Idiosophy is a blog site “maintained by Joe Hoffman, former physicist, current modeling and simulation engineer, foil and épée fencer and coach, and vegetable gardener.” As he explains on his blog , we need never live in darkness again. The internet can provide us with information, discussions, ideas and people such as he who has a passion for physics, literature and nature. The internet has a vast array of knowledgeable and experienced people who can looks at things in compelx ways and share those ideas. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is a stalwart of motivational theory in psychology. But what if we applied it to literature? Joe Hoffman’s clarity around the concept of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs of Fictional Genres is well worth the read.His discussion is well thought out and interesting.
The BBC world book club does a lot to support reading, authors, interest in reading and knowledge of books. It regularly offers podcasts where they discuss particular books and you can email in questions to ask the author if you keep a track of which podcasts are coming up. They also have a bank of video clips where authors discuss their books. You can listen live or use the on demand services. It really is a good site to help keep reading and authorship real and authentic.
Another good site is Goodreads. You can track your reading and write reviews. It is also a site which offers insight into authors and books and encouragement to read. Right now they are holding a vote on the best books for 2017 which you might like to participate in.
Both of these sites offer a strong connection development between authors and readers and that’s how you do it in 2017.
There is some really bad text to speech out there and the upshot will be that people will abandon whatever it is using a bad voice synthesiser. You get it on news clips, how to clips, automated phone messages. It is awful. Digital voices are as unique as human voices so I am not sure why they seem to pick the most annoying and horrible ones for public consumption. There are some reasonable voices out there and they are improving all the time. Text to speech does have its uses especially in terms of accessibility , literacy and mastering a new language. The video clip gives you some ideas as to how to manage text to speech effectively and this clip on another text to speech option shows you too how effective it can be. The tip from both clips is to try the different options to get the best one for your purposes.
In many ways we have increased our capacity to write creatively because we have technology and social media sites. We have opportunities to inspire and influence because we are on Facebook and Instagram and there are still those who meet the Twitter creative tweet challenge. We have blogs and websites and even though there is a big emphasis on visuals on the internet, the opportunities to write and write well are there. We can make our own books and publish them online. We can create influential and interesting email content. We need apps! Are there apps to inspire creative writing? Yes. You may have your own favourites. Yona Yurwit in the video explains what she uses on her iPhone and why. Makeuseof has some good recommendations of creative writing apps some of which are paid and some of which have a paid premium version. More and more phones are becoming less about consumption and more about productivity and creativity.
Being read to at bedtime is no longer the privilege of a good childhood. Now anyone can be read to and there are plenty of free audio books online. YouTube is one of the places you may not have thought to look for audio books. Some sites offer reasonable free trials of free audio books and then you have to pay something like $15-20 a month for unlimited access. That might suit some people. I listen to audio books sometimes in the car and there are times when people are too sick to actually read but would welcome being read to. thebalance offers 15 sites where you can get free audio books online. It does mean you can use your phone or other mobile technology to listen to books if you are on the move and it does save carrying a book or reader around if you need to do it that way.
Idiosophy is a blog site “maintained by Joe Hoffman, former physicist, current modeling and simulation engineer, foil and épée fencer and coach, and vegetable gardener.” As he explains on his blog , we need never live in darkness again. The internet can provide us with information, discussions, ideas and people such as he who has a passion for physics, literature and nature. The internet has a vast array of knowledgeable and experienced people who can looks at things in compelx ways and share those ideas. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is a stalwart of motivational theory in psychology. But what if we applied it to literature? Joe Hoffman’s clarity around the concept of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs of Fictional Genres is well worth the read.His discussion is well thought out and interesting.
The BBC world book club does a lot to support reading, authors, interest in reading and knowledge of books. It regularly offers 
E-WOT 