ALEX NOBLE - WRITING JOURNAL-2015

The New Diary - Tristine Rainer

 

 

The New Diary is about a completely modern concept of journal writing. It has little to do with the rigid daily calendar diary you may have kept as a child or the factual travelogue you wrote to recall the Grand Canyon. Instead, it is a tool for tapping the full power of your inner resources.

The New Diary is as much for those who already keep a journal as it is for those who have never kept one. It does not tell you the "right" way to keep a diary; rather, it offers numerous possibilities for using the diary to achieve your own purposes. It is a place for you to clarify goals, visualize the future, and focus your engergies; a means of freeing your intuition and imagination; a workbook for exploring your dreams, your past, and your present life.

It is for everyone seeking concrete methods for dealing with personal problems. It is for women and men interested in achieving self-reliance and inner liberation, for artists and writers seeking new techniques for overcoming blocks to creativity.

 

Unleash Your Inner Millionaire!

 

From: Formula for Success - Where Science Meets Spirit

 

http://www.formulaformiracles.net/Audio-Programs-and-CDs/Unleash-Your-Inner-Millionaire.html

 

NON-PROFITS: Effective Frontline Fundraising

 

 

Jeffrey Stauch is no slouch when it comes to asking people for money—and he shares how he gets it done in his new title, "Effective Frontline Fundraising," recently published by Apress.

Stauch got his start by canvassing for political groups on the streets of Boston and quickly progressed to his current position as a prime fundraiser for a prestigious New England College. “Asking for $5—and getting it—takes about as much skill and guts as asking for $1 million,” said Stauch. “The principles are the same. And anyone can learn them.”

 

Best Place for Self-Publishing Your Books! Lulu!

Full Information on the Lulu Publishing Services at: www.lulu.com

With Lulu, the leader in self-publishing, there is a size for all your projects. Whether you're making a comic book, novel or business presentation, we've got the perfect size. Get Started >

Make Your Own Beautiful Book - Print on Demand!

 

A Book Published by Blurb: See Blurb Bookstore

 

Full Information at: www.blurb.com

With Blurb, you’ll find all the tools you need to make your own photo book, whether you’re making a personalized wedding album, cookbook, baby book, travel photo book, or fundraising book.

Count on bookstore-quality printing and binding, and a range of choices from Hardcover photobooks to Softcover paperbacks in an array of trim sizes. Use any of our free online bookmaking tools to create your own book.

Learn how to publish a book and much more with our free how-to tips and tutorials or watch our two-minute BookSmart video and see how easy it is to make a coffee table photo book. Be sure to register and subscribe to Blurb emails to get the news first on Blurb events and promo code coupon offers.

 

 

Tell Your Story!

 

Aboriginal Story Telling

 

 

Assignment:  If you had 15 minutes to write down the 7 most important events of your life, what would they be?  Then, choose one and write a short short story about what happened, and how this affected you.  When did this happen? Who was involved?  How old were you? Where did this take place?  How long did this experience last?  What blessings came from it?  If it was a difficult experience, have you forgiven those involved?  Write Now! GO!

 

Welcome!  We believe that hardly anything is as exciting as living history - especially if it's your family story as told by your own parents or grandparents.

So many of our questions we would like to ask our parents go forever unanswered: Where and how did you meet mum?... What were the challenges you have had in your life?... What was your childhood really like?...

www.tellyourstory.com

Digital Photo Journals and eBooks: Try Mixbook!

What is Mixbook?

Mixbook is the easy and fun way to make completely customizable photo books, cards, and calendars on the web – for free. With Mixbook, you aren’t limited to static pre-designed templates – our powerful design software gives you the freedom to lay out and design your creations to your heart’s content. We’ve dedicated ourselves to bringing you the best experience in creating photo products so that you can make keepsakes that truly reflect your vision. With Mixbook, you can truly Make It Yours™.

Full Information at the MixBook site: www.mixbook.com

Read What Educators are Saying About Mixbook

Think About: Your Choices

 

Assignment: Make a list of the three most important choices you can make right now to add more joy to your life.  On a blank journal page, (use one page for each choice you have selected) write down three headings: PLUS, MINUS & INTERESTING.  Fill in as many thoughts that come to you for each category, and be honest.  Almost always, it is the items in the INTERESTING column which will be the most determinative of the choice you make.  Write Now!  GO!  And make the choice!

