Some gems shining a little light this week.
I loved Justine Lee Musk’s recent post on Tribal Writer on ‘5 ways to put more ‘soul’ into your writing’ . Justine reflects on what makes writing invoke an emotional engagement, how to make writing original and distinctive and issues of vulnerability in writing. I found this post to be an insightful and deeply reflective piece, enacting the ‘soul’ in writing it was talking about. There are also practical tips and exercises for how to put more soul into writing. These tips are around the adage of ‘show rather than tell’ but Justine fleshes this concept out with fresh perspectives you can apply to your writing.
Pushing Social post ‘Lady Gaga’s 8 point guide to larger than life blogging,’ has attracted a lot of interest in recent weeks. Stanford Smith cleverly unpacks the genius of Lady Gaga’s business and social media presence and how this might apply to blogging and your own ‘digital show’. The message is about being distinctive and unique, and the outcomes from a combination of hard work, clear vision and an incremental approach. Lady Gaga has just reached 10,000,000 fans on Facebook, the first person to do so, so she certainly has some tricks up her sleeves for building an online presence that we can learn from.
I enjoyed the recent Creative Penn podcast interview with Dan Poynter on self-publishing and book marketing tips. Dan is a long-time player in self-publishing having started in 1969. From his long and varied experience, the interview provides valuable tips on self-publishing options, digital publishing, business models, marketing options and multiple streams of income from writing and related activities. As always, Joanna Penn’s podcast interviews open your mind to a wealth of possibilities for where your writing can go and how you can carve a writing life based on these options.
Image, Gypsy Gem by Robyn Gallant from flickr and used under a Creative Commons license.
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