Here’s another roundup of some interesting things I’ve come across lately and would like to talk about! As always, I’m sure there’s some great stuff I read but cannot for the life of me remember.

This one is extremely late, since I’ve been incredibly busy and finding time to write has been hard. I think I looked at some of this stuff back in… November? October? Oops. I’ve decided I want to keep these to only 4–5 items per post, so more posts should be coming shortly! There are definitely other things I’ve looked at that I want to talk about.

Here’s a look at some of the articles and books I’ve been reading lately, or at least, the ones that stuck out to me. Originally, I wanted to do this as a weekly series, inspired by Cory Doctorow’s link posts where he comments on various articles he’s read - but I don’t have that kind of time. Also, I’m really not that great at remembering the various articles I’ve stumbled through online, so you’re going to get these when you get them.

So I’ve been rereading this book called Range (by David Epstein), and I’ve come across some interesting ideas that didn’t really stick with me on my first reading. For example, one concept I’m finding intriguing is the idea of “match quality”, which is basically a measure of fit between a person and their job/occupation.

The idea presented in the book is essentially that improving match quality only comes through exploration – you don’t figure out who you are by locking yourself in a room and thinking about it, but by trying out different things.

Never Say You Can’t Survive by Charlie Jane Anders is a good one I read pretty recently. It’s about using fiction both as an escape from and as a commentary on reality, and it has a ton of really interesting ideas about worldbuilding and what kind of characters are interesting and also about emotional and less technical aspects of writing. I’d say it’s definitely worth a read. Also, it has really good writing exercises.