Category: Status

Elisabeth and Merianna talk about when your writing is ready to reveal to someone else. They talk about the danger of releasing it too soon when you haven’t had enough time to mold it and shape it. They also discuss that if you put your writing out there too soon, then it’s going to impact the writing itself.

Show Notes:

• Cirque Du Soleil
• Star Wars Force Awakens
• Jaws
• Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft
• 3 Pillars of Reading

What are Elisabeth and Merianna reading?

The post Thinking Out Loud 94: There Are Sharks in This Water appeared first on Thinking.FM.

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This week, Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson examine the When / Where / Why of the Nativity and discuss historical accuracies of the stories as we’ve interpreted them in our present culture.

Show Notes:

• 6 Misconceptions about the Nativity | The Blaze
• Crossan on the Nativity | BeliefNet
• The Nativity Story | IMDB
• Life of Brian Wise Men Scene
• Jupiter and Venus Converged to Create the Star of Bethlehem in June | CBS News

Thinking Religion is 22 minutes long.

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The post Thinking Religion 60: The When, Where, and Why of the Nativity appeared first on Thinking.FM.

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Elisabeth and Merianna are reunited and it feels so good! They discuss finding reason, meaning, and purpose in writing in decisions we make as writers. They also discuss creating purposeful pauses rather than head-scratching confusion. They also ask how can I revise to achieve the effect I want in the reader?

• My Reviews Are Disappearing
• Amazon Reviews
• Chuck Wendig 1 Star Review of New Star Wars Book
• Aftermath
• Jane The Virgin
• Top Chef

What are Elisabeth and Merianna reading?

The post Thinking Out Loud 93: Working Out the Wrinkles as Writers appeared first on Thinking.FM.

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Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson discuss domestic terrorists and the Carolinas, the myths of American Progressivism, creation stories, Trump’s views of citizenship, hate licenses, and the soft cultural underbelly of fear.

Show Notes:

• Why Franklin Graham says Donald Trump is right about stopping Muslim immigration | The Washington Post
• Jerry Falwell Jr. is the worst thing to happen to god in a while | Huffington Post
• Ted Cruz’s Plan for Toppling Donald Trump in South Carolina? Divine Intervention | National Journal
• The GOP Establishment May Need Religious Voters To Stop Donald Trump | FiveThirtyEight
• The Terrorists Among Us | Salon
• Trump Joins the War on Christmas | Daily Beast
• You’re worried about Trump? In 100 years, robots might be running for president | Washington Post

Thinking Religion is 22 minutes long.

Sign up for the Thinking Religion newsletter … delivered weekly and full of interesting tidbits, ideas, links, and thought provoking analysis that complements the show.

The post Thinking Religion 59: Trump and Symptoms of a Deeper Problem appeared first on Thinking.FM.

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Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson discuss the issues involved with marketing and personal branding in an academic environment, whether academics and graduate students should blog, the demise of peer reviewed journals and scholarship, and whether or not MOOCs were ever a good idea.

Show Notes:

• My Female Students Don’t Seem As Impressed With Me As They Used To | The Toast

Thinking Religion is 50 minutes long this week.

The post Thinking Religion 58: Personal Branding and The Academy appeared first on Thinking.FM.

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Thinking of how great it would be to add a member to your family?

Looking to have a baby soon?

Pregnant?

Buy one of these…

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite or Voyage.

Trust me.

Your friend… Sam, the newborn dad at 3am on a Wednesday morning.

Elisabeth is joined by author Stacy N. Sergent this week (Merianna is out for family leave) to talk about great pups, NaNoWriMo, writing as a lonesome experience and also a communal experience, the role of editing, and the psychological flow of being a writer.

• Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson
• How to be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis
• Devil in the Details by Jennifer Traig
• Sleeping with Cats by Marge Piercy
• The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer
• stacynsergent.com
• Stacy on Twitter
• Harrelson Press

The post Thinking Out Loud 92: Let’s Talk About Self-Editing appeared first on Thinking.FM.

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We like to think pictures that we take (of ourselves and other things) digitally are eternal and won’t disappear into the digital abyss. 

