Motivation – Page 4 – Bjorn Munson

Writing Therapy from a Writer Turned Therapist

By Bjorn Munson | May 27, 2019May 27, 2019 by Bjorn Munson

Look over a score of “tortured artist” memes and you won’t have trouble seeing ones with writers. Writers are often portrayed as full of angst, indecision, indecision because of angst, angst because of indecision. Basically, the archetypical writer is in need of a good therapist. And what better therapist than a writer who’s become a therapist? That’s what screenwriter Dennis Palumbo decided to do… and he recently talked with screenwriter Ken Levine all about it.…

Writing

Get to Writing, the Asimov Way

By Bjorn Munson | March 27, 2019March 26, 2019 by Bjorn Munson

Lest Monday’s post seem insufficiently motivational, I figured I’d pass along this article by Charles Chu about how Isaac Asimov managed to be such a prolific writer. In case you’re not aware, Isaac Asimov wrote hundreds of books… and not just in science fiction, for which he’s perhaps best remembered. In fact, his books cover most of the categories covered by Dewey Decimal Classification. Not only that, he seemed to love to write. He wrote…

Various and Sundry

Motivation and the Midlife Crisis

By Bjorn Munson | March 25, 2019March 25, 2019 by Bjorn Munson

This is for all the Gen Xers out there, irretrievably in their 40s and 50s, facing Monday with Garfield-level malaise. Here’s an article by Jonathan Rauch in The Atlantic which I missed when it first came out in 2014, but seems to have hit me at just the right moment… and it might be just the right moment for you all as well. In feature story fashion, it goes into the anecdote of 40-somethings seemingly…

Various and Sundry

“Our desks were never meant to be our altars.” Work as faith in the 21st Century

By Bjorn Munson | March 6, 2019March 5, 2019 by Bjorn Munson

Coming off my post on Monday about having hobbies as hobbies and nothing more, I stumbled across an article by Derek Thompson in The Atlantic about the reverence that work and “busyness” has in modern American culture. America has long had a paradoxical status as a Calvinistic Babylon, to reference historian Michael Kammen. To follow along that allegorical thought, if all hobbies ought to be hustles, leisure time itself is suspect. Being unproductive is almost…

Various and Sundry

Get Creative… Off the Clock

By Bjorn Munson | March 4, 2019October 1, 2020 by Bjorn Munson

I had the opportunity over Presidents’ Day weekend (aka Washington’s Birthday weekend for OPM sticklers) to do something I can’t remember doing in a long time, if ever: painting miniatures. Many of my gamer friends have various Warhammer and related armies and I know my efforts are not remotely in their league. They paint minis regularly. In fact, for several, it’s a bona fide hobby. One preditor friend (that’s producer-editor for the uninitiated) has taken…

Various and Sundry Writing

This Year, Resolve to Make Art

By Bjorn Munson | January 7, 2019October 1, 2020 by Bjorn Munson

I thought I had already posted this article by Sean Kane from 2016, but evidently I hadn’t. So go ahead and read up on seven darn good scientifically-backed reasons why you should make art even if you’re not “any good” at it. A perfect example of simply making art is Inktober, an annual event to do an ink drawing every day during October. I did this with my son –and moms and dads reading this,…

Acting

Ann Dowd and Acting Success Later in Life

By Bjorn Munson | November 19, 2018November 18, 2018 by Bjorn Munson

For whatever reason, back when I was in school busy with acting training, many instructors felt the need to let me know that I’m not a “leading man” type of actor. My guess is they dealt with many acting students who would feel that was beneath them or represented failure. Little did they know that, having grown up with my Dad giving us Turner Classic Movies before TCM existed, I already enjoyed the work of…

Various and Sundry

The Many Years Needed for Overnight Success

By Bjorn Munson | November 5, 2018November 4, 2018 by Bjorn Munson

Two of the podcasts I regularly listen to, Scriptnotes and Maltin on Movies, both note how a given actor or other creative artist regularly takes 10-20 years to become an “overnight success.” They note this, in part, because the whole idea of the precocious talent, the creative who does genius work just out of the womb, seems so engrained in our culture, you kind want to stop and say, “Wait? Is that really normal?” Nope.…

Writing

Self-Publishing in Five Steps

By Bjorn Munson | October 22, 2018October 22, 2018 by Bjorn Munson

It’s been a little while since a “Motivation Monday” post, so let’s just dive right in with UK author Mark Dawson’s piece on how to approach self-publishing, amply referencing his own experience from traditional publishing to now. It’s recent (from August of this year) and I appreciate how it’s not paint-by-numbers. The five steps aren’t particularly easy, in part because none of them can ever be fully completed (perhaps “five processes” might more sense to…

Acting Writing

And Now For Something Completely… Enjoyable

By Bjorn Munson | October 8, 2018October 7, 2018 by Bjorn Munson

As much about writing as it is about acting, here’s a 20-minute video for GQ with Monty Python’s Eric Idle explaining many of his acting roles over the past 50-odd years. Speaking for myself, this makes me want to go out and create something.

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Tag: Motivation

Writing Therapy from a Writer Turned Therapist

Get to Writing, the Asimov Way

Motivation and the Midlife Crisis

“Our desks were never meant to be our altars.” Work as faith in the 21st Century

Get Creative… Off the Clock

This Year, Resolve to Make Art

Ann Dowd and Acting Success Later in Life

The Many Years Needed for Overnight Success

Self-Publishing in Five Steps

And Now For Something Completely… Enjoyable