 |
 |
|
This weekend I unplugged.
We packed up our car with our brand new Kelty tent, a dozen eggs, three hiking poles, a bar of organic chocolate, and headed for the hills.
Okay, we took a few more things for the road, but this was a short trip. Two days in a gorgeous redwood forest. Enough to recharge yet nowhere near enough. You can never get enough of sacred spaces, or sacred time. And yet, no matter how little you do get, it's always so rich and so fulfilling you can go for months on it.
(I need to figure out how to package that up and sell it at the farmer's market!)
There were lots of other campers and hikers in the park, which can be great if you're not into solitude or if you're worried about the potential mountain lion tracking you down. Not so great if you are into solitude and communing with nature.
Personally, I love solitude. I can't help it; I'm a writer. Silence and solitude are what fills a writer's soul; ripe grapes to ferment into a fragrant storyline. I'm also a natural daydreamer, which means I can easily tune out repetitive or background noise—including hordes of loud vacationers.
That's how you find sacred time, anywhere, anytime. Talking forces you to hone in on a string of words, a line of thought; process it; and respond with another string of words, at the very least a grunt to acknowledge the person talking to you. Not talking opens up an entire world of perception and sensation that comes at you from all directions all at once, including thoughts—but the kind of thinking you do when you're not speaking is much more expansive, much more all-encompassing and much more non linear.
Read the full blog post to see photos from the trip and find out what I saw in the forest that made part of my chocolate novel come alive in front of my eyes. And why I prefer not to write in the great outdoors.
Above all, share your own camping stories in the comments!
~ Birgitte
|
 |
Ever heard of enhanced eBooks? If you're a writer who hasn't been asleep for the past five years, you surely have. There has been considerable discussion about the pros and cons of enhanced eBooks. For some readers, interactivity enriches a storyline beyond anything print could ever do; for others, it's an unwelcome distraction from the sacred experience of reading.
My personal take on it? It depends on the book, the story, and the market. Some books can go digital native in the wink of an eye, while others are simply not meant for it no matter how hard you try to reshape them. Then there is the kind of experience you want your readers to have.
For those of you who are into interactive books, especially all you producers (er, writers), you might want to know about Beneath the Ink, a cool little company I was recently introduced to.
They just released a private beta of a tool called Pagedip. It's a cloud-based authoring tool that lets you embed extra-story content (text, pictures, video, audio, diagrams) into any word or phrase in any document. So it works for books, reports, articles, whatever. No leaving the page, they pop open right there on your screen. You can then distribute the final "product" to readers in a variety of formats.
Best of all for us data junkies, you also get access to an analytics platform that tells which elements of your text readers are actually interacting with.
Worth checking out, if you've ever considered making any of your content interactive.
|
 |
SAVE THE DATE: This Sunday, July 19, at 7am PST, is our next Tzolkin Open Source call. These are informal Q&A sessions for anyone interested in the concept of non linear time. So if you can't go camping this weekend, tune into the call and immerse yourself in a little on-demand sacred time.
You can email me for the call-in details or sign up for the Tzolkin Open Source email list.
|
 |
- Chocolate novel: Early beta reader feedback is coming in, and it's awesome. No one has recommended a change of profession for me, good sign! One young reader has even started making vocabulary lists of the words he isn't familiar with. Want to be a beta reader? Nothing could be easier: email me.
I'm also looking for chocolate recipes. Have a good one you swear by? Please send it in, you'll be acknowledged in the book!
- Educational game: Thrilled to announce we have our alpha prototype! An actual playable game. Woo hoo! Want a hint about the theme? It has to do with Mesoamerica.
Now on to the next step: funding for the full public version.
If you'd like to be part of our street team, contact us for more info!
- Other stuff: What other stuff? Well, everything else is still in the embryonic stage so way too soon to say anything. As for the other "other" stuff, that's all under NDA and other forms of confidentiality. Until it's not.
|
|
Connect with me:
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
|
|
You are receiving this message because you have signed up for my mailing list, registered with a user account on my author's web site, sent me flowers or dark chocolate, survived a live television program with me, or otherwise communicated with me and/or shown interest in my work or the official Birgitte Rasine author web site, or because you are someone I know personally. If you have any questions, please contact LUCITÀ via email at info@lucita.net or by telephone at +1 408.542.9942.
Copyright © 2015 LUCITÀ Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.
|
