I subscribe to more than my share of email newsletters. I read many of them every week, but one I genuinely look forward to getting is Austin Kleon‘s. Austin is a writer/artist/creative who cheers for us all in our creative efforts (you’ve probably seen his Steal Like An Artist), and he puts out a great weekly newsletter.
So, who is George Brown Goode?
In this week’s newsletter, Austin talks about starting his new notebooks by selecting a “guardian spirit” for it. I love this idea. I always have two notebooks. I keep a notebook for personal stuff, fiction, whatever — *my* stuff. I also keep one for work, officially my Curator’s Log. Now, in personal notebooks I’ll add a “guardian spirit”, but it requires a bit of thought.
For my Curator’s Log, there’s only one choice: George Brown Goode. Wikipedia has a good, though brief, article on him. I found him during my studies in Museum Science back when I was a curator larva. Goode was way ahead of his time on museum theory and understanding, believing that museums were really a place for everyone and not only that museums have a duty to the public. It will likely shock some, but these can be revolutionary ideas even today in many institutions. GBG also basically worked himself to death by the age of 45 — basically by ignoring what we now call ‘self-care,’ something that people who are deeply passionate about their work also need to remember.
So, I made this and pasted it into my Curator’s Log this morning, featuring GBG with one of my favorite quotes from him:
“The Future of Museums” by George Brown Goode, 1901.
…
With you while you curate…
So, thank you Austin Kleon for the great idea and George Brown Goode for the inspiration. Do you keep a notebook? Do you have a Spirit Guardians for your passions? I’d love to learn about them! Leave a comment!
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes historical mysteries and works as a history museum curator.
I’ve never been one of those ‘New Year, New Me’ people. You want to make a change? Do it. Do it now. Do it later, if you must, but don’t wait on the calendar to change. Calendars go, changing with a precision I understand about as clearly as my earliest ancestors watching the fiery sky ball go up and down.
Calendar for Success
2016 was a toughy.
Some good, some bad, some tough. Some really bad. It was also the first year I’ve tracked my writing. I’ve been writing off and on for years, but I’ve set a goal to be able to support my family with my writing in the future, and step one was to see just how much I can do. My daily schedule has more demands than ever since I became a father half-way through 2015, my partner and I moved in together, and she was unemployed, then unevenly employed, and now full-time employed, but on a different schedule than I am. So, when I’m home, I’m home alone with our son. It’s impossible to write with a computer on one knee and a toddler on the other. These aren’t complaints, just acknowledging what I have to plan around to be better this coming year.
2016’s goals? A review.
So many writing podcasts….
Going into 2016, I knew I wanted to write novels and non-fiction too, like so many others, (I have for years). But from what I learned I wasn’t sure …. how. So this year, I listened to *all* the writing podcasts (seriously, there are so many and many of them are great!), lurked and read lots on kboards and lots of different facebook groups as well. I think I’ve got down what I need to do, but there’s still the doing. At least I have encouragement from my partner (check her out!)
I wrote quite a bit last year at the holidays, and I could hit 1000 words each day without too much trouble. It felt doable that first week, so I set 1000 words per day as my initial goal. It didn’t last long. I cut it back to 500 words per day, net on projects. No adding in journal writing, or blogging, etc. 500 words on fiction and/or nonfiction projects. That’s been more doable with the very little time I have available. But consistency has been a long way off, but I tally that up to how inconsistent my home-life “schedule” has been.
From my word tracker.
I did a little better hitting that 500 words/day goal, achieving just over 85,000 words in 2016. Yes, that’s not even half of my annual goal, but you know hitting it nearly every other day (statistically) is a big win for me. I’ve never measured my words before, I wasn’t sure what to go by, so this feels really good.
So, where did those words go? Well, another big win for me was publishing my first piece of fiction in the flash fiction series Mondays are Murder with Akashic Books. So, only 1000 words, but still — I’m proud of it. The other 85,000 words? Another small portion went into a non-fiction book I’ll be publishing soon. It’s the journal of a young teacher in western New York in 1887. It was a fun project, and I’ll have more about it soon in my facebook group.
A cover idea for my upcoming nonfiction book. What do you think? Leave a comment!
I also worked on two different historical series — one is a mystery series set in 1930s Denver with a private investigator who is a veteran of the WWI air corps. The other is more of a thriller series set in the 1910s, featuring a female magazine writer who becomes the guardian of her young nephew and goes on adventures. These have been tons of fun to write and once I’m ready to launch you’ll be the first to know.
I was also short of my reading goals this year as well, but I tracked them better than before, but I definitely missed a few books somewhere in the late summer/ early fall and forward.
I read 28 of 30 books I was hoping to read this year. I remember setting the goal of 30 books last year and thinking that was doable. I was close! There were a few (maybe a lot) of DNF books too — too long-winded usually, or narrators/ protagonists I couldn’t spend the amount of time with I’d need to to get through the book. So these are just the *finished* books, not every one I cracked open.
What about 2017?
Well, I think I’ll try to read the same number of books and shoot for 30 again. But, I need to write more. A lot more, but instead of trying for a higher daily word count, I’m going to aim for consistency. I also need to hit *publish* on a few things. It looks more and more likely that I’ll be doing just that on my first non-fiction book very soon. Details to follow, of course. Until then, why not be my friend on Goodreads?
Where would we be without Roald Dahl’s books? Separate the man if you can and consider his work. This past week I read aloud to my partner SusanThe Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and other stories. It’s a fantastic collection of fiction and non-fiction. Some of it horrifying (I’m looking at you, bullies and the swan story!), but all of it perfectly RoaldDahlian. That perfect mix of weird and wonderful, macabre and marvelous.
Modern Moms and Dads sometimes say his stories are too dark. Too gross. Too profane, and are too mature for young readers. Bull. Shit. Dahl was brilliant (and yes grouchy), but I’d never tell a parent how to parent (now that I am one, I get it) however I will judge you silently. Everyone from Tim Burton to Stephen King and those who follow them, like Stranger Things’ Duffer Brothers, stand on Roald Dahl’s shoulders today.
What would I be without his strange sense of wonder, his fascination with life and death, and his sense of justice? And acceptance? Like that of a grandmother and her grandson who has been turned into a mouse and will never be a boy again. Reading Dahl as an adult teaches me far more lessons than when I read him as a child. I think that’s the point.
We read The Witches in the last month or so waiting for the birth of our son last year. Reading aloud to one another each night and taking a few moments to talk to the baby yet to make his debut. Each chapter is a prayer to be able to love, to be brave, and stand up to wrong no matter the odds. It was perfect.
I was catching up on some podcast listening this week, and heard the folks at Bookrageous talk about “one hit wonder” authors. One of my favorites is Ralph Ellison. A fascinating interview with Ralph Ellison has been digitized from the archives of my old work place, the Oklahoma Historical Society, and as of this writing has about 10 views. Thanks OHS for making this available to everyone to see.