However, is that true it will our JPGs and PNGs (not to mention associated metadata) slip into the digital dark age canyon we’re construction for our ancestors?

“If only they had used more permanent materials” our archaeologists lament about the past. I imagine that will be a similar lament in the future. 

Elisabeth is joined by UNC’s own Molly McConnell this week (Merianna is on maternity leave). They dive deep into the nature of reading, writing, and spicy beverages.

• Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic
• A Tale for The Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
• Ravens in Winter by Bernd Heinrich
• The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
• The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
• The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
• Michael Crichton
• The Handmaids Tale and Stone Mattresses by Margaret Atwood
• Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed
• Blenheim #9 Diet Ginger Ale Review
• Ale-8-One
• Homemade Root Beer

The post Thinking Out Loud 91: Homemade Root Beer appeared first on Thinking.FM.

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Elisabeth and Merianna talk about the importance of including and invoking emotions in readers. They discuss what they have to overcome as writers in order to cause suffering for their characters and create whole, full characters. Of course, they also talk about dogs, leaf blowers, and Baby Harrelson imminent arrival (who arrived on November 12, 2015 after this show was recorded!).

• Creating Emotion in the Reader
• Writing Beyond Good
• Why is Emotion Important in Writing
• Scrivener
• NanoWrimo

What are Elisabeth and Merianna reading?

The post Thinking Out Loud 90: Creating the Feels appeared first on Thinking.FM.

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Facebook’s Notify is live and ready for your iOS consumption. 

Apps are moving quickly to be “invisible” and only interact with us in the notification space that is agnostic of the former modes of app badges and alerts. 

If you think this is just a ploy to flood your phone with news you might be semi-interested in throughout the day, you’re wrong.

Notifications are the next interface of computing. 

Elisabeth and Merianna talk about the power of collaboration, especially during NanoWrimo. They talk about how much confidence is instilled when you connect into a network of people. They also discuss how women writers have been made more of an appearance in the publishing world and why that is.

• Elizabeth Gilbert on The Late Show
• NanoWrimo
• Scrivener
• Write or Die
• Where the Boys Are Not
• Self-Publishing Lets Women Break the Glass Ceiling
• CMA Stars Read Mean Tweets

What are Elisabeth and Merianna reading?

The post Thinking Out Loud 89: Camaraderie Over Word Counts appeared first on Thinking.FM.

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Thomas and Sam discuss the role of N.C. State as an upsetter along with the role of religion in presidential politics with talk about private and public hermeneutics of the 2016 candidates (and the weather in Tallahassee).

Show Notes:

• Why Can’t Christians Join the Revolution? | Al Mohler
• Fear and Voting on the Christian Right | CNN
• Ben Carson: I’m not saying it’s aliens | Raw Story
• Archaeologists To Ben Carson: Ancient Egyptians Wrote Down Why The Pyramids Were Built | Forbes
• Pope and the Catacombs Pact | Washington Post

The post Thinking Religion 57: We Can’t Stop and We Won’t Stop appeared first on Thinking.FM.

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Elisabeth and Merianna follow up their conversation from last week about the importance of protecting your content. Then, they recount their experiences at recent conferences and how they are learning that they need to be tougher with the authors they work with in order to help authors put their best work into the world. They also talk about upcoming NanoWrimo and their plans to write, write, write!

Show Notes

• Wil Wheaton “You can’t pay your rent with the unique platform and reach our site provides” 
• Writer Igniter Con
• Bay Book Fest
• Writing and Ego
• Do you suffer from fragile writer’s ego?
• Nanowrimo

What are Elisabeth and Merianna reading?

The post Thinking Out Loud 88: Toughening Up appeared first on Thinking.FM.

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“If you simply manage to write in spoken language, you’ll be ahead of 95% of writers. And it’s so easy to do: just don’t let a sentence through unless it’s the way you’d say it to a friend.”

Source: Write Like You Talk by Paul Graham

Elisabeth, Merianna, and Sam talk about the commodity of content and how authors should disseminate that information. They advise authors that they shouldn’t help the rich get richer, but help build their own audience.

