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Things, Lately

07.05.2015 by Nicola Balkind // Leave a Comment

clovis

I’m currently in California, it’s the 4th of July, and I’ve been trying to break through a blogging block.

So here are some things I’ve been thinking about, lately…
 
 

Snapchat

Snapchat @robotnicola
Sometimes you need to be around something physically to get it. I’ve been on Snapchat for ages, and until recently it was all silly selfies from close friends, but we’d all tired of it.

Now that there are Stories there’s much more to see. Now that I’m in California, my in-laws using it has prompted me to give it a go. Follow me @robotnicola or do the snappy thing with the image above.
 
 

750words.com / Free-writing

750words
I totally thought this site had shut down like 5 years ago??? But apparently it didn’t. I used it for awhile, I’d wager around 2008/9 – though I can’t be certain. It’s a place for freewriting 750 words on a daily basis in a way that is, as the prompt says, Private, unfiltered, spontaneous, daily. This also brings me to…
 
 

James Greig’s Time Machine

james-greig
James spoke about writing at Small is Beautiful. It’s easy to romanticise writing – as the Emily St John Mandel piece (which I linked in Reading Week #61) attests. To write is to work. But sometimes you need a reminder and some cutesy quotes to fall back in love and back into good habits.

The idea I liked best from his talk was his opening hook about how writing is a great time-traveling device. It allows us access into the minds and thoughts of people in past times and places; and that’s what makes it special. I’m really enjoying personal writing lately, and thinking back on my own, so it’s a nice way to contextualise it all.
 
 

Stealing from Austin Kleon

Austin Kleon
This guy, author of Steal Like An Artist, also came up a couple of times in Reading Week #61, and on the Writer Files podcast recently. He does a similar wrap-up/annotated reading style of blog posts to Brain Pickings – one I’ve long wanted to crib but have felt too daunted to do so. I’d like to get on with that.
 
 

Yulin Kuang, Thinking Aloud

Meet the Artist | 2015 | Yulin Kuang | Kitten Rescue, Mary Kate Wiles
Emily Diana Ruth, whose weekly “this week, in my brain” blogs inspired this style, featured a filmmaker-YouTuber called Yulin Kuang. Emily had linked a video of Yulin’s from the point of view of a filmmaker cat in LA, and all the angst that comes along with that lifestyle. It’s adorable.

I then went to another video called Thinking Out Loud – a weekly feature and this one was about her second kiss (or kissee), in which she reconnected with the guy and read her diaries aloud to him to compare notes on their memories of the time. The time-machine idea came up here again: she said reading her diaries from when she was 17 was like one, though you can never really get back to that person.
 
 

So, yeah

This and much else I’ve cited have made me wish I’d been more of a consistent diarist over the years. I’m a start-stop diarist, and tend to write angry, so there’s not much worth savouring in my past diaries. Yet again, now, I’m starting over, trying to build the habit and avoid falling back into old tendencies like writing through rage and never in lighter moments.

What have you been into lately?

Categories // News Tags // diaries, snapchat, thoughts, writing

Tea & A Chat: On Independence & Holidays [VIDEO]

09.20.2014 by Nicola Balkind // 2 Comments

 


 
Here’s my latest video, in which I discuss the Scottish Independence Referendum, my holiday to New Jersey and Toronto, a new project and what I’ve been reading lately.
 
Enjoy!

Categories // News Tags // Currently Reading, indyref, scottish independence, update

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge: The Human Story

08.25.2014 by Nicola Balkind // 1 Comment

I Am Breathing Promo Image

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has gone from awareness-raising campaign to a social phenomenon in a matter of days.

I was nominated by my friend Rosie. I’m currently in California, where the state is facing the most severe drought on record, so I’m electing not to waste the water.

But I have an alternate challenge that I will nominate you all to engage in: learning about some of the people who have lived with, and campaigned about, ALS/MND without the aid of a bucket of ice.

These viral campaigns are great for short-term awareness raising purposes, but are you engaging in the issue for longer than a 5-second bucket-dump?

ALS (aka Lou Gehrig’s disease) is known as MND (Motor Neurone Disease) in the UK. According to Wikipedia:

It is characterised by muscle spasticity, rapidly progressive weakness due to muscle atrophy, and difficulty in speaking (dysarthria), swallowing (dysphagia), and breathing (dyspnea). ALS is the most common of the five motor neurone diseases.

 

Here are a couple of film recommendations which will teach you more about the disease.

 

Hawking

Stephen Hawking is the most famous person with MND, and has survived a remarkably and unusually long time with the disease.

The documentary about his life, Hawking (2013), is written and narrated by Hawking himself. The film also goes some way to describe and explain his journey with the disease.

 

 

I Am Breathing

Another fantastic film that explores a man’s life with the illness is I Am Breathing (2013) – a Scottish feature which follows Neil Platt, a 30 year-old father who fought with determination to raise awareness of the disease.

As the filmmakers outline on the I Am Breathing website:

The cause of the disease is unknown and there is no known cure. Around 5,000 people in the UK have MND at any one time, with half of people with the disease dying within 14 months of diagnosis. It kills five people every day in the UK.

 

Neil Platt’s widow, Louise Oswald, and the Scottish Documentary Institute team have also accepted the challenge. Click here to watch their videos and to learn more.

I have made a donation of £10 to MND Association via the I Am Breathing documentary campaign. Click here to donate.

Categories // News Tags // als, als ice bucket challenge, mnd

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