Weekend Wrap-up: finding Jesus in coffee, social media tips, and really awesome archery

How was your week? Mine was tiring, for some odd reason. Lots of sleep but still feel sleepy kind of tired. However, I finally got around to paying my library fines and actually got handed a few lucky creativity splurges. I think the splurges happened because I’ve been hanging around people who talk about writing, which motivates me to do what they’re doing. Because I’m human and humans are stupid herd animals…

So that’s my writing tip of the week, I guess: surround yourself with people who live, breathe, and talk writing.

Cool things I’d like to share this week:

1. For coffee lovers: the theology of coffee. How you can find God (or whatever deeper spiritual thing you’re looking for) through the warmth and scent of coffee. Because coffee is awesome and makes us feel awesome, of course!

By Coffeegeek at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

2. To the writers and poets of modern society, Thomas Merton on being an intellectual in a world of technology and an sort of “bystander” contemplative artist. A great introduction to the work and style of Thomas Merton by Jeremy D. Johnson of Reality Sandwich.

3. Christian Mihai on why social media isn’t just a magic marketing tool. How you have to offer people quality entertainment and information in exchange for their time. It’s all about giving! (And then you get to receive).

4. Quoth the Wordsmith on the ethics of writing promotional blog posts for others. When to do a review, when to refuse one, and how to navigate the greyish world of promotional posts.

5. Can you be pro-life and feminist? Chapter TK’s eye-opening post on how the pro-life movement, instead of shaming women for seeking abortions, can spin their approach to a pro-woman one.

6. This really cool post by The Real Zordan on “mind cameras” – writing from a cinematic perspective. Writing from your own perspective, you and the reader might imagine your protagonist in slightly different ways. But if you write from a film perspective, and both of you kind of see your protagonist from the side, you and the reader may see something slightly more similar.

By Holger.Ellgaard 14:19, 17 October 2007 (UTC) (egen bild) [GFDL or CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

7. Jess at Gideon Press asks, “Does talking about it really help?” On controversial and difficult issues used as themes in young adult literature. Is it helpful to express these heavy subjects, even when it comes from a biased, unprofessional view?

8. For those of you who watch The 100: why sexuality matters and why it doesn’t (on how the show introduced its first queer character). For those of you who don’t watch the 100, boy have you been missing a lot. Not only is it an extreme nail-biter and candyland for teen dystopian fans, it portrays a futuristic, what I would call “perfect society” where racism, homophobia, and sexism (especially sexism) don’t exist because everyone’s too damn busy trying to survive. It’s a good feminism case study…and I’ll write a bigger post about this show’s phenomenon later.

9. And this amazing archer who uses ancient archery techniques that have long been forgotten. Because archery is cool.