Tag Archives: Lists

Top 10 Reasons Why Blogging Is Easier Today

NotQuiteHieroglyphics

I was recently thinking to myself how fortunate we bloggers are today. At what other point in history did we ever have it this easy when it came to sharing our creative thoughts, feelings and ideas?

Technology has made it so easy to write and to share our works with a huge audience, with just the click of a few keys. Of course, there is a whole technological backbone behind the scenes to make that happen, but the mere fact that writers can access that backbone with just a computer and a connection is a marvel in itself.

So if you take away the computer, the connection and the technological backbone behind it, blogging as we know it today would have been next to impossible.

Here are my top 10 reasons why:

10-Sending blogs in Morse code would have taken way too long

9- Attracting a worldwide audience would have meant sending blog posts out by ship

8- The lengthy translation to Latin would have made it difficult to carpe diem

7- What would a “search engine” have been like before the industrial revolution?

6- Constantly carrying parchment scrolls and inkwells to jot down random ideas would get pretty messy

5- Editing meant rewriting from the very beginning, again and again and again

4- Getting birds to tweet blogs would have required considerable patience and training

III- Top X lists would have been in roman numerals

2- After 134 blog posts, I would have run out of surfaces for hieroglyphics

1- Stone tablets were way too heavy

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Have a great day,
André

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25 Ways to Jinx Things

On a recent drive to work, I marvelled at how traffic seemed unusually better. It was mid-week, there should have been more traffic, there was a light snow falling, the roads were a little greasy, there could have been accidents, but I was making it to work in record time. I was one exit away from my destination when I dared to say out loud “Wow, I made it in good time!”

BIG MISTAKE!… HUGE!

As soon as I turned the corner after that big overpass, there were line-ups galore. There was indeed an accident ahead, backing up traffic in all lanes. You would think I would have known better.

It just seems that I have a talent for making joyful upbeat comments like that and then for something to come along and prove me wrong… within seconds.

I think it’s a talent, my partner thinks otherwise. Funny enough, he knows exactly when I am about to say one of those, as I don’t even have to open my mouth and he will interject with a smile, “Don’t say it!”, pre-empting my overly positive observation. But he is absolutely right.

Similarly, have you ever noticed how a fresh litter box will usually get a cat’s bladder or bowels (or both) moving within minutes? Or how a clean kitchen floor becomes an instant food magnet? These are the types of situations I am referring to.

I am not suggesting that the litter box or kitchen should not be cleaned. Quite the contrary, keep those spotless, but don’t forget to laugh when your bright and sunny achievement is suddenly obscured by big dark clouds. It is just proof that life itself comes with sense of humour too.

I hear I am not alone. Do you recognize any of these sayings which usually lead to less than ideal results?

1-“It’s late February and I still haven’t caught a cold this season”.
2-“That wasn’t so hard” (before the task has been fully completed).
3-“I haven’t had a speeding/parking ticket in x years”.
4-“I haven’t had an accident in x years.
5-“Hey, it’s been weeks since (insert name of pet) has jumped on a counter”.
6-“That has never happened to me!”
7-“We made good time (before arriving).”
8-“Oh good, the line/queue is finally moving.” Continue reading

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Top 10 Solutions for “Literary Constipation”

When I launched the blog in October 2013, I admit there was a bit of apprehension in terms of putting my works in the public domain. The apprehension did not come from the content itself, I was proud of my work and really looking forward to rolling my sleeves up and starting my work as a blogger. What concerned me was the ability to keep at it and to keep posting consistently without sacrificing quality.

How’s that for a little pressure for a new blogger?

But I was lucky in never really suffering from writer’s block in the 18 months since the launch. The more I wrote for the blog, the more I tapped into the inspiration I drew from the events around me, and in turn, the more I was trying to keep up with the flood of ideas that kept coming to me. And they still do.

However I have been experiencing a little bit of “irregularity” of words: the words are still coming, the ideas for stories keep coming and my inventory of blog posts in “first draft” is still growing. My challenge lately seems to be in taking a post and finding the right words to finish it and nail it like a gymnast dismounting from the balance beam for a “10.0”.

