Author reflections
Down From the Mountains
JF Danskin’s weekly update, #3
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Hi! And welcome to another personal update and summary of my writing from the week. You can see last week’s story here.
Personal update
I’ve been at a conference in mainland Europe (thanks to considerable patience and support on the part of my family!). Most recently I moved by train from the fringes of the Alps in Austria to the ‘low countries’ of Netherlands and northern Germany.
As I jumped from one mode of transport to another (3 flights, several types of train/tram/bus, etc), as well as packing in conference talks, I reflected on this quote by Henry David Thoreau, which I came across in a story by Gregory Russell Benedikt:
“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.”
As writers and ‘authorpreneurs’, I think we can over-schedule ourselves, and try to get involved in a few too many things. I certainly do, and I see it in other writers on Medium, too.
Perhaps, though, like Thoreau says, success is more something that happens rather than something that is forced or planned.
I know that I need to cut down on a few of my activities (and I plan to!), but it’s hard to know at the start what’s going to take off — and what you will enjoy — until you try it.
This week’s stories
On to my weekly stories, and the first one is suitably travel themed — my list of writing prompts. This has become something I do every week, and I’ve been very happy with the feedback! I’ve also found it hugely helpful to have a theme for the prompts each week (not least to avoid boring titles like ‘another list of prompts’ 😆):
Next up was my regular weekly list of reading recommendations. This one was all about writing techniques, and there are some brilliant articles in the list:
