August 18, 2018 · 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: August 18, 2018

Here is this week’s list of links from my favourite corners of the web. Last week’s list was a little sparse. I think I more than made up for that this time around.

Don’t Worry About Feeling Sad – on the Benefits of a Blue Period. What do all of you think of this idea? I know I’m intrigued.

How a Disabled Person Feels When Someone Stares at Them via SarahJBpoetry. This is a blog I’m going to be keeping my eye on in the future.

It’s Never too Late to Be a Reader Again. Raise your hand if you’ve ever regretfully stopped reading something. I like the idea of returning to a book later on in life to see if it fits you better then.

Sand Castle Marketing via cynthiaharriso1. If you have a mailing list or are thinking of setting one up, go read this. I love this blogger’s approach to marketing. If only more authors and other creative folks thought this way.

Losing Earth – the Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change. Buckle down for a long read here. I’d be especially curious to hear the thoughts of everyone who clearly remembers 1979-1989. How much do you remember talking about climate change back then? Do you agree that we came close to finding a solution during that decade?

Broken Thoughts – The Story of My Two Broken Legs via sonzyb. Ooh, this made me wince. I also found it interesting because I’ve never broken a single bone and so didn’t know the details of how such an injury is treated. Keep in mind that there is one photo of her injuries and vivid written descriptions of them as well. It didn’t bother me, but I thought you all should know this in advance. If you like this post, be sure to click on part two at the end of it. There were four parts in all, and the author did link to the next one at the end of the first three parts in the series.

Inside the Very Big, Very Controversial Business of Dog Cloning. Seriously, how is this not the stuff of science fiction?

Beyoncé in Her Own Words: Her Life, Her Body, Her Heritage. I don’t normally pay attention to the lives of celebrities, but this article was interesting because of how private Beyoncé generally is. It makes me wonder why she decided to share such personal details about her family all of the sudden.

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August 16, 2018 · 1:00 am

Is Mary Sue a Sexist Concept?

Thank you to my friend Berthold Gambrel for coming up with the idea for today’s post.

For anyone who hasn’t already heard of this term, a Mary Sue is a (female) character who is so idealized that she’s honestly too good to be true. Picture someone who is good-looking, smart, athletic, talented, charming, and good at virtually everything she tries.

If she has any flaws at all, those weaknesses are trivial things that don’t make a real difference in her daily life or current quest at all. For example, she might have a terrible singing voice, but her storyline has nothing at all to do with whether or not she can sing.

You’ve probably noticed that I used feminine pronouns in those last two paragraphs. I did this on purpose. In all of the years I’ve been reading various fiction genres – including, and sometimes especially, the science fiction and fantasy genres – I’ve never seen a male character being accused of being a Mary Sue even when he meets all of the criteria for this label. The very thought of a Marty Stu existing is controversial in some circles.

Sometimes I’ve seen people use the term Mary Sue to describe an author’s possibly subconscious desire to be loved and admired by everyone they meet. There have been times when certain critics of various well-known series have insisted that a Mary Sue character was written as a projection of everything the author wished she could be.

Intention Isn’t Everything

While the original Mary Sue character was first written as a lighthearted parody of unrealistic characters in Star Trek fan fiction, she’s since evolved into something else entirely.

If we lived in a world where Marty Stu was thrown around as easily as Mary Sue, I’d say that both of them were intended to shed light on the dangers of writing flat characters. As someone who has written hundreds of reviews over the years, I have seen plenty of books whose characters never felt like real people. It’s not easy to create a character who appears to have all of the same hopes, dreams, fears, and realistic personality flaws that you’d find in any random person walking down the street.

When a term is created to criticize one group of people for doing something while ignoring other groups that do the same thing, the original intentions quickly become less relevant over time.

Double Standards

What bothers me the most about Mary Sue as a concept are the double standards it enforces and the disproportionate amount of hate Mary Sues receive when compared to their male counterparts.

Yes, stories that portray a female main character as someone who has few if any flaws and who is somehow good at everything she tries aren’t an example of good writing.

This applies to every single even vaguely humanoid protagonist who has ever been invented, though, as well as quite a few who were created to be as unlike humans as possible.

Which gender they identify as doesn’t matter at all. I’ve sat through far too many stories about Marty Stus who were just as unbelievable as any Mary Sue has ever been. Yet I can’t remember the last time I saw or heard someone use the phrase Marty Stu in real life or complain about how unrealistic his character development was.

If we lived in a world where this wasn’t the case, I’d be much more willing to use the phrase Mary Sue to describe characters who were poorly developed or seemed to be an idealized version of who the author wishes he or she could be.  These are issues that I occasionally see pop up in the books, movies, and other forms of entertainment I review, but they are in no way limited to one specific gender. They happen everywhere.

Yes, It’s Sexist

It is for all of the reasons listed above that I believe Mary Sue is a sexist concept even though I don’t think that most people who use that phrase are purposefully trying to be sexist.

Sexism – and many other forms of prejudice – are so deeply ingrained into western society that it’s easy to overlook the milder examples of them like this one. Honestly, I know that I’ve occasionally said things that rubbed other people the wrong way because I wasn’t aware of why a certain phrase or topic was a sore spot for a particular group.

I can’t and won’t speak for every woman here, but my reaction to someone using this phrase wouldn’t be an angry one. The first thing I’d assume would be that they’ve never thought about the different ways characters who behave in very similar ways are treated based on their gender or why it’s a problem to hold one gender to a much stricter standard than you’d expect from another gender. This would be a teaching moment, just like I’d hope that someone else would be willing to explain to me why they found something I said to be offensive if I accidentally crossed the line when talking to them.

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August 13, 2018 · 1:00 am

Is It a Good Idea to Take a Blogging Break?

No, this isn’t my way of saying that I’m taking a break from blogging. I’ve done it once or twice in the past for various reasons, but I have no current plans to ever do it again.

(If that ever changes, I’ll take my own advice and let you all know in advance that I’m going quiet for reason X and expect to be gone for Y amount of time!)

The real reason why I’m asking is because this question came to mind recently after a new post popped up on a blog I follow that hadn’t been updated in three or four years. Honestly, I’d forgotten it was even still on my RSS feed because of how long the gap between posts had been.

As soon as I realized the owner of that site had begun writing again, my face broke out into a grin. I’d missed his stories, and I was eager to see what he’d been up to while he was away. He’d disappeared so quickly that I hadn’t had any idea what had happened to him. This was something that had made me feel a little sad even though I respected his right to fall silent.

This Is a Guilt-Free Zone

I know I could very well have readers out there who have abandoned their old blogs or other sites. If this applies to you, know that this post is a guilt-free zone. There are many different reasons why someone might need to stop writing, and in no way am I trying to make anyone feel bad for making the choice to step away from their site whether it was a temporary or permanent decision.

Quality vs. Quantity Content

Raise your hand if you’d rather wait for an excellent post, vlog, or other update than settle for a mediocre one that arrives sooner!

One of the things I wish I could change about Internet culture is its focus on churning out new content on a regular basis regardless of how well-developed that video, post, or other form of communication actually is.

I’m all for blogging on a schedule if you have the time and energy to devote to posting a certain number of times a day, week, or month for the long term. However, I also believe it’s better to not post anything than it is to post a half-baked idea simply to stick to a predetermined schedule.

From what I’ve observed with friends who had to take breaks from their blogging or other activities online for various reasons, your core audience is still going to be there when you return. Speaking as someone who considers herself a part of the core audience of a few different folks, I will still be around in a month, a year, and even longer than that if or when a favourite writer ever decides to return to his or her blog, Youtube account, or other online hangout.

If You Can, Say Goodbye

I do have one request for friends who find themselves needing to pull back from their regular posting schedules. If possible, I’d love to see some sort of message from them saying that they’ll be gone for a while. You don’t have to say why you’re leaving if you’d prefer not to (although I’d love to know if it’s due to something that might change again in the future if you don’t mind giving out enough details for this question to be answered).

