Feedly RSS Reader

So, today I’d like to highlight something I’ve found incredibly useful for taking the list of blogs, webcomics, and other online sites I follow and reducing it to something much easier and simpler. Let me present the Feedly RSS Reader.

Feedly is a simple RSS reader website instead of a specific program you need to download. You just have to sign up. You can also download the app for things like smartphones and it will sync to your main account.

With Feedly, you can easily input the URL to follow the many interesting sites you might find that update regularly (or not so regularly). Instead of needing to type in addresses or use a bunch of bookmarks, you get all the web content in one easy place.

I’m not sure if other RSS readers are similar or not, but Feedly proved very quick and easy to set up and it wasn’t hard to start using it right away. Even if this post is short, I hope it will make it easier for all of you to follow interesting blogs like this one.

LTUE 2014

LTUE this year was rather hectic overall. I managed to get half-days at work for Thursday and Friday, but also decided to create some business cards and do some art for a friend. I think I got in a little over my head with all that.

For the first two days, I mostly helped out at the Leading Edge table. It’s always great to hang out with my friends from the magazine. I did manage to get to one event: the combined readings by Sarah Seeley of her orc love story and S. A. Butler of her novel. Overall, I was a bit worn out so it was nice to ease into the convention slowly.

Saturday was the main day and the day I was feeling most excited to hear the presentations and panels. I slept in and missed some of the morning events so I started off with Brandon Sanderson’s reading and book signing.

Although I’ve heard his story before, he focused on a few particular points I found interesting. Before he had success he had to focus on who he was going to be as a writer. He couldn’t just chase what the market thought was good at the time, but had to answer the question of what fiction he wanted to write. Another big point he brought up is that it’s sometimes best to wait and attempt our masterpieces. While the ideas of an epic story might excite a beginning writer, often they won’t have the skills needed to keep such a massive plot together until they’ve practiced on a few smaller  plots first.

I was left to ponder his points for a while, since it took about an hour to get a book signed, but it was definitely worth it.

Since the signing took up so much time, I had time for just a few more panels. Next up was the one on writing books for younger readers (children’s picture books up to YA). There was a lot of good advice, but I’ll just highlight the three pieces I thought most interesting. First, writing a picture book is like writing poetry; it must be concise yet powerful. Second, the child protagonist must solve their own problems most the time. Nobody likes a reactive character who just gets handed solutions. Third, try to write smart fiction, the sort that can entertain audiences of all ages. Just because they’re books for younger readers doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice any depth of character or plot, although the age group you write for can determine what the plot and issues might be.

Next up was the description in writing panel. I’ve read or heard quite a bit on description so I didn’t take too many notes, but things like immersion, using the senses, focusing on what’s most important, and avoiding repetition are the things I wrote down.

With all the writing advice of the day, I was ready for my final panel: Starting the Next Project. My friend Joe Vasicek was on the panel, and he and the others offered some great advice. If you need to come up with a lot of ideas, sometimes it’s best to go on a long walk and daydream up how your story world might be. Projects should be done in stages, like first draft, first revision, etc. Move a project through one stage before working on another one, unless the project is somehow stuck. It’s also important to capture ideas so they aren’t in the way of your current project. With all their good advice, I was ready to go home and think of which project to start again.

But there was one final event for the night that turned out to be even more amazing than I expected. The banquet after an event is usually pretty relaxing. This time I had my friends with me, so it was a bit easier to converse over dinner. Brandon Sanderson was the toastmaster and gave an excellent address about celebrating the unique values of the genres we right in. Adventure, wonder, and worlds to explore are part of what makes fantasy and sci-fi so great, even if it’s what the literary elite might not understand. As things were wrapping up, my friends suggested we go meet some of the big authors there, so we had the wonderful chance to briefly chat with Brandon Sanderson and Orson Scott Card.

LTUE always leaves me feeling excited for my own writing and the writing of so many other authors. Together we are making stories that can change lives, so now we just have to go out there and get them down in words.

