so I can always have multiple notebooks in my work bag. And my boss got me a second one, so I can have multiple work notebooks.

When we tell our own stories, we are forgiven," I heard someone say recently. Upon first hearing this, I thought briefly, Forgiven for what? -- and now the answer, for me at least, is clear: for being human. Theo Pauline Nestor, Writing is My Drink.

Virtually every sentence that contains the word "brand" is bullshit, and this one is no exception. Cory Doctorow, The Memex Method I am not sure when we became brands rather than people, but here we are. For me, it became apparent years ago, when I church I attended was opening a second location. It was a small, local, non-denominational church. But they were saying that though it was a new location, it would be just like the first.

Unless someone like you cares an awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not. Dr. Seuss, The Lorax But there seems to be so much to care about, chaos in all directions. I propose we each pick three things (yes, you can pick more, but no more than 5. You have 5 fingers, so easier to track. Plus that saves some crises for others to deal with.)

That was, in fact, what time was: a narrow container for a relentless succession of tasks. The container could not be expanded, but the tasks could multiply exponentially. In fact, the tasks were guaranteed to multiply. The law of entropy had undoubtedly been discovered by a mother with two teenagers. Sonja Yoerg, True Places Since STEM is in all the news this week for the hysteric Blue Origin flight, I thought I would post about how real women experience science.

Six feet of casual stardust. Dawn Tripp, Jackie A book club I belong to chose Jackie as the book of the month a few months ago. And honestly, I was not excited. I have read biographies of most of the characters, along with history, etc. and really was not interested in a fictionalized version. Until this line. Never have I encountered a character introduction such as this. #squadgoals.

The rules you were given worked for the person who had given them to you. Ellen Langer Honestly, I am not sure the rules I was given even worked for the people that gave them to me. I think it was more a hope that if you do everything "right" that maybe, just maybe, you would be loved, taken care of and successful. Or at least OK.

Quality is not an act, it's a habit. Aristotle

(the) Practice is not the means to the output, the practice is the output, because the practice is all we can control. Seth Godin, The Practice

Of all lies, art is the least untrue. Gustav Flaubert

Notae propriae, notae optimae: 'your own notes are the best notes.' Jeremias Drexel, Jesuit

M - (the) more efficient you get, the more you become a “limited reservoir for other people’s expectations” - management expert Jim Benson as quoted by Oliver Burkeman in Four Thousand Weeks.  The problem with being efficient is that people come to rely on you for it, therefore getting in the way of getting your own priorities done. The perk of being efficient?

(I) Looked up. I looked to the preschool and the lake, waiting for the bolt of lightening to strike me dead. When it did not, I wrote for the next house and  a half about the women in my family. I wrote about being neglected, about being uncared for as a Chile. I wrote about my mother’s distraction. I wrote about how true nurturing was never modeled to me.

K- (i) knew now one who was a creative professional, and neither did my parents. Novelists only existed in movies like Little Women and Finding Forrester. The possibility of making a life doing anything but working for other people was not something any adults around me know how to conceptualize.  Jeane Kadlec - Heretic One thing I knew early on - I wanted to be a writer.

Judge a man by his questions rather then by his answers. Voltare On the other hand, we have Ted Lasso, "Be curious, not judgmental." (Yes, lots of questions about who said it first, but Ted made it popular again.) James Buckhouse also had the right idea in his article How to Finish What You Start: "Creative diligence is the ability to combine radical curiosity and thoughtful rigor to solve creative problems and produce extraordinary art."

"In the very end, civilizations perish because they listen to their politicians and not their poets." Jonas Mekas  I dare wonder if anyone in a certain group in the US Capitol have ever heard a poem. Sure, they may have some highlighted verses of a psalm, but have they ever read even the poetic parts of the Bible as poetry and not a handbook?

He became a poet the way other men become monks: as a devotional practice, as an act of love, as a lifelong commitment to the search for grace and transcendence. I think this is a very good way to become a poet, or the be anything really, that calls to your heart and brings you to life. Elizabeth Gilbert, on Jack Gilbert, Big Magic.