Once again, this is not intended to make anyone feel guilty. Sometimes life makes it really difficult to leave that final update on a site or channel when you’ve decided to stop updating it for now or forever. I’ve known people who stopped writing after they received serious diagnoses of diseases that required the vast majority of their energy. Others fell silent after getting a new job, or having a child, or going through any number of major life changes that drastically altered how much spare time they had to share with the world.

Still, it’s nice to know a little in advance when a site is shutting down and if there’s any hope of it ever being revived. I find myself growing emotionally attached to some of the people I meet online. While I’d never ask any of them to share details of their private lives that they want to keep hidden, it sure would be nice to know why folks occasionally disappear and if it’s okay to reach out to them every so often to see how they’re doing (assuming they’ve become a friend and not just a blogger I follow).

When people choose not to do this, I always wonder what happened in their lives that made them walk away from the audience they’d built up.

  • Did they develop a mental or physical health problem?
  • Were Internet trolls bothering them?
  • Was it a bad case of writer’s block?
  • Did they say everything they had to say on the topic(s) they chose to talk or write about?
  • Have they finally discovered Okunoshima, Japan, and are they planning to live with the bunnies there forever?
  • Do they want to be checked up on, or do they not even have enough energy for that much interaction from the folks who care about them?

The possibilities are endless. If only we could have even the slightest clue as to what is going on in the lives of these people and if it’s okay to send a friendly message asking how they’re doing.

Respond

Have you ever taken a blogging break? Has one of your favourite sites ever stopped getting updated? Do you think content creators should alert their audiences when they need to stop publishing posts or uploading videos?

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August 11, 2018 · 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: August 11, 2018

Here is this week’s list of links from my favourite corners of the web.

Yesterday I met a nice man named George McNeese on Twitter who is looking for other short story writers to connect with. Click on the links in the last sentence and say hello if you write short stories in any genre or if you know of anyone else who does. I’m hoping we can form a friendly community online together in the future.

The Most Relaxing Vacation You Can Take Is Going Nowhere. Totally agreed. Staycations are the best.

How to Manage Chronic Pain Through a Minimalistic Lifestyle via achvoice. I never would have thought to make the connection between these two things.

My Voice Got Deeper. Suddenly, People Listened. Drop everything you’re doing and go read this now.

How Almost Dying Showed Me That I Wanted to Live via dlhampton. This link includes references to a suicide attempt for anyone who needs a trigger warning. I thought the author did a wonderful job of explaining what was going on in her mind at the time and how she’s changed since then.

From Default People via bjornlarssen:

The price I paid for being openly gay (as opposed, I suppose, to people who are openly straight) was high – I lost contact with a large part of my family. The reason? Wanting to bring my boyfriend to a family celebration.

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August 9, 2018 · 1:00 am

10 Pictures That Are Begging to Be Turned Into Stories, Part Five

It’s been a while since I wrote another instalment for this series. Either the world of stock photos is gradually growing less strange or I’m getting used to the wilder side of this world. Fewer things are surprising me these days, so it took longer than normal to compile this list.

If you’re looking for some inspiration today, keep reading.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I decided to start doing something constructive with all of the beautiful, haunting, bizarre, creative, and otherwise unique photos I kept finding on the various stock image sites I had on my RSS feed back in 2017. Every few months since then I’ve posted a list of the most unusual photos I’d found to see if any of my readers were interested in using them for any purpose.

Everything I share for this series is in the public domain. You don’t have to do anything special in order to use them.

In the past, I’ve written descriptions of how I’d use the pictures I share with my audience in this series. As much fun as it is to come up with theories about what could be happening in them, I think I’m going to leave it up to my readers to brainstorm everything this time around. My imagination is so strong that I don’t want to overwhelm your own theories about how these images can be used.

