Category: Thought Bubble – Art and Creativity

Inspiration Engine 11 – PhD, Stories and Maps

~ Sahara ~ 3 Comments

This is a weekly post I do to highlight blogs or bloggers who have inspired me in some way during this week – another car on my imagination train!

As you may or may not know, to make the most of my interest in relationships,to stimulate the research corners of my brain and to give legitimacy to my findings, I have been trying to get into a PhD program for the past two years. I have been turned down from 18 programs in total, both in social work and in social psychology, and I’m bummed.

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Inspiration Engine 10 – History and Social Work

~ Sahara ~ 1 Comment

This is a weekly post I do to highlight blogs or bloggers who have inspired me in some way during this week.

This has been a fun week for me!  As a burgeoning Rennie preparing for several weeks of being a Scottish storyteller, the blog Historically Speaking is highly relevant to me. In particular, he includes a post about what he wishes reenactors would start or stop doing, and another about best practices. (From that, I took: Research and Wash your clothes the way it would have been done in the period.)

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Inspiration Engine 9 – Writing Historical Fiction

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This is a weekly post I do to highlight blogs or bloggers who have inspired me in some way during this week.

It is a short list this week, as this one blog has given me a whole week’s worth of inspiration. Thanks to NaNoWriMo 2013, I began seriously working on writing a work of historical fiction. I have become a ready sponge for information and hints about writing it well.

I stumbled upon the blog  A Writer of History by M.K. Tod and found a wealth of information. Not only insight from the blogger themselves, but also interviews with other writers of historical fiction, and it was awesome to read about their process and what advice for burgeoning authors. The blog also includes as surveys of readers of historical fiction, to learn what they like and why. Finally, in the blogroll and on separate pages are a wealth of resources about writing, historical fiction, and the WWI and WWII era, in particular.

Thank you, M.K. Tod, for the blog, and that you, reader, for reading about it!  What do you think of this choice? Do you know of or have other blogs that specialize in this?

Inspiration Engine 8 – Grunge and Writing

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Inspiration Engine is a weekly post I do about blogs that have inspired something in my this week.

1. This post, “Good Music is Timeless” by Icepicks and Nukes. A thousand times yes.  It’s kids today reacting to Nirvana. It’s awesome and reminds me of how I felt when I was that age, when I first heard Smells Like Teen Spirit or, even more powerful, Black, by Pearl Jam.  One of the kids in the video said that rock has skewered into two waaay different directions right now, and not good ones.  I’d had that observation, but couldn’t tell if that was just me getting old or what. It was nice to be reinforced. 🙂

2. This post, “On Sherlocking,” by Drew Chial, focuses on an exercise to one might to to improve their writing and their character development. In my ever so humble opinion, good character development is right under there with “good writing” on the list of things that makes a piece good. I appreciate this suggestion to flex those muscles.

What do you think of these post?  Were there any that inspired you this week?

 

Inspiration Engine v.7 – Art and Good Food

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This is a weekly post I do to highlight blogs or bloggers who have inspired me in some way during this week.

1. This post from Out of a Great Need concerns her dining room table and the space she makes for art supplies to be used easily and readily. I believe in the healing that art can give someone, and I like how easily it can be incorporated in one’s life this way.

I have lots of art supplies – paints, packaging scraps, mosaic tile – and lots of them, I barely use. Or I use for one big project, one that’s totally awesome (I made a mosaic of Odin’s Horns that doubles as a Ren Fair game board), but that I may not use again. When I think about using them, I get a little intimidated ’cause they’re so fancy. Shedding some of them as well as incorporating them like this blogger proposes suggests ways to make are more.

2. This post from xoamys is a wonderful reminder about the joy and good feeling that comes to me from certain kinds of eating experiences.  I never feel full enough eating a strictly raw or vegan food regimen, but I believe in the “harm-reduction” model of addiction recovery and healthful living, so I like to incorporate as many gems from these models as I can.  Also, since today’s the first day of spring, I can feel the entire Earth begin to get up to stretch. It’s been a hard winter.

Inspiration Engine, v.6

~ Sahara ~ 2 Comments

This is a weekly post I do to highlight blogs or bloggers who have inspired me in some way during this week.