Committing to Action

The other day I decided to finally declare on some art websites that I will take art commissions.

I’ve long debated making such a declaration and its taken a long time to face my doubts. What if I wasn’t good enough? What if no one wanted to commission me to make art for them? These were my main doubts along with other smaller ones, but once I began to think about them, they quickly melted away, like many doubts do.

The answer was quite simple. By simply investing a tiny amount of time to make a decent sheet of rules and explanations for my commissions, I’d have more opportunities. If I wasn’t good enough yet or people didn’t want commissions, I wouldn’t be any worse off that not having that option available. It became simply the matter of opening a new door of opportunities to see what might come in.

I thought there might not be any, but to my surprise, I quickly had two commissions from friends. It felt good that they either like me or my art enough to want to throw some money my way. And if I had never been brave enough to say I was taking commissions neither of these would have been possible.

The decision to take commissions was like opening a gateway of opportunity. By stating I’d be willing to do something, it became possible.

I feel this blog is very similar. If you asked me a year or two ago, I would have said that a blog would be nice to have but wasn’t something I could do. Eventually I committed to the actions required to make a blog and then the idea built momentum. By making public declarations of intent, it becomes easier to follow an internal commitment.

Often we try to wait for some sign to do something. We wonder if we’re ready or good enough, but the truth is that the easiest way to be good enough or feel ready is to make some declaration about your course of action then follow through on it. You won’t be any worse off opening a few more doors of opportunity.

Things Left Behind

Often when we pick our favorite interests and goals to pursue, a lot of fun ideas and less important things get left behind, but does this really have to happen?

Lately, I’ve began a little bit of video editing and sound recording. It’s usually just a small project once a week but it’s been a fun way to share something I do with at least a few people. Not too long ago, I would have considered video editing just something I had fiddled with in a few high school classes. Sometimes things just come together and you can start exploring an old interest you thought was left behind in a small but fun way.

This got me thinking about other sort of interests I’ve left behind or ones that might be fun to pick up but I never convinced myself that I’d have the time or tools to do so. I mean, at a few hours a week, you definitely won’t be awesome anytime soon, but you can at least get to a proficient level, especially if you had some experience with something before.

Take piano for explore. I always failed when I made it a daily goal. It just wasn’t high enough on my priorities for me to continually invest time and willpower into scheduling practice time and going through with it each day. But if I instead focused on an hour or two a week for fun, I’m sure I could keep in practice and improve in small ways.

It’s been an exciting realization that you don’t have to leave hobbies behind even if they can’t be a main priority. I was talking with some friends about how I used to do a bit of 3D animation in high school and they asked why I didn’t still try to continue to do a bit of it today. Now, I did have some excuses, like not having software, but really, it all came down to only the fact that I had chosen not to invest more time in it after my classes finished. Today, there are even more options in software (and some are free) for 3D animation, so picking it up again would merely be a matter of investing some time to relearn the software and then building off what I learned before.

Now, certain other hobbies that would be fun might take a little more preparation, but really, if the cost to explore something that might become fun and meaningful is low, why not pay up and add a little experience to fill out your life? I’d enjoy learning more about sewing, especially making plushies. Much of it can be done by hand sewing, so I’m sure the starting equipment for that doesn’t cost much. To go a little into the more expensive realms, I always did love woodworking and ceramics. The equipment for these would cost a lot, although I’ve always wondered if there’s some way I could merely pay to rent someone else’s equipment for a brief time while working on a simple project.

I’ve had a taste of other hobbies I’d love to pursue given more time like paragliding or scuba diving. For those, it’s more a matter of saving up then setting aside a bit of time for a few weeks to finish the basic instruction.

Anyway, the reality is that it isn’t hard to explore new interests if you only stop making excuses and instead just look at the cost in time and money. Often, the costs won’t be much, so why not reach out and venture into an unknown hobby or branch of knowledge that you’ve always admired from afar?