The passion is still there; the fire is still there; I still need to write as much as I need to eat, sleep and breathe. It is perhaps just a minor case of “literary constipation”. I just need to dig into my arsenal of solutions to keep it fresh, keep the momentum going and to keep coming back to my passion for writing with a fresh pair of eyes.

Here are my top 10 solutions for literary constipation:

10. Are you physically comfortable?
Are you hungry? Are you dehydrated? Are you too warm? Are you too cold? Is your chair comfortable? Distractions in our physical world can also create distractions in our creative world. Take a moment to take stock and adjust accordingly.

9. Switch your background music/silence
In some cases, I found that just changing my background music can help bring on a creative spurt. Sometimes, turning the music off and just writing to ambient noises (birds chirping, falling rain) or writing in complete silence can help the creative process. Switch it up. Continue reading

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Top 10 Reasons Why It’s a Good Thing the Holidays Are Over

A tastefully decorated gift box under the Christmas treeOf course, it’s that time of the year… a time for getting together with family, friends and colleagues, a time for remembering the meaning and spirit of the holidays, recalling the traditions of holidays past and making new memories to last a lifetime.

I think the magic and spirit of the holidays gets renewed every time we bring a new baby into the extended family. The new bundle of joy offers us the opportunity to revisit our traditions with a fresh pair of eyes and help us forget for a few moments the crowded shopping malls, the busy parking lots and the race to cross everything off our lists.

Regardless of what goes on throughout the rest of the year, I think it is very easy to get caught up in the romance of the holidays. If it wasn’t, why are we such suckers for Lifetime Christmas movies?

But once our off-key rendition of Auld Lang Syne is over and we have swallowed our last sip of champagne with bits of confetti, it is sadly time to get back to real life. But here are the top 10 reasons why it is a good thing the holidays are over:

10 – After several large meals over a month, appetite is finally starting to come back! Baked chicken breast and steamed veggies have been really appealing lately!

9 – My inbox can finally go on a diet too now that I am no longer receiving promotional emails from every company I have ever dealt with in my adult life. Continue reading

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My Obsession With Lists

ListsThe road of life is littered with my lists… To-do lists, shopping lists, wish lists, bucket list, lists of books I want to read, lists of songs I want to buy on iTunes, lists of topics I want to cover in my blog, lists of wine I have tried and liked (…because after a good glass of wine I can barely remember my own name, let alone the name of a winery, its country and variety). The lists can take multiple forms: electronic lists on my iPhone, scrap paper, post-it notes, index cards, napkins, special “list” pads, toilet paper, whatever is closest when the inspiration strikes.

I am often tempted to make a master list of all the lists I have but that just seems extreme… so I keep several of them in a “steno” note book.

Maybe I am a bit ambitious in my own tasking or maybe it is because I don’t have the retention powers of others, but I find that keeping lists helps me to stay organized, focused and on top of everything I need and aspire to do. In addition it can be great for multi-tasking because at a glance, one can pick out seemingly compatible or complementary tasks and can double, triple or quadruple the things accomplished in one strong effort. Continue reading

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Determined to make it to Christmas on time!

Once upon a time, not too long ago, I was punctual in every sense of the word. It didn’t matter if it was for an appointment, for assignments that were due, getting renewals done on time, paying bills and taxes… I was always, always, always on time!

The fact is that I am not the kind of person who works well under the pressure of a short deadline. I like advance notice. Frankly, the more the merrier. I like the time to organize, plan, think it through, give it time to “ferment”, execute, review and to try to make it my best work possible.

I have always been like that even as far back as high school and university and it still applies in my day-to-day work life too. Unfortunately in today’s reality, you don’t always have the luxury of time to provide your absolute best work when you have 50 other things to do before 5 pm. I never feel that the last minute stuff is my best work, but I am often told that my “good enough” is pretty good! So compromise can be good, at least I am not spending days working on something that can be “good enough” after a couple of hours’ effort.

Anyway, this applies across the board, including Christmas. You would think that with a set date every year, it should be easy for me to pull out a templated project plan, reset a few dates and voilà, I should be ready for Christmas long before the date… Unfortunately, that USED to be the case. Continue reading

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