Wellbeing: Write about your Personal Values

Whittaker has mentioned James Clear before - he writes in a very approachable way about behavioural psychology and habit-forming.

This week, he blogged about the psychological benefits of writing about your personal values, in a journal or elsewhere.  Read it here.

Calling writers & performers. Get your drama writing performed or take part in performing new work, in a evening of workshops!

The Arches and Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland continue their collaboration to encourage artists of all kinds to engage with the work of contemporary playwrights.  Pushing the boundaries of the theatrical experience, whilst firmly focusing on text, this performance evening sees artists of any genre taking a piece of contemporary playwriting and illuminating it within a live setting.

They are looking for as many different artists as possible who want to work with text in new and exciting ways. Pieces should be around 10-15 minutes long. They don’t have to be finished or polished – it’s more to do with a fresh, radical approach.

Check out link for further information

http://www.thearches.co.uk/jobs/crossing-the-lines-call-for-applications

How to Write About Music

New in stock:-

How to Write About Music: the RILM Manual of Style, 2nd edition

Sure to be useful to readers in the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.  RILM is the music abstract and indexing database that we subscribe to, and any publication from the RILM organisation is bound to be top quality.  We've got two copies, both for short loan.

 We are the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, here to support our performing artists and technician in all their study, research and teaching requirements.

Some Expert Hints on Academic Writing from Bronwyn Labrum, Design Historian

Matter

A Blog About Writing, by Bronwyn Brown

We recently came across another useful blog about academic writing, and organising yourself to get it done.  It is authored by Bronwyn Labrum, a historian of design, clothing and fashion, museums and everyday life, and Associate Professor of Visual and Material Culture, School of Design,  at Massey University in New Zealand.

• http://bronwynlabrum.wordpress.com/

Seeking Ideas to Improve your Workflow and/or Writing?

Motivational writer James Clear offers some suggestions for improving your writing and how you go about it.  These are so sensible, we thought we'd share them as we prepare for a new academic session here in the Whittaker Library:-

7 Improvements I Have Made to My Writing and Work

• JamesClear.com homepage

We are the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, here to support the teaching and learning of our performing artists.

Success in Research - Useful Series in Whittaker Library

We’ve got several new books in this series now.  Here are the two latest ones, about presenting your research and achieving impact in research.  And there's another about to be catalogued, on publishing journal articles. 

Find the series in our catalogue, HERE.

Useful Website for Academics: Vitae, from the Chronicle of Higher Education

 Vitae: News and Advice for Higher Education

This is an American website from the Chronicle of Higher Education. Even allowing for some Transatlantic differences, it still offers many useful articles on all aspects of academic life, from diversity and equality to pay, research, and writing.  

Visit the website HERE.

Creative Artists - Could You Write a Column for Ideas Tap?

Arts Columnist Required

Spotted on social media, this interesting writing/journalistic opportunity for some creative young person ...

We're looking for a new arts columnist, who'll get paid £100 p/w to write a weekly 500-word column for IdeasMag: http://bit.ly/1jm3LH6

(Whittaker sighs - if only there had been social media when 'he' was younger ...) 

 

Become a Paid Weekly Columnist for IdeasTap

IdeasTap: Paid Writing Opportunity

If you're aged over 16, and can write interestingly about culture and the arts on a weekly basis, this might be just the opportunity you've been looking for.

More details here.

Dancers, Choreography, Live Art, Writing

Education professor Pat Thomson (Nottingham) has been involved in a project concerning young people's experience of live art.  In her latest blog she provides a link to that project, and then goes on to blog about how "warm-ups" are as useful for writers as for dancers.

Take a look at her blogpost here: Writing Warm-Ups

Read 'Patter' - Pat Thomson's Blog on Research and Scholarly Writing

Pat Thomson is an Education Professor in Nottingham. 

Her blog on research skills and scholarly writing is always well-considered and a good read.  Today she offers this:-

An Unhealthy Paranoia? On 'losing' Academic Work

New writers wanted for performance installation - Creative Scotland

Write then tell a story - on the Glasgow streets.

The Creative Scotland website tells you all you need to know.  If you're interested in street theatre, all the better!

 "As part of SURGE 2013, Ferran Orobitg of Catalan street theatre company Fadunito, will be presenting Externet, a new, playful interactive outdoor installation looking at intimacy in public spaces and communication between strangers. Externet involves performers reciting stories they’ve written themselves, each to a single audience member.

