And so it begins. The adventure I’d been forced to defer for years is upon me. My keyboard is getting a workout. There’s the 15 pages of “What If’s” to help spark plot and character concepts. Another 10 pages of “Starting Stuff,” in which I outline my idealized reader (curious and open minded, like ME), their needs (to be treated...
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http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/television/can-you-hear-me-now-aziz-ansari-tries-a-little-understanding-in-master-of-none
How encouraging to see that empathy – the understanding and sharing of emotions and experiences of another person (Merriam-Webster.com) – is a focus in the upcoming Netflix sitcom Master of None.
In an age of Twitter storms and social shouting, does it sometimes feel that listening-to-understand gets quashed?
I, for one, would love to see more time taken to learn where other people are coming from, before judging and responding. Empathy is a crucial feature of humankind. But it ain’t always easy. Winston Churchill said it well: “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
You go, Aziz!
See National Post article at http://news.nationalpost.com/…/can-you-hear-me-now-aziz-ans….
Keywords: aziz ansari sitcom empathy
According to an excellent Daily Beast article on intersex children and gender choice, “Even as transgender rights progress, intersex children are still left in legal limbo.” Here’s the crux of this piece, which deals with should parents choose the gender of their intersex children: ‘…left out of all this good news are intersex infants and children, whose fates are often...
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It took a while but I’ve decided to use CoFictions as the primary branding for my fiction self-publishing endeavors. It captures the essence of targeting specific category readers in ways that broaden the reach of a an individual work of fiction. Can’t say more than that for now or I’ll let loose the secret sauce. I’ve already started to brand...
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I am now about 110 pages into the second novel of Richard Ford’s Bascombe trilogy. So far it reflects the author’s penchant for reflective writing and the search for meaning in the banality of daily living. It is challenging to find Bascombe a truly sympathetic character at this point. Sure he’s insightful. He spews more sage advice about the “permanent...
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Was pondering the nomenclature further. What about “Categorate?” Sounds more professional – but still awkward and contrived – compared to Categorify (or Categoryfy, or Categorafy, all three of which I’ve registered. Will continue to explore the naming hierarchy for my self-publishing brand....
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I’m thinking of substituting one of the following terms with regard to branding my self-published fiction: cogenre genrafy cosubject subjectafy cocategory categorafy coversioning versionafy Will be giving this more consideration in near future. For now I just wanted to get these terms into the public sphere in case I need to claim first use when I establish a self-publishing brand....
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MY IGNORANT ERROR I logged into Twitter recently for the first time in a while, and learned that I had committed an intersex vs. hermaphrodite naming faux pas. A few weeks ago someone in the intersex community had @replied to me. This person, an intersex advocate, reasonably pointed out that I had added her name to my new “Intersex – Hermaphrodite” list...
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Climate Fiction. I first heard of it just today, though apparently it’s been around since concerns over climate change first emerged. That’s decades ago. Remember Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring? Back in 1962 she sounded the alarm over our planet’s altered ecosystem. She was labelled an alarmist by many. However today she’s regarded as a prophet whose predictions are prescient, to...
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One of the differentiating elements of my debut novel is the notion of genrefying it. As an author who has begun to write my first novel, and as an appreciator of the need to market oneself uniquely and in a targeted manner – especially when self-publishing, as I plan to (certainly initially) – I will ideally launch with a genrefied...
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