All I’m going to add to them is a brief description of what is happening in each photo for anyone who can’t see the photos I’m sharing for any reason. I look forward to seeing how you’d all react to this list and what you do with any of the images in it. Let me know if you use any of them!

A man wearing a wreath of flowers on his head and a pair of glasses that has a dandelion stuck to the middle of each frame.

A hand and forearm sticking straight up out the middle of a wheat field. It is still attached to the body of someone who is hopefully alive and well. 

 

A person wearing contact lenses that makes their eyes glow and makeup that gives their skin a blue, purple, and red hue. 

A person wearing a red hoodie, white gloves, and a mask that glows in the dark. 

A stylized and possibly long-exposure photograph of a city landscape and sky. Everything is arranged in a circle with the landscape being the centre of the shot and the sky being wrapped around it. 

A long, thin cactus poking out of a banana peel. 

A cattle skull sitting next to a decorated box filled with old-fashioned medicine. 

A long-exposure shot of a dancer. She has a pale, ghostly appearance due to how much she was moving during the shot. 

A bluejay sitting on a polished, wooden table and sticking its head into a metal saucer filled with milk.

 

A naughty grasshopper smoking a cigarette while sitting on a rock and staring out at a field of grass. 

Previous posts in this series:

10 Pictures That Are Begging to be Turned Into Stories

10 Pictures That Are Begging to be Turned Into Stories, Part Two

10 Pictures That Are Begging to be Turned Into Stories, Part Three.

10 Pictures That Are Begging to be Turned Into Stories, Part Four.

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August 6, 2018 · 1:00 am

5 Reasons Why You Should Try ASMR

Picture credit: Emma L. Barratt, Nick J. Davis. CC-BY 4.0.

Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a calm tingling sensation that some people feel at the back of their their scalp and down on other parts of their body after being exposed to certain types of auditory stimuli.

ASMR is used for relaxation purposes. There are many videos about it floating around on Youtube and other places. I’ll share one at the end of this post for anyone who would like to try it for themselves.

It’s similar to many forms of meditation in that you remain with your eyes closed still during it. One of the side effects of this phenomenon that I find particularly helpful is how much it encourages listeners to focus on everything that’s happening in this particular moment without thinking about the past, the future, or anything else that might make your mind wander.

A friend of mine introduced me to ASMR a few years ago. I was a little confused and skeptical about what it was and how it worked at first, but once I found the right type of stimulus this quickly became one of my favourite things to do on days when I need some extra help relaxing or clearing my mind.

Honestly, I wish I’d known about it decades ago. It’s not every day I discover something quite this useful even though there’s still so many things we don’t know yet about how it works or why some people are so much more sensitive to ASMR than others are.

My goal for this post is to spark the curiosity of anyone who would wants to learn more. If nothing else, I’d like everyone to know that ASMR exists and that it can be an excellent relaxation tool.

It’s Not Yet Well Understood

This is normally the part of a post like this one where I’d talk about the science behind ASMR. I always enjoy figuring out why specific practices do or don’t work well on the human body. Right now there are far more questions about ASMR than there are answers. Like Synesthesia was in the 1990s, this is something that is very poorly studied or understood by the scientific community as of now.

It could be that it will be turn out to be something akin to the placebo effect. Maybe everyone who thinks they feels pleasurable tingles at the back of their head when they hear specific sounds will someday learn that it was their own mind accidentally tricking them.

I think it’s more likely that we’ll discover some sort of slight brain difference in those of us who can feel these things, but there’s always the possibility that the studies currently being conducted on this phenomena will turn up nothing of note at all about it. Only time will tell. If or when I hear more about this, I’ll write an update post.

It Can Be a Helpful Mindfulness Tool

I take a pragmatic approach to matters such as these. While we’re waiting for studies to be done on ASMR in an attempt to study it in detail, I believe that there can be merit to using things without understanding how they work. This is even more true for free, non-drug home remedies that don’t appear to have any negative side effects.

