Author: David Schwarm
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The Squint
Painters seeking the proper light and dark tones in their works sometimes employ a powerful, affordable tool that is built right into the human skull. It’s called The Squint, and it requires you to stand aback from the work in progress and, well, squint. Why all the blurring? Because doing so lets you see if…
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Take Responsibility
1. Take responsibility2. Be on time3. Do not judge4. Know that you are loved5. Be sure that I am honest
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Keep the Faith
Novelist Amy Bender surrounds her writing desk with a dozen synonyms for the word “faith.” Why? It helps remind her that, however confusing her story may seem at the moment, its point will become clear if she just keeps writing. And it always does.As you enter your fourteenth day of writing, make and post a…
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A Lesson From The Deep
Recent studies of marine mammals have revealed the perplexing fact that baby killer whales don’t sleep at all during their first month on Earth. The explanation concocted by scientists is that the whales are at risk of freezing to death in the inhospitable waters until they acquire the blubber that insulates them. As you head…
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Onward
One of the most famous mountain climbers of the last twenty-five years is Joe Simpson, known not for the number of peaks he’s scaled, but for the nightmarish climb gone awry in 1985. As captured in his book (and later the movie)Touching the Void, Simpson shattered his leg on a snowy, storym descent, and fell…
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Bathe Your Imagination
Among the weird places where writers find inspiration, the shower is one of the more common. “Your body is totally relaxed and your mind is totally relaxed,” says Ray Bradbury of his trips to the steamy plot chamber, “then the little explosions, the little revelations come.” Spend some time today investigation those places and situations…
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Complain, Curse, Crumple
A friend of mine, who is an EMT, says that people at restaurants choke more often than you’d imagine. According to him, the real danger isn’t choking, it’s the bathroom. Because the moment people get a chicken wing lodged in their throats, the do a curious thing: They use the last of their oxygen to…
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27. Humilty
Mighty Tao is all-pervading.It is simultaneously on this sideand on that.All living things come from it,and all are in its care.It works, it finishes,and knows not the name of merit.In love it nurture all things,and claims no excellence therein.It knows neither ambition nor desire.It can be classed with the humblest of things,for all things finally…
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Skeletons in the Closet
So many of the things we take as a given in everyday life were actually the result of a bitter struggle between two opposing forces. Take, for example, the custom of saying “Hello?” when answering the phone. It seems like a natural extension of a face-to-face conversation, right? I telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell had…
David Given Schwarm 