I recently read a book titled ‘The War of Art’ by Steven Pressfield. It argues that the writers’ biggest enemy is Resistance, and advocates ways to identify and deal with it. Here are my notes – part 2 from the book: Now consider the amateur: the aspiring painter, the wannabe playwright. How does he pursue … Read more
In Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” the number 42 is the answer to the “Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything,” calculated by the supercomputer Deep Thought after 7.5 million years. Unfortunately, the question itself is never revealed. It is a parody on the futility of asking such questions. It is … Read more
I recently read the book ‘War of Art’ by Steven Pressfield. It is an inspiring piece of work for writers and all creatives. It argues that Resistance is the biggest enemy of a writer, and advocates ways to identify and deal with it. Here are a few notes that I took from it: Resistance is … Read more
Notes and Excerpts from ‘This is Marketing’ by Seth Godin. Our calling is to make a difference. A chance to make things better for those we seek to serve. Writing books or creation of anything else for that matter whether video courses, training, cartoons, Youtube videos, podcasts, is a commodity. You can’t claim to be … Read more
Recently I read another Seth Godin book titled “The Dip: The extraordinary benefits of knowing when to quit (and when to stick)”. Though I would not classify it in the same category as ‘The Practice’ or ‘This is Marketing’, it nevertheless is a very good book with a lot of wise one-liners that are typical … Read more
I made a bunch of notes on Writing Advice by Stephen King. I like to refer to this list from time to time. Here I reproduce it for your reference and reading pleasure. Stop watching television. Instead, read as much as possible. Prepare for more failure and criticism than you think you can deal with. … Read more
I read this much-celebrated book ‘The 4-Hour Work Week’ by Timothy Ferriss lately. Perhaps it is intended for a younger audience but for me, a writer close to fifty after twenty five years of corporate life, most of the details in the book were too much work to read. I found only the last section … Read more
A Happy New Year 2024 to Everyone! I recently watched a series on Netflix called ‘Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones’. It is a documentary on a set of zones in the world (called Blue Zones) which consist of the highest percentage of centenarians as compared to the rest of the world. The … Read more
When I first started writing, more than the actual writing, I spent a lot of time on reading about writing. Later, after reading a lot about writing, I realised that my time is best spent in the actual writing, going forward. But at that point in time, when I was new to writing, publishing and … Read more