Category: Newsletter

Beautifully unique conversations

Neera

Hi Friends,

It is taking me time to get used to writing this email on Mail Chimp. Those of you who don’t know, Mail Chimp is an email marketing service that small businesses and bloggers like myself use to write to their subscribers. I had been postponing using MailChimp dreading to learn yet another software but finally gathered enough courage and launched into it. Longer I leave it, the more I feel intimidated by technology. So bear with me if things feel a bit out of place.

Speaking of technology, did you know that podcasts are the next big thing?

First Google launched a podcast app for Android phones. It’s called Google Podcasts and you should download it if you haven’t. Next, according to The Hotsheet, and Amazon is also getting into podcasts. I also read somewhere that the next generation of cars will have podcast apps built in the dashboards. That is entertainment and learning blended in one. If you haven’t started listening to podcasts yet, it is time you start. Leaving it too long will mean living in the eighties without watching TV.

If that is not enough to shock you, here is another technology shocker. A college student used GPT-3 to write fake blog posts and ended up at the top of Hacker News. GPT-3 is a language-generating Artificial Intelligence tool that looks for patterns in data. Liam Porr was trying to demonstrate that the content produced by GPT-3 could fool people into believing it was written by a human. He told MIT Technology Review, “it was super easy, actually, which was the scary part.”

Here’s a sample from Porr’s blog post (with a pseudonymous author), titled “Feeling unproductive? Maybe you should stop overthinking.” A reader to the AI post wrote, “Reads exactly like 99% of the bullshit you find on Hacker News and Medium – well done!”

Where does it leave bloggers like us? We will have to think of ways to beat the machines.

This leads me to an interesting conversation I had with a Medium writer Cody Mcgraw whose article 15 Radical Minutes caught my eye. Cody has been spending 15 virtual minutes with people he had never met before and having “beautifully unique conversations” with them (his words). I wrote a note in his article saying I like this idea and he invited me to have a conversation with him. We hooked on Goggle Meet yesterday and in fifteen minutes I get to know a guy who was young, amazing, interesting, and a great listener. And as they say, it might be the beginning of a long friendship.

This week I submitted the synopsis of my novel to the workshop I am doing with the Australian Writers Centre. It got great reviews. I am feeling energized to get back into it. I was about to dump the damn thing but apparently, the story wants to be born. You will find me talking about it from time to time. 

I started several reports this week, which I want to develop into free resources to be made available on my website. They will keep me busy for months to come.

That is it from me this week.

I will write to you again next Friday.

Until then take care.

Regards
Neera

It’s time for a bit of a change

Neera

Dear Readers,

First of all, I want to thank you for subscribing to my blog and staying with me while I found my feet in the wide world of the internet.

For the past two years, you have been receiving two articles from me each week. Although I draw a lot of pleasure from researching and writing them, I am finding that it is restricting me from working on other projects. I have a novel, a non-fiction book, and a number of courses underway. Their time has come.

Which means I need to make time for them in my daily schedule. 

Remember my article Three Types Of Newsletter To Stay Connected With Your Readers? In that article, I described three types of newsletters writers can use to stay connected with their readers. 

  1. “Editorial” or “Feature Article” style
  2. “Link” style
  3. Blog style

So far you have been receiving an “Editorial” or a “Feature Article” style newsletter from me.

It is best suited to educate readers and impart knowledge and experience in a regular way. As I am getting more and more into the nitty-gritty of writing, publishing, and marketing, I am observing that not all my articles interest all my readers.

Also being in the teaching mode doesn’t allow me to connect to you in the real sense. There are many things each week, other than the articles, which I want to share with you.

That is why I am moving from the “Feature Article” style newsletter to the blog style newsletter. Just like the one you are reading. 

But don’t worry I will still be writing articles.

I will be writing them and publishing them regularly on my website and letting you know about them in my weekly newsletter. You will receive one email from me, each Friday, to let you know what I have written to help you with your journey and to let you know about my journey.

Because, more than anything else, we writers learn from each other.

By sharing our progress and processes we inspire and motivate each other. And also keep ourselves accountable. Writing is a solitary activity. Without my readers, and their encouragement, I will get lost in my struggles and perhaps will have nothing to show for all the effort I put into my projects.