"For the Glasgow performances of Externet, Ferran is seeking to run a workshop with a group of first-time - or non-established - writers from as broad a range of backgrounds as possible. The workshops will involve an exploration of a variety of approaches to writing for performance..."  (Read more)

Have you planned what articles you can publish?

Writing from the thesis: the publishing plan

A blogpost by Nottingham Education Professor Pat Thomson.  ('Patter', to her blog-following friends.) 

True Imaginary Friends

Diary of the progress from thesis to book.  By Yours Truly, "Whittaker" himself!  

From Dr to Author

True Imaginary Friends

And a Happy New Year!

2012

Whittaker wishes all 'his' followers a happy, healthy and productive New Year.  And may we all be solvent if not wealthy.  May the Whittaker Library be a buzzing hive of activity, with patrons aided and assisted by your enthusiastic Library & IT staff.

Extra-murally, 2012 is going to be the Year of the Deadline.  'Whittaker' has a contract to deliver a book by 30th April 2012.  All solicitous enquiries, encouragements and otherwise supportive comments will be very welcome indeed. 

But enough of this pseudonym stuff - to get myself in the right frame of mind for the task ahead - no, this is not procrastination! - I'm looking for a new mug to add to the collection.  I like, 'When I'm writing, I know I'm doing the thing I was born to do.'  But it's big, which in Cafepress terms is huge.  I want a Cafepress small (everyone else's medium) mug.

'Working on a bestseller' is a good slogan, but - oh, I'm so fussy - I don't like the art-work.  And 'Writers hate deadlines' is another apt one, but it's not positive enough!

The winner is: 'Writer's block is when your imaginary friends refuse to talk to you'.  Very nice.  (As regular visitors will have realised, there are a number of Victorian Scottish song-collectors who are very real to me. I know far more people in 19th century Edinburgh than I do today!   Alexander Campbell, R. A. Smith, George Farquhar Graham and Finlay Dun are like close friends; In London, William Chappell and his successors are a source of endless interest; and in the Hebrides, the Maclean-Clephane sisters were fascinating women.  So, too, was Marjorie Kennedy-Fraser.)

But deadlines are about more than mugs.  Here are David Seah's Productivity Tools, as recommended by The Thesis Whisperer.

Meanwhile, my own all-time favourites are Diigo, Mendeley, and Evernote, with Copac always in the wings to back up my evidence.  Where would I be without them?

What are your most useful productivity/ time management aids?

Wish me luck!

PhD2Published - getting that first book published

Here's a useful website, if you're looking to getting a book published:-

http://www.phd2published.com/

Join the community of scholarly authors!

Writing for publication

There's a new post on Patter (Pat Thomson's blog) which might interest anyone with the urge to go into print ...

Writing for publication – it’s just a matter of meeting the conventions of a journal, right?

by pat thomson

Guardian Young Writers Workshop (Aged 16-22)

Quoted direct from the Guardian website:-

Young Writers' workshops 2011. Are you a writer between the ages of 16-22? Guardian News and Media is always looking for new voices ...

If you are between the ages of 16-22, we invite you to apply for a place on two young writers' workshops ... We particularly encourage applicants from all minority, disadvantaged social and economic backgrounds.


Twenty shortlisted writers will join us for workshops at the Guardian offices ... Weds 14 and Weds 21 September ... 


* understand the different sections of the Guardian
* develop your ideas into pitches
* discuss how to approach commissioning editors and pitch your ideas
* explore ways to encourage more young writers to write for the Guardian
* create a link between new writers and Guardian editors
* help Guardian editors to become more conscious of diversity and inclusion issues that affect young writers


To apply, submit an article (max 400 words) on the theme "I wish..." plus brief details of any published work. Please refer to our terms and conditions.


The deadline is 5pm on Friday 26 August 2011.

RSAMD welcomes Royal Literary Fellowship

Whittaker Live is very pleased to note the arrival of our first Royal Literary Fellow - Alexander Hutchison. He will be available for staff and students to consult about writing in all its many and varied forms.

Find out more about Alexander at his own website, or at Salt Publishing, the publishers of his recent poetry collection, Scales Dog.

.

You'll find examples of Alexander's work in the Whittaker Library very soon:-

• Scales Dog
• Epistle from Pevkos
• Carbon Atom

More about the Royal Literary Fund Fellowships here.