I’m not a doctor, and I’ll never give anyone medical advice. What I can say is that ASMR is one of the tools I use on days when mindfulness doesn’t come easily to me. There is something about concentrating on the gentle sounds of a Youtube video rather than on whatever  it is that’s bothering me that makes it easier to live in the moment than it would if I attempted to live in the moment in pure silence.

It’s Relaxing

Honestly, who doesn’t love relaxing experiences? (Now that I’ve typed that, I’m half-expecting someone to pop up in the comment section to explain why they actually find relaxation stressful for some reason I haven’t thought of yet).

The beautiful thing about listening to these types of videos is that they don’t require any special equipment or training from their audience. Anyone who has somewhere quiet to sit or lie down can participate in them and hopefully feel the same sorts of pleasant and relaxing sensations that I and many other folks have experienced.

There’s nothing quite like reaching the end of an ASMR video, opening my eyes, and realizing just how relaxed I am from it. When I’m listening to one of these role-playing exercises, the only thing on my mind is concentrating on the voice of the person narrating it or on the other sounds they’re making into the microphone.

It Feels Nice

When I listen to the right kinds of ASMR videos, I eventually feel a tingling sensation at the back of my head that gently travels down my face and neck to my body.

No, in case you were wondering, this isn’t a sexual sensation. I’d compare it more to the feeling that can come from getting your favourite kind of massage from a massage therapist who knows exactly when to work out a knot in a sore muscle versus when to gently rub your shoulders or back instead.

It’s simultaneously soothing and invigorating. I end every ASMR session feeling like a million bucks.

It Doesn’t Work for Everyone (but It Might for You!)

The only way to know is to try.

If or when you do give ASMR videos a shot, be sure to look at a variety of different types. Some of them – the food ones, for example –  don’t do anything for me at all.

It may take some trial and error, but I think of that as a positive thing. Like many other things in life, you might succeed the second or five or tenth time you try instead of the first one.

An ASMR Sample

Hair brushing and cutting ASMR videos happen to be my all-time favourite. I adore getting my hair cut and gently rubbed in real life. Apparently, that spilled over to my online preferences as well.

If the video below doesn’t do anything for you, keep trying. There are ASMR videos out there that featuring whispering, eating, slow movements, crisp sounds, and many other types of stimuli that might be right up your alley.

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August 4, 2018 · 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: August 4, 2018

Here is this week’s list of blog posts and other links from my favourite corners of the web. I did have a photo to include with it this time. There’s something whimsical about framing a shot in such a way that a cloud looks like a scoop of ice cream in a cone. Also, it matches the first link below perfectly.

Deprivation Is NOT the Key to Wellness via CorinneBlogs. I couldn’t agree with this more.

Middle Grade Fiction Readers via MichaelTMiyoshi. If you know anything at all about middle grade fiction or how preteens like to read in general, go click on this link and see if you can give Michael some advice.

Gratitude for a Quiet Man via AbeLopezAuthor. This was a beautiful essay that I think my readers are really going to like.

Made in Canada. There is a growing trend among many Canadians to buy as many products and services from Canadian businesses as possible.I already buy as much locally-grown food as I can, especially during this time of the year when so much produce is in season.  I don’t buy other stuff very often, but I’m going to aim for Canadian products first the next time I need a new spatula or something. If any of you are also interested in doing this, go check out the list of Canadian-made products. It’s much bigger than I ever would have imagined!

August Morning. Raise your hand if you think this captures warm August mornings perfectly.

The Biggest Lie We Still Teach in American History Classes. Those of you who have taken history classes in countries other than the U.S., do you think history courses in those places have the same issue?

Science Fiction and Fantasy Readers Make Good Romantic Partners. Yes, I did share this on Twitter a few days ago for those of you who are wondering. It was so good that I had to share it with everyone who isn’t on Twitter as well.

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August 2, 2018 · 1:00 am

What Should I Write About Next?

Once or twice a year I like to check in with my readers.