 

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Dr. Shad Helmstetter on Choices

1 “No one else can ever make your choices for you. Your choices are yours alone. They are as much a part of you as every breath you will take, every moment of your life.”

2 “You may think that in life, a lot of things happen to you along the way. The truth is, in life, you happen to a lot of things along the way.”

3 “Choosing to live your life by your own choice is the greatest freedom you will ever have.”

4 “It is only when you exercise your right to choose that you can also exercise your right to change.”

More About Choices:

MIT Offers 2100 Online Courses - FREE!

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Campus

 

Assignment:  Think about what you would like to learn if you could study at MIT.  Let your imagination loose!  Pretend you are going back to school.  Explore what is available from the MIT online catalogue, and create a curriculum for yourself, or start with just one course that you feel passionate about.  Write Now! GO!

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From: Smart Planet:

The disruption of higher education just got very interesting. It appears that the disruptors — private, online universities — are being disrupted at their own game. One of the pantheons of traditional on-site learning, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has announced it will be launching online courses that will be free and open to the world. And, in the process, plans to offer certificates to students successfully completing the coursework. 

Write & Share Your Life Stories!

 

Writing Assignment:  From the life-history questions below, choose one and write a short vignette focused on this subject.  Over time, using these questions, you can create a collection which can grow into a full memoir.  Or, you may wish to just create stand-alone life stories in your journal.  Write Now! GO!

Consider: Choose events to write about from your life as it is happening right now - small life stories which can eventually become part of  a memoir.

The questions below are from  Write My Memoirs, a site dedicated to supporting writers who wish to create an autobiography.

Read more at:  http://www.writemymemoirs.com/index/about_us.html

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How many people lived in your family home when you were a child? Did your extended family – grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins -- live under the same roof, or very near by?

SMASH Books - Another Way to Keep a Journal!

 

 

Check out a whole lot of SMASHBook Stories at:

 

http://www.smashstoriesblog.com/

 

Read a SMASHBook story from Charlotte in France:

 

Alone Together: Why We Expect More of Technology and Less of Each Other

 

 

 

Writing Assignment:  As you watch this video, and read the overview of Alone Together below, reflect on your current relationship to the tsunami of digital technologies that threaten to overwhelm us.  How are all these tools affecting your life? Are they adding to your sense of peace and happiness, or detracting from your quality of life?  Are you wanting more connections via these many options, or are you starting to unplug?  if you are serious about being a writer, or even about being able to think clearly about your life and make intelligent decisions, you will need to create boundaries for yourself in terms of how much time you spend absorbed in the brave new  Orwellian digital world.  Write Now!  GO!

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Sherry Turkle's New Book:

Alone Together: Why We Expect More of Technology and Less of Each Other

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Facebook. Twitter. SecondLife. “Smart” phones. Robotic pets. Robotic lovers. Thirty years ago we asked what we would use computers for. Now the question is what don’t we use them for. Now, through technology, we create, navigate, and perform our emotional lives.

On Courage and Risk: Afterthoughts to What Should I Do With My Life?

 

Journal Assignment:  As you read the comments from "On Courage and Risk" below, write down the most important risk you can take right now.  If you take this risk, what is the best thing that can happen?  What would be the worst?  Do you have the courage to step into the Unknown, realizing that taking this risk could change your life forever for the better? Write Now! GO!

Po Bronson's book "What Should I Do With My Life?" is a classic - transformational, inspiring, and highly recommended if you are feeling stuck, lost, or trapped.  It is filled with encouraging stories of courageous people who woke up and demanded better for themselves, reminding us that we can demand better as well, and get it.

 

From Po Bronson: Afterthoughts to the Book: What Should I Do With My Life?

www.pobronson.com

Excerpt:

If there is a message to the book, I hope it's the message that's never stated but present in every single chapter. So often, people feel stuck. They feel trapped by inertia or by financial constraints or by a lack of experience, or the simple shortage of hours in the day. In traveling across both oceans, being welcomed into the lives of strangers, investigating so many domains I had absolutely no prior experience with, I was demonstrating that the world is a far more open book that we usually imagine it to be. The world is full of incredible, rich opportunities. If you strengthen your curiosity as you would a muscle, by exercising it regularly -- if you can empathize with the lives of others, if you are willing to see a potential friend in the face of every stranger, if you are willing to suffer some embarrassment and discomfort, and if you are patient -- you will not be stuck forever.  