1. Rituals from Ginger Sister.  For me, rituals are powerful and even spiritual anchors in life. When was in college, when I went out with an Indian man and learned how to make masala tea, or chai. His sister sent me spices from India, so I didn’t have to depend on a weak stock of stale cinnamon and nutmeg. Every morning started with me over the stove, listening for the boil and smelling the increasingly fragrant steam that rose as the tea heated.  Then, I moved away, we split up, and I stopped doing it regularly.  I found I had a real gap where this ritual had been and felt adrift.

This post is about a beautiful way of transitioning into something new and using ritual to ease that.

3. Finally, there is a delightful blog I stumbled upon this week, Browsing the Atlas, and I found it through the recommendation of the travelogue Take a trip with Andrew McCarthy from the Comfort of Your Chair. I love a good travelogue and I love to find others with a love of traveling. Thank you!

 

Inspiration Engine, V.5 – Mindfulness and Food

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Inspiration Engine is a weekly post I do about blogs that have inspired something in my this week. I normally do it on Thursdays, but am late (again) this week and am getting it out to day. Apologies.  I will also skip next week because I’ll be on my wedding trip. It will pick up the following week.

1. This post, “Untitled,” from the Mindfulness Revolution. This is a very calming post for me, in that it helps me focus and center. It says, “Anything that comes in through the senses is also regarded as ‘food’ for the body and therefore affects one’s mental emotional, and physical health.” I don’t know about you but I have a tumultuous relationship with “food;” I imagine we all do, actually. Eating is quite an emotional experience, and the consequences of eating (or not) have such  manifestations that we can’t help but have strong personal feelings about it.  As I type this right now, I am watching what I eat so I can fit into my wedding dress. At the same time, I am feeling a headache coming on, a headache brought of not eating the right thing at the right time, {or not enough of it.)   I’m also thinking about how to “maintain” dietary plans while at Disney World, a processed-food mecca. Therefore, the idea of nourishing myself through my eyes broadens my idea of “food” and consumption, sort of reframes it.  Moreover, the overall message of mindfulness is a particularly poignant reminder during this time in my life, just before my wedding (in three days.) Thank you, Mindfulness.

 

Inspiration Engine V.3 – Work and Social Mores

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This is a series I do once a week on interesting blog posts I’ve found, posts that make me think. This week, the posts took me on a familiar thought experiment about living a satisfying life.

1. The GOP and the Histoprial Obsession with Work in America –

I’ve been thinking about the Protestant Work ethic lately as I’ve been trying to think about what I’m going to do with my life. Being in this position right now is not fulfilling me.  I can work my ass off. I can tell myself it’s for a Catholic agency and I’m serving people as I am called to do by my loving Higher Power. But it’s not doing it for me.  I’m not challenged. At the same time, taking time off is terrible for me – I feel so guilty.  Isn’t that crazy?

This blog post challenged me to think about that but, unfortunately, didn’t offer any insight into how to NOT participate in this system I am ensconced in.  How do I work around it?  Can I? I started thinking about moving to France or somewhere with a less intensive protestant work ethic. Maybe I should read about the French and what they do.  So I began to think about that, and this also lead me to my next search…

…where i found this:

2. French Social Customs, Etiquette, and Idiosyncrasies

This post specifically talks about things like the long lunch and other French, well, idiosyncrasies, and how it can be frustrating. For example, how it can be frustrating when you’re trying to take care of business and business is closed. That would never happen here (U.S.). So perhaps this is just a matter of “the grass is greener?”

3. So then, as I was thinking about all of this age old question of balance, I looked up “priorities” and stumbled upon Hundred Goals blog, that pretty much speaks to this very question.  The author of this blog, he lists 100 goals that he has, and it kind of reminds me of an adult version of a bucket list.  Like, not something I want/hope to do, but something I will do. (No offense intended to bucket listers – perhaps that what they already do; I just don’t think of them that way.)

I love this dude’s philosophy, about setting goals that people will work to accomplish. “Those who dream and believe will do whatever it takes to make their dreams a reality.” I believe that, at my core, and I think I forgot about that – we are so much stronger than we think we are.