Robin Brande, Author, Dog Lover, Coffee and Chocolate Addict. Living an Interesting Life.

Fiction author Robin Brande talks about writing, reading, and other vital matters

For writers, readers, and independent thinkers–book talk for readers and writers, life chats when we need them, writers’ motivational articles, secret behind-the-scenes stories from the publishing trenches, and more.

Writers: Time to expose the myths of rejection

May 5th, 2010

Love this recent post by Dean Wesley Smith, part of his Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing series. If you’re interested in the business side of your writing career (which I hope each and every one of us IS interested in), it’s worth your time to read through all of the posts in this [...]

48 Hour Film Project!

April 30th, 2010

Tonight begins another 48 Hour Film Project! I’ll be working with Bill Coughlan of Tohubohu Productions again. (You may know Mr. Coughlan’s esteemed wife, Pam, a.k.a. Mother Reader.)
So here’s how it goes: Bill will show up at the official launch site tonight, and reach into a series of bins to [...]

How failure can often lead to our biggest successes

April 29th, 2010

I love this talk by Steve Jobs. Maybe you’ve seen it before. If you have, go ahead and watch it again–it will re-inspire you. If you haven’t seen it yet, take the 15 minutes to be amazed at the failures that have led to Steve Jobs’s greatest successes.
It’s an excellent reminder that [...]

For those of us who like to geek out on recycling, green living, etc.

April 28th, 2010

I’ve already sent this video to four people in the past 24 hours, so I guess it’s time to share it with the rest of you.
Here’s robotic surgery scientist Catherine Mohr talking about her own efforts to be as green as possible. Funny, informative, and as always with all these TED conference talks, very [...]

Does money motivate or distract people?

April 27th, 2010

Here are two fascinating talks from the TED series about the strategies and manipulations that lead people to perform at their best, and that surprisingly cause them to fail.
I’m willing to bet that all of you, like me, assume that offering cash incentives helps people “win” at a task. And also that the known [...]

How gaming can change and even save our world

April 26th, 2010

Here’s your next lecture from the fabulous TED series. You’ve gotta love Jane McGonigal’s energy and her very creative message.
Really think about this one! I know I am.

Technorati Tags: Gaming, How Gaming Can Save the World, Jane McGonigal, TED conference, TED speakers, TED talks

The creative value of taking (a lot of) time off

April 25th, 2010

As part of the research for my next novel, I’ve been watching lots and lots of videos of talks given by scientists, inventors, technology experts, and other creative people.
My favorite sources for those lectures are TED.com and poptech.org.
I’m going to start linking to some of my favorite talks, because they’re just [...]

Writers: Why we all need to practice (and why that makes it more fun)

April 10th, 2010

LOVE this recent post by Dean Wesley Smith. Especially love the part about picking some new skill to focus on with each new story or novel we write. I try to do that myself with each new novel, and I can attest that it really does make the process so much more [...]

How To Get Your [Blank] Together

March 24th, 2010

I can always use a talk like this. The speaker, David Allen, gave this speech to some employees at Google. Lots of very useful and thought-provoking material in here. Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Organizing Your Brain and Life

Writers: Is fear holding you back?

March 21st, 2010

Every now and then I pull up this blog post by my teacher Dean Wesley Smith to check in and see which particular fear might be affecting my writing in any particular week. Why did I pull it up today? Because I’ve just added two new chapters to a manuscript I thought was [...]

« PreviousNext »


Bad Behavior has blocked 354 access attempts in the last 7 days.