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Author Archives nickyp

First readthrough (SP)

So, I did the first readthrough on my NaNoWriMo novel, The Spanish Patriot, this weekend. I hadn’t looked at it since Nov. 30 — actually, I never had looked at it, just kept typing typing typing. When I started reading it Saturday, it was as if I’d written it years ago–no emotional attachment. Waiting works! [...]

Posted 06 February 2012 § Learning § Thinking § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Learning about learning

Remember those photos from Aspen? Here’s a post for the Dana Foundation blog on what I was doing there, work-wise: How does school work, brain-wise? Do children teach themselves or is it something about the instruction that gets their brains firing and wiring faster? Last fall, a few hundred neuroscientists, teachers, and curriculum-makers met for [...]

Posted 27 January 2012 § Brain science § Learning ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Presuming guilt

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Posted 12 January 2012 § Marketing ‡ Comments (0) °

Writing resolutions 2012

This year, I will: • write every day • spend 2 hours or more every week marketing my work • travel to Spain for research • finish another print-worthy novel • have something I wrote for sale (or bought) by November • volunteer to judge or coordinate 3 writing contests • continue to volunteer as [...]

Posted 02 January 2012 § Books § Learning § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

Writing successes 2011

This past year, I: • spent more than 300 hours writing (not web-surfing or sitting, but writing) • spent more than 120 hours doing volunteer work • finished 1 print-worthy book (!) • submitted my work to agents and editors, and got good critiques and notes • wrote 1 good short story and started 2 [...]

Posted 01 January 2012 § Books § Learning § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

Launch of pattern books

Came across this today while doing unrelated research: From the London Times, 7 January 1809, page 3 ACKERMANN’S Repository of Arts, &c. which has just appeared, has adopted a novelty, we are surprised not to have been long since thought of, that of making a periodical publication the vehicle to distribute patterns of different articles [...]

Posted 23 November 2011 § History ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

Brainy days

Whew, we’re done with a week of meeting smart folks and learning about the brain. More than 31,000 neuroscientists hit DC last week, and a lot of us wrote about it. Here are my entries for The Dana Foundation: How Do You Get Involved in Neuroethics? During a workshop at the annual meeting of the [...]

Posted 22 November 2011 § Brain science ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Brain scientists occupy DC

Smack in the middle of National Novel Writing Month, I have to switch gears for a week to report on the news in brain science (that’s my day-job). Neuroscience 2011 is the big event of the year for these folks. Starting Saturday, more than 30,000 scientists from around the world are expected to converge on [...]

Posted 11 November 2011 § Brain science ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , ,

Where do you get your ideas?

As part of my prep for National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo.org), which starts next week (eek!), I’m reading through issues of the London Times from 1808. My story this time will be that of a British journalist sent to Spain to cover the start of the campaign there against the French. Amongst the reports on [...]

Posted 25 October 2011 § History § Writing ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , ,

The Blasted Brain

[by me for the Dana Foundation blog. See more great stuff there!] Traumatic brain injury (TBI), the signature injury of the current U.S. wars, calls for the nation’s best “emergency medicine,” Kevin Kit Parker told a group of top scientists, medicine makers, and policy makers, this spring at the One Mind for Research conference in [...]

Posted 06 October 2011 § Thinking § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , ,