The reception to the first edition of the Ask an Author feature, launched the fay before Valentine’s Day here on Sahar’s Blog, was much better than I had hoped for. So much so that traffic spiked, and a number of authors signed up to be part of the feature. This new feature will continue to… Read More Ask An Author: Cabin Fever Edition
Continuing with my established tradition to refer to inaccurate numbers when writing posts for this blog, I would like to share a totally made up and very vague statistic: that most people in the world are nice. At least of the people that I know and interact with regularly, most are. From the members of… Read More The Most Peaceful Anti-Trolling Movement Ever: Go Forth and Comment, Kind People!
It seemed appropriate for me to launch Sahar’s Blog latest feature so close to Valentine’s Day. After all, the new Ask An Author feature is only a reflection of my love for authors, whose works have provided me with countless hours of entertainment as well as a wellspring of inspiration. This new feature, to be… Read More Ask An Author: Valentine’s Day Launch!
My previous post about journaling inspired a number of readers to share with me some of their profound, life-changing experiences related to the habit of putting pen to paper. But some of these conversations turned from serious to light hearted—and even silly—featuring some serious journal-and-pen fangirling. Most striking was how, across all these email threads,… Read More Journals and Pens, Oh My! Some Favourites
The scope of the community building process is so large that there is a space for everyone to contribute their talents, whatever this talent might be. One can imagine my relief to know that my love for writing can be used for this same purpose. The question of course then becomes how. There is always… Read More Writing about the Normal Rather than the Abnormal: Youth Can Move the World
On the positive end of the continuum, a great community can take all its members to places they never dreamed possible. There are different definitions of a community and, as access to the internet is increasing to more and more people around the world, more of our brethren have the ability to go online and,… Read More And so, it Begins: Some thoughts on NaNoWriMo
The quest to become a better writer is one that inspires many a conversation with authors one admires. A reviewer has the opportunity to meet many authors with whom one can have inspiring conversations. These conversations are increasingly feeding into the posts on this blog, so I thought it would be timely to start a… Read More Author Spotlight: Carina Axelsson
While I strongly believe and have been participating in “IRL” community building efforts, I am still relatively new to online community building efforts. I tried out NaNoWriMo in 2008, but other than meeting a few people and writing quite a lot, I didn’t really get into the NaNoWriMo community. When the show was live, I… Read More Learning to Use Online Communities Efficiently: My First Bloggiesta Blogging Experience
One can choose to read a book of conversations about writing for many reasons. It can help a reader delve into the minds of those who create the literary food they live on; it can help a writer glean useful insights. As both an avid reader and long-time writer, I picked up this title for… Read More Book Review: Writing Talk: Conversations with Top Writers of the Last Fifty Years, by Alex Hamilton
As some of you have gently reminded me over the last few weeks, I have not posted anything here since 20 November 2013. That’s a 24 week absence, a portion of which has been spent reflecting on writing in the context of the advancement of the individual and the community. As long time readers of… Read More Does Writing Fiction Contribute to Personal and Community Development? (I hope so…)