What fitness, mindfulness/meditation, and scifi/fantasy topics would you like to see me blog about here?

I haven’t been writing many meditation posts over the last several months because, frankly, my foray into unguided mediation hasn’t been going well. Even guided meditation has been challenging for me. Normally, I like to hold off on posts about stuff that isn’t working for me until I find some kind of solution for it.  Would you rather read about someone who is currently struggling or who used to struggle and then found a way to make it better?

Writing reviews of sci-fi and speculative films has been a true source of joy for me this year. It was originally something I started doing because of how much I enjoyed my friend Alexandria’s movie and TV reviews. She’s introduced me to some  stories I probably wouldn’t have picked up on my own but ended up liking quite a bit.

I also love the process of analyzing the plot and discussing what I did and didn’t enjoy about it. Do you all find this kind of content useful? What films would you recommend watching next?

My workout schedule has remained pretty uneventful this summer. Everything is good on that front, although I’m not entirely sure how to blog about something that hasn’t brought any new or unusual challenges to my life lately. Maybe it’s time to try something new?

I do have a list of ideas for future blog posts that I’ll continue to drawn on, but I always enjoy hearing your thoughts as well.

What kinds of posts do you find most enjoyable here? Do you have any ideas for me?

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July 30, 2018 · 1:00 am

Why Negative Reviews Can be a Positive Thing

Does anyone else find that their taste in movies is constantly evolving? Even when it comes to films I know I’m going to want to watch eventually, I still need to be in the right mood for certain genres. Sometimes I might be more interested in a documentary or comedy. On other days, something dark and serious is right my alley.

Last week I was sorting through my never-ending to-watch list and trying to figure out which film from it to check out next. (That list is even bigger if you include all of the non-scifi entries on it! One of these days I may have to blog about the whole thing).

I’m the sort of person who will add something to my to-watch list in a heartbeat but wait until the last possible minute to decide whether or not I really want to sit down and pay attention to it for two hours.

Before I pay for anything, though, I always check the online reviews of it for a few different reasons that I’ll dig into during the course of this post. Positive reviews are no guarantee that I’ll end up watching something even if every single reviewer loved every single scene of that film. A string of negative reviews won’t necessarily dissuade me from watching something, either.

My reasons for deciding to watch something are more complex than that.

Does One Person Mention Problem X, or Does Everyone?

Once a film, book, or any other piece of pop culture has attracted enough attention, it’s bound to be picked up by at least a few people who don’t connect with it at all for a wide variety of reasons.

Maybe they’re simply not a big fan of that particular genre. (See also: me and 98% of the romance novels out there). They might have been in an awful mood and would have hated anything they watched that day no matter what it was. There could have been a part of the setting, plot, or character development that stirred up difficult memories for them for any number of reasons that almost certainly wouldn’t apply to most other people who read or watched the same thing.

If one reviewer mentions hating something about a film, I’ll tuck that information in the back of my mind. It probably won’t keep me from renting it unless the reviewer mentions something that I strongly prefer to avoid in the media I consume.

If multiple reviewers mention the same issues over and over again, I sit up and take notice even if their complaints all seem to be mild ones when looked at individually. There’s a difference between one person being annoyed by a particular part of the plot and lots of folks noticing it enough to mention it in their review.

Even then, a string of negative reviews aren’t going to necessarily stop me from enjoying a film. So much depends on what their specific complaints were and whether they were things I can look past when deciding what to watch.*

*Not counting godawful storytelling, sexist, racist, or homophobic content, or other major issues of course.

Honesty Is More Important Than Always Being Positive

When I write reviews for my own site, I focus on as many positive aspects of the films and books I talk about as I can think of. I believe in pointing out everything the creator did right, especially if it’s stuff that doesn’t seem to be mentioned too often by many other reviewers. Anything worth reviewing – much less watching in the first place – will have strong points.

