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Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Rabbit Hole or Brain Candy?

All right, Wavers, I plead guilty to leading several of you straight down the rabbit hole by introducing you to the crack that is Arts & Letters Daily. I think by now you all know how I feel about feeding your mind no matter what walk of life you are in but especially if you are a writer. Expand your mind and the rest will follow, right?!

Here's a few more sites that I trust you are trolling each day for nuggets:

Narrative
Because this literary site features an impressive array of writers and thinkers and fiction is good for the soul.

The Utne Reader
Because you may not agree with everything you read there but being in touch with other points of view in this compendium of the best of the alternative press is illuminating and provocative.

Salon
Because this is one of the smartest newsy/literary websites ever.

Slate
Because as print news publications like the New York Times, the LA Times and others struggle to be relevant, Slate is ascendant.

The Onion
Because it's the perfect antidote to the seriousness of it all.

Scriptalicious
Because the only German I know is what I learned in high school but this is funny: Gesehen: The Dark Knight. Heath Ledger spielt auf eine Weise, dass man sich fürchtet. Und zwar wirklich fürchtet. Und Christian Bale ist sexy. Yes, I would agree with the observation about Bale. The other stuff - uh, yes?

...and there are so many other great sites as well. Feed your mind, read lots of points of view, read fiction, fatten your brain up some. Just be disciplined; your writing time should be quiet, uninterrupted time - set a timer if you have to. But don't feel guilty about reading great stuff online - you need to be doing it. It's part of not only being an informed, entertained citizen, it's where you may stumble upon ideas, inspiration and motivation.

No need for guilt if you set aside the time daily and return to your writing when your web surfing time is up. While The Rouge Wave is not in the same league, by far, with any of the sites above, I hope that it is one such brain candy site for writers. I do strive to entertain. Bread and circus and all that.

Now get back to work everybody!


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3 comments:

creeboy said...

With my recent iPhone purchase I am now completely enamoured with Instapaper. I find the great links and come back to read 'em later!

http://www.instapaper.com/

Anonymous said...

Hi Julie, this is Ines from Scriptalicious, the German blog! Thanks for linking to my article on the sexiness of Christian Bale. Well, as I was overwhelmed with all those crazy twists and turns in the plot and characters of The Dark Knight when watching it for the first time, the only thing I could really say was that Bale is sexy. Now I've seen it for a second time and I can say something about the screenwriting too...
(E.g. that the use of the emotional theme is exceptional, because the question of moral is mirrored in every character; and that the subplot about the fall of Dent/Two-Face is brilliant, because we see how someone can become such a madman like The Joker)

Anyway - greetings from Vienna, Austria!

Julie Gray said...

Hi Ines - Christian Bale is VERY sexy, absolutely no argument here!
xo