 

On Courage and Risk

You can make decisions to pad your wallet. You can make decisions to maintain proper appearances. You can make decisions because they're safe or predictable. You can make decisions because it'll keep your parents off your back. You can make decisions simply to delay making harder decisions. I began this book because I was drawn, artistically, to those who've made decisions to serve none of those ends. I was interested in people who resisted those pressures and made a decision simply because it was good, or right, or true to their nature - and were willing to be challenged by the consequences. 

As I wrote in the introduction, "Nothing seemed more brave to me than facing up to one's own identity, and filtering out the chatter that tells us to be someone we're not." 

CowBird: A Small Community of Storytellers

 

“Of all our truest hopes and desires for our work is that, what we find, we ourselves never knew. It came as a shock. It came as a surprise. It was new. We could never have known what we were going to do before we did it, and in that sense, we discover too. Here is what I’ve got to say to you: there are things in your life you will see; there are stories you will hear; if you don’t write them down, if you don’t make the picture, they won’t get seen, they won’t get told.”

Emmet Gowin

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What is Cowbird?

Cowbird is a small community of storytellers, focused on a deeper, longer-lasting, more personal kind of storytelling than you’re likely to find anywhere else on the Web.

Cowbird allows you to keep a beautiful audio-visual diary of your life, and to collaborate with others in documenting the overarching “sagas” that shape our world today. Sagas are themes and events that touch millions of live and shape the human story.

Our short-term goal is to pioneer a new form of participatory journalism, grounded in the simple human stories behind major news events. Our long-term goal is to build a public library of human experience, so the knowledge and wisdom we accumulate as individuals may live on as part of the the commons, available for this and future generations to look to for guidance.

What can I use Cowbird to do?

BOOKS: Finding Your Way in a Wild New World - Reclaim Your True Nature to Create the Life You Want

 

From Martha Beck:

My new book was released December 27, 2011, giving you something to read during Mayan end of days. How convenient! Actually, I don’t think we’re all going to be riding out on chariots of fire. But I do think many people are finding the world an increasing baffling and sometimes frightening place. I also think that ancient human traditions often offer solutions to this sort of turbulence. In Finding Your Way in a Wild New World, I teach you how to become a “wayfinder,” able to surf the ever-changing tides of your life rather than feeling swept away by the tsunami of change we’re all experiencing.

Advance praise for Finding Your Way in a Wild New World:

“Martha Beck is the wisest, most generous and gifted of spiritual leaders. Her book will show you how to gently unlock your potential for deep transformation, so that you can explore uncharted territory and come home to your true, purposeful, and unafraid self. Thank you, Dr. Beck.”

Website: http://www.marthabeck.com

 

–Harriet Lerner, Ph.D., author of The Dance of Anger and Marriage Rules.

Website: http://www.marthabeck.com

 

Intel's New ULTRABOOK: Portable Magic for Writers

 

 

 

Get the Tech Chef’s Dish on Ultrabook™

Finally, technology catches up with your expectations

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ultrabook/ultrabook-tech-chef-video.html

 

Life with Ultrabook™

Digital Storytelling with Memory Miner

 

Memory of Oceania - Henri Matisse

  MemoryMiner is the award-winning Digital Storytelling application used to discover the threads connecting peoples' lives across time and place. It lets you zero in on the stories depicted in your photos by linking them to each other based on people, places and time.

Visit the site and find out more. (Video)   http://www.memoryminer.com

MemoryMiner represents the first step towards a long term goal: the creation of the world's most extensive network of first-person accounts of modern society and culture. Despite the explosion of digital media in the last 15 years, there remain millions of untold stories "trapped" in boxes of old photos, letters and the like. With this thought in mind, we hope that MemoryMiner will be widely used to bring these materials, and more importantly, the stories that can be told from them, into the networked, digital world.