As an author, I also know how scary it can feel to release your work into the world. I’m always mindful of the fact that the creators might someday read my review, and I’d want them to feel good about all of the hard work they put into their story regardless of any criticisms I might have had to share about certain parts of it.

With that being said, I also believe in being perfectly honest about the themes, scenes, or sections that didn’t work for me. If I disliked something about a book or movie, I’m going to find a tactful way to talk about what it was and why it rubbed me the wrong way.

I won’t just tell you that the characterization fell flat or the dialogue didn’t sound natural to me. I’ll do my best to give specific examples of when these things happened and why they were such an issue for me. If my complaints were more subjective than that, I’ll talk about why a specific issue is a sensitive one for me and how I wish it would have been broached instead.

Other people might completely disagree with my reactions to those scenes or themes. That’s okay, because…

Not Everyone Has the Same Dealbreakers

There are a small number of things that I really don’t want to be exposed to when I’m watching a film. If I know they’re going to show up in advance, I’ll watch something else instead.

Some of the stuff I refuse to watch is too private to share on a platform as public as this one, but I will give you one example. My extended family includes multiple relatives who were adopted at various ages.

Occasionally, films are released that deeply stigmatize people who were adopted. It makes me angry to see adoption being portrayed so negatively because I’ve had multiple conversations with acquaintances who assume that everyone who wasn’t adopted as a newborn is going to fit their harmful stereotypes of other types of adoption.

For example, I’ve met some people who made very negative assumptions about what it would be like to adopt an older child or what sort of person that child would grow up to be. When they said unflattering things about such a large group of people, I winced. Not only were their assumptions untrue, they were unkind.

The last thing I want to do is encourage anyone to perpetuate such damaging myths about adoption and people who were adopted. I’m open to watching a lot of different types of stories, but I draw the line at ones that make it look like my relatives are inherently bad people because they happened to have been adopted.

The nice thing about reviews – including negative ones – is that stuff like this can be discussed in detail. Rather than being blindsided by something that rubs me the wrong way, I can go into the story prepared for what I’m about to see and decide not to watch it if hits something on my dealbreaker list.

It Still Gets the Word Out

Just because I might not personally be interested in a film that spends a great deal of time on a certain theme or topic doesn’t mean that everyone I know feels the same way.

This same rule applies to everyone. There have been multiple times when I’ve read negative reviews of a film or book only to realize that the things that irritated that particular reviewer are either neutral or positive to me.

For example, I’m not usually bothered by movies where the dog dies in the end. It’s something I expect to happen in a lot of different types of stories, so someone who complained about it in their review wouldn’t be discouraging me from watching it at all.

A negative review might turn some people away, but it can also be used to attract even more folks who are actually the right audience for it.

How much attention do you pay to negative reviews? Has a negative review ever convinced you to read or watch something you might not have otherwise tried?

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July 28, 2018 · 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: July 28, 2018

Here is this week’s list of comic strips and other links from my favourite corners of the web. There’s no photo this week because I couldn’t find one that went well with the articles I’d found for all of you.

Dark Secret. I’ve shared quite a few comic strips from this site over the last three months. This will (probably?) be the last one I share for a while, and I thought it was a nice way to end my linking streak to that site. If you’ve enjoyed the strips I selected for my readers, do go check out the rest of them as well.

Why Doing What’s Best for You is Good for Everyone via AuthorKristaLyn. Honestly, this is something that would have horrified me a decade or two ago. Now I see the value in it, especially for those of us whose first tendency is to put everyone else’s needs before our own.

Why Chronic Pain Can Be a Good  Thing via notebksglasses. People who live with chronic pain, what do you think of this post?

Can We Just Get Honest About Rejection? via catherinelanser. Ooh, this was a good post.

Why This Painting of Dogs Playing Poker Has Endured for over 100 Years. Art aficionados, look away so you don’t get horrified. I actually really like the paintings mentioned in this post. There’s something endearing about them.

The Case for a Habitable Moon. This makes me wonder if we’re going to discover evidence of life on another planet sooner rather than later.

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