I need you, just like you need to know what I am learning from my experiences. 

This style of communication will suit us both. 

Over time I will improve the layout of this email so that it becomes more useful and familiar.

But for the time being, let the above cartoon mark the new beginning.

Keep writing.

Regards
Neera

PS: You can let me know what you think of this format by simply replying to this email.

Cherry blossoms and change of some rules

Neera

Here are the things I find worth sharing this week.

  1. My post about a scientific, fail-proof method to study and retain complex and lengthy material was introduced by no other than Tony Buzan.
  2. A note on how unforgiving and overdisciplined we have become.
  3. I have always believed that having a linear goal at every stage of life is as important as breathing fresh air and eating healthy food. You can survive in pollution and on unhealthy meals, but the quality of life is not the same. Ann Rand was an author much ahead of her time; that might be one reason she is my favorite.
  4. Creativity can be found anywhere. Even in the dog’s pooh. I have yet to see a more colorful place than Valparaiso, where residents hire street artists to paint murals on the outer walls of their houses.
  5. November is approaching fast. In three weeks and three days, many of us are going to have sleepless nights, early mornings, and social boycotts to take part in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). An international internet-based writing initiative started in 1999 from humble beginnings where a few people got together to write a novel in a month. In 2005, it became a non-profit organization. This year over 400,000 people world-wide are expected to write 50,000 words in thirty days.

I have been participating in the initiative since 2012 and won it twice. Winning or not winning I will participate again this year to write a non-fiction book that has been lurking in the background ever-since I started this blog. You will hear about it more next month.

This week I changed some rules. First, I started posting every day (to put more pressure on me). Second, I reduced the number of things I share through the newsletter from ten to five (to reduce the pressure on my readers and myself). I thought ten new things every weekend are a bit too much for everyone. I would like to hear what you think. Drop me a line in the comments section below.

If you like this newsletter and my blog and want to support it, forward it to a friend.

How to do nothing and more…

Neera

Below are ten things I find worth sharing this week.

  1. This week I wrote about how you can be creative on demand based on William S. Burroughs’s cut-up technique. It seems the cut-up technique has been useful not only for poets and novelists but also for songwriters like David Bowie and Kurt Cobain.
  2. My Monday post talked about the Four stages of creative process proposed by Graham Wallas in his book The Art of Thought. The book was published in 1927 and is out of print, but an excerpt from it beautifully explains how the brain can be in one or all of these four stages at a time.
  3. Want to be more creative? Go for a walk. This TED talk showcases a study conducted on a number of people walking indoors or outdoors.
  4. My post on Why Cal Newport is right about productive meditation accentuates the same principle.
  5. I found a post on How to find and make time for your passion even when you’re busy where Sara Woehler of Career Contessa talks about finding what makes you tick. Her quote, “Self-actualization doesn’t come from people-pleasing, it comes from being you, which sometimes requires finding you.” is spot on.
  6. In how to do nothing Jenny Odell, a writer and artist makes the case for doing nothing.

Decades before the advent of social media as we know it, Gilles Deleuze observed it was “a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare, and ever rarer, thing that might be worth saying.” Nothing has become more precious, in today’s economy of attention, than nothing. In this talk, Jenny covers various instances of nothing from art history and contemporary projects, arguing that the cultivation of nothing has new salience in the age of everything.

  1. From 30 Readers a Day to Profitable in Less Than 2 Years About two years ago, after a career in Air Traffic Control and dealing with health issues, Michele Robson started a blog about luxury travel on a budget called Turning Left for Less. Her blog started out slowly but has now reached a point where she earns a liveable income. In this week’s podcast, Michele shares 2 breakthroughs that helped her do it.
  2. Looking for quick meals, I found Ten Quick and Nourishing Meals to Make on a Sick Day. Recipes not only look good but also taste good.
  3. The book I am reading is Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk, the guy who revolutionized his family business wine shop into the internet phenomenon. He was one of the early ones to harness the power of online marketing. His book is outdated, watch his YouTube video instead.
  4. And last but not least is 15 Time Management Lessons I learned in the First Year of Blogging, the post every new blogger needs to read.