Show Notes

• Chuck Wendig Rebooting the Novel
• Chuck Wendig One Star Reviews Sell More Books
• Cliff Notes
• Indie Web
• POSSE
• 4 Ways Writers Sabotage Themselves on Facebook
• Cory Doctorow
• The Martian
• Andy Weir’s The Martian
• Bonnie McKenzie
• The Enormous Impact of Facebook Indexing
• My Social Book
• What Will an Author Newsletter Do For You?
• MacGuffin Plot Device
• Fight Club
• A Beautiful Mind
• NanoWrimo

What Elisabeth, Merianna, and Sam are Reading

The post Thinking Out Loud 87: Own Your Own Content appeared first on Thinking.FM.

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Elisabeth and Merianna talk about their upcoming conference and why they continue to work in the field of publishing. They also talk about what makes you an expert and when you can call yourself an expert. Elisabeth reminds them both that: “That’s what we do, make it possible for people to get published.”

Show Notes

• Waze
• Great Valley Bookfest
• 5 Things You Should Know About Beta Readers
• The Shocking Truth About the Slush Pile
• Writer Igniter Writer Con 2015 COUPON CODE: wicon2015speaker for $50 off!
• Writing Loglines That Sell
• 10,000 Hours

What Elisabeth and Merianna are Reading

The post Thinking Out Loud 86: 10,000 Hours Worth of Expertise appeared first on Thinking.FM.

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Last night at a meeting in Lexington, I had a glass of ice water for first time in two weeks. 

We don’t have drinking water available in our home or at the office here in Columbia. We still do have a house with all of our belongings and memories, though. We also have bottled water.

I can’t express how much I now prefer a glass of iced water to a bottle of water. 

Show Notes

• Great Dane Doesn’t Want to Get Up
• Great Dane Doesn’t Want to Share Love
• Collie’s Talking
• Collie Singing to Puppy
• Survival and Adventure Stories
• Stormy Weather
• The Wild Shore: Three Californias (Wild Shore Triptych)
• The Year of the Flood
• Oryx and Crake

What Elisabeth and Merianna are Reading

The post Thinking Out Loud 85: Alternate Universes vs. Altered Universes appeared first on Thinking.FM.

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Elisabeth and Merianna talk about building audience and expanding your market as a solopreneur. They talk about the stresses and joys of owning your business. They also talk about the progress in their own writing projects.

Show Notes

• 5 Rules of Solopreneur
• 9 Reasons There’s New Never Been a Better Time to Be a Solopreneurs
• Finding Your Voice as a Solopreneur 
• Elizabeth Gilbert on Big Magic
• The Mountain Goats’ Lead Man Writes About Pain

What Elisabeth and Merianna are Reading

The post Thinking Out Loud 84: Solopreneurs appeared first on Thinking.FM.

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Elisabeth and Merianna talk about developing the place as you write a manuscript and the dilemma of floating characters. They also discuss the stalling or need to take a break that comes after pressing send and how to overcome that and continue to write!

Show Notes

• A Bug’s Life
• Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
• What Happens After the First Draft
• Seventh Sanctum
• Smoke and Mirrors
• Trigger Warning
• American Gods

What Elisabeth and Merianna are Reading

The post Thinking Out Loud 83: Putting Characters In Their Place appeared first on Thinking.FM.

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“I am tired of apologizing!  As much as I know I should just listen to the Frozen soundtrack and just Let It Go!, there comes a time when letting it go is consent!  No more!  Mike Huckabee, if you want to claim to be a Baptist, a minister, even a Christian, please take some time to read the Bible!”

Source: I’m Tired of Saying “I’m Sorry!” | Didn’t Make the Sermon

Amen. It’s time for us to stand up and (re)claim what it means to be a baptist.

“We were never commissioned to demand that secular culture reflect biblical principles. We were commissioned to reflect biblical principles in the middle of secular culture, pointing to God’s redemptive story.”

Source: Christians Shouldn’t Be Culture’s Morality Police | RELEVANT Magazine

Good article that I wish more people of faith would read. There’s no shame in actually following Jesus and his example of communing with those who disagreed with him and who were labeled as “bad folks” in his culture.

Thanks for passing on, Merianna.

More than anything else, the strangest thing to me about Asheville is seeing the rivers run the wrong way (towards the Mississippi).