How I Discover Good Stories
And how I avoid missing them when I’m busy
any topic can be absorbing when well written by someone who has done their homework
When kicking back with a cup of coffee, sometimes I like to surf fairly aimlessly and read what takes my fancy. I’ve discovered some fascinating new topics that way and I’ve run into some great writers. An unexpectedly interesting article can lead me off into a new world and engulf me for hours — any topic can be absorbing when well written by someone who has done their homework, and I love the feeling of taking on board new knowledge when I delve into unfamiliar areas.
having my cake and eating it
Therin lies the issue. It’s a free-reading path beset with rabbit holes that can consume half a day in the blink of an eye. I can’t risk that when life is too busy, but I still want my coffee break. I suppose I’m saying I want to have my cake and eat it. After all, cake and coffee make good companions.
When coffee break reading is restricted and on a deadline, there is no time to surf, I just want good interesting stuff to read, and I want it right in front of me, right now. Here’s how I do it.
Strategy 1 — I let others do the preparatory work for me. Writers like Ellie Jacobson, Katie Michaelson, and Sahil Patel produce regular round-ups of good writers, stories, and articles.
Each collection is catalogued in different ways adding extras to the links provided. It makes it easy — indeed a piece of cake — to grab half an hour of good reading.
Strategy 2 — this is something I was doing long before piggybacking on other people’s compilations. I bookmark pieces from writers I know and enjoy, plus articles whose headline or tagline tickles my fancy. When I’m in need of reading material I dive into my bookmarks.
A random set from the current list, including why I bookmarked them, looks like this:
I find it energising to read about people who live life to the full — indeed the full to overflowing when we’re talking about Jan Sebastian.
Jan’s writing goes everywhere and touches everything — her own life, other people’s, and anything she finds in between. Oh, and she gives out some great tips and tricks too.
Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles has been to places I’ve never been and, importantly, can bring these places to life on the page.
Vidya drops fascinating snippets into her accounts. It’s not hard to see why the smiles follow her wherever she goes.
I always bookmark Anne Bonfert. For her day job, she works in the sky. Don’t be fooled by the article’s headline, I don’t mean ‘in the mountains’, I mean ‘in the sky’. Imagine the photos!
I don’t usually follow 30-day challenges — I’m not organised enough — but I’m enjoying this one from Ellie Jacobson and the headline makes an irresistible sequel to Anne Bonfert.
Some writers such as Susan Alison and Dennett can always be relied upon to weave good stories around interesting photos. That reliability makes them the backbone of my bookmark list. Dennett’s pictures of wild birds are always both exotic and awesome. With Susan, there’s the added bonus of unexpected artwork popping up too.
Cosmos Wake-Up, Oak Gall Wasps, and Dragons
Awesome August Advances into Audacious Autumn
medium.com
Both my focused and my random reading has brought me some great tips on all manner of topics — and Kris Bedenian is someone I always check out when she’s writing from the culinary front line. She has ideas that I’d never have thought up for myself.
As an aside on culinary matters, and stepping briefly away from the list, I still use the recipe for tomato sauce that arrived in a comment from Uvebruce.
My current list also features Neera Handa Dr, Linda Acaster, Hayden Moore, Madelyn, Linda Caroll, A Palace Of Ideas, Sanghita Pal & Maria Rattray. Some of the specific stories I’ve bookmarked are listed at the end.
Does this strategy lead to duds — uselessly uninteresting badly written tripe masquerading as stories or articles — as well as good reading?
Yes, occasionally I find something like blatant advertising or I trip over bad grammar and misspellings galore before reaching the end of the first sentence. I don’t read on. I quietly push the offending article aside, unbookmark it, and forget about it. If it was something truly grotesque then I would probably report it, but that hasn’t happened yet.
Are any of these duds present in this collection?
In a word, no!
A dilemma between strategies
There’s an interesting variation in results between the two strategies. The articles I bookmark for myself, if they’re not by authors whose work I know I enjoy, will be topics or headlines that have piqued my interest. In others’ lists, I find my way to stories that I would not have picked up on my own.
I’ve neglected my reading recently — I’ve added to my bookmarks but not had time to look in detail. Life exploded into a plethora of urgent tasks, places to go, and appointments to keep. Coffee and cake were out of reach. When I finally sat back to read, I was nonplussed to find other people’s compilations taking up a larger proportion of the list than they have before.
I’ve always either read through the stories I’ve bookmarked or I’ve dived into someone else’s list of recommendations. I’ve never done both at once. So I did something else I’ve never done before. As I worked my way through the list, I added links and comments to this article. I’ve taken advantage of other people’s lists for long enough — it’s time I reciprocated and produced one of my own.
I hope you’ll find something new and entertaining either in one of the links above or from the rest of the list detailed below — or preferably both.