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| U. Quetzalpugtl and W. Quetzalpugalotl consider a possible yummy. |
(2016)
(2015)
(2014)
(2013)
(2011)
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
Showing posts with label writing assistants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing assistants. Show all posts
Monday, July 17, 2017
Yummy Posts from Julys of Yore
Monday, November 14, 2016
The Mexican Revolution at the Center for Big Bend Studies Annual Conference at Sul Ross State University
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| [[ WASHI & ULI, stop those suitcases! ]] |
I have been visiting Alpine, Texas for the annual Center for Big Bend Studies conference to talk about Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual. Check out the conference, which is rich with archaeology and history and more on the Big Bend but also the wider region of West Texas and encompassing parts of the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Coahuila, here.
UPDATE November 2017: The PDF of my paper, "The Secret Book by Francisco I. Madero, Leader of the 1910 Mexican Revolution," which is an expanded transcript of my talk about my book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual, can be downloaded here. See also a brief video about four exceedingly rare books. In November 2017 I will be presenting "John Bigelow, Jr.: Officer with the Tenth Cavalry, Military Intellectual, and Nexus Between West and East." The link for that paper will be posted soon.
The keynote speaker was my amiga, M.M. McAllen, author of the extraordinary narrative history Maximilian and Carlota: Europe's Last Empire in Mexico. (Listen to our extra-bacon-on-top-crunchy conversation about the whole enchilada of Mexico's Second Empire / French Intervention for my "Conversations with Other Writers" occasional podcast series here.)
Funny, my Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution has zip to do with the Big Bend of Far West Texas. But the Mexican Revolution is a topic of perennial interest in this region; many battles and other incidents of the Mexican Revolution took place along the border in the Big Bend region, especially in the years after President Francisco I. Madero's assassination in 1913.
UPDATE: Biographers International January 2017 Newsletter Q & A with Yours Truly about Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual. Read it here.
Moreover, it so happens that I am at work on a book about Far West Texas. It won't be a book of straight history, however, but an interweaving of personal narrative, history and reporting, and maybe the kitchen sink, too, in the style of my book about Mexico's Baja California peninsula, Miraculous Air.
Herewith a batch of posts on this blog about the Big Bend:
Plus you will find 20 of a projected 24 "Marfa Mondays" podcasts, mainly interviews, posted to date, including Charles Angell in the Big Bend; Lisa Fernandes at the Pecos Rodeo; Mary Baxter on Painting the Big Bend; Avram Dumitrescu, and Artist in Alpine; and Cowboy Songs by Cowboys and an Interview with Michael Stevens. >>> Listen in anytime.
More anon.
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
Friday, October 23, 2015
My Writing Assistants Model the Process or, The Orphic Bushes
More about process:
A Conversation with novelist Edward Swift
Recommended Reading on Creative Process
Giant Golden Buddha for October
My newsletter, which is free and every other month-ish, is about to go out. I welcome you to sign up here.
Your comments are always welcome.
Sunday, January 04, 2015
Six Momentous Digital Developments, 5 Ways I (Attempt to) Cope... and "The Money Tree"
As a writer, six of the most momentous things that have happened for me in recent years are all digital:
But then the digital tsunami crashed upon us all, and like most writers (and most readers), after adding Facebook and Twitter and Skype and etc etc to the churning morass of email, I struggle to keep my nose above the waterline.
I also despair in how often I share a lunch or dinner table with individuals who dodge out of the conversation to take calls, scroll through their email, text, show photos of their latest vacation trophy photos and/or urgently google whatever term / name / place that pops into their head. I don't have kids but if I did, at dinnertime, I would oblige them to deposit their thingies in a basket outside the door. Else crack ye olde buggy whip over their heads, I guess. Many adults, alas, set an atrocious example. Politicians are the worst (yes, I know some). Don't get me started.
Five ways I cope (which may not work for everyone, but they do for me, so maybe also for some of you):
I cannot say I have arrived at Total Zen in the Digital Department, but at least I've managed to conserve enough old-fashioned awareness that I am confident I would have noticed the Money Tree! Watch this short video by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, which is sort of sadly hilarious.
Bottom line: Digital tools are like chainsaws, rip-roaring powerful, but dangerous-- the amputation just might be a limb of your own life.
Glad to have digital tools. But sometimes I am massively relieved not have them. What will the next years bring? I dread-thrill to wonder.
Your COMMENTS are always welcome.
(1) Websites (with my dad's help, www.cmmayo.com, launched in 1998);
(2) Blogs (ye olde Madam Mayo first appeared thanks to www.blogger.com in March 2006);
(3) Podcasts (I started making podcasts in 2009, using GarageBand to edit the audio files and podomatic.com as my hosting platform which, total yeehaw, sends feed to iTunes);
(4) YouTube and Apple's iMovie software (check out my videos here and a book trailer);
(5) Ebooks (my ebooks are all listed here and a blog post about how I made some of them is here).
(6) Print-on-demand publishing (FAQs answered here).
But then the digital tsunami crashed upon us all, and like most writers (and most readers), after adding Facebook and Twitter and Skype and etc etc to the churning morass of email, I struggle to keep my nose above the waterline.
I also despair in how often I share a lunch or dinner table with individuals who dodge out of the conversation to take calls, scroll through their email, text, show photos of their latest vacation trophy photos and/or urgently google whatever term / name / place that pops into their head. I don't have kids but if I did, at dinnertime, I would oblige them to deposit their thingies in a basket outside the door. Else crack ye olde buggy whip over their heads, I guess. Many adults, alas, set an atrocious example. Politicians are the worst (yes, I know some). Don't get me started.
Five ways I cope (which may not work for everyone, but they do for me, so maybe also for some of you):
(1) I don't use a cell phone except when traveling (I tell everyone who asks for my cell #, twist my arm and I'll give you the number but I never check my voice mail, so it's much better send me an email-- that I answer).
(2) I do not text (really, I don't).
(3) For organizing my schedule, shopping lists and tasks, I use a Filofax personal organizer and the GTD system. I wrote a piece about the Filofax for Kevin Kelley's Cool Tools blog a while ago, arguing that, though it's a paper-based system, it can be a powerful tool to not only organize one's life but also to help loosen the digital leash. Seems that carefully made point about loosening the digital leash just sailed, weeee, over most commenters' heads. Oh well!
(4) I rely on my writing assistants to distract me from anything digital (watch them in action in this 14 second video).
(5) For lunch, coffee breaks, dinners when alone or with others who may feel compelled to take phone calls and/or thumb-twiddle under the tablecloth, I keep a paperback handy. Right now it's The Indians of Texas by W.W. Newcomb, Jr. I'm up to page 103, "The Lipan Apaches: Conquerors Dispossessed."
I cannot say I have arrived at Total Zen in the Digital Department, but at least I've managed to conserve enough old-fashioned awareness that I am confident I would have noticed the Money Tree! Watch this short video by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, which is sort of sadly hilarious.
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| Screenshot (partial) from Amy Krouse Rosenthal's "The Money Tree" |
Bottom line: Digital tools are like chainsaws, rip-roaring powerful, but dangerous-- the amputation just might be a limb of your own life.
Glad to have digital tools. But sometimes I am massively relieved not have them. What will the next years bring? I dread-thrill to wonder.
Your COMMENTS are always welcome.
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