Must Read Round Up – Great North Run Edition

I share a lot of great stuff on my various social media profiles that never makes it to the blog, and this irregular round-up post exists to collect some of that together for your reading/watching/listening pleasure, as well as a cheeky reminder of some blog content you may have missed.

The Great North Run

This edition coincides with my second half-marathon of the year, which I will be running on Sunday in aid of Bowel Cancer UK, a charity which is close to my heart as bowel cancer has affected my family.

I will be running in memory of my Uncle Pat and have set up a fundraising page, where you can donate if you feel so inclined:

http://www.justgiving.com/MiloMcLaughlin

We Will Write Them on the Pitches

Joining my fundraising team is Paul Forrester, a long-standing member of the CMC Community. Paul is also kindly making his first Kindle book free over the Great North Run weekend (from Friday onwards). The book is called We Will Write Them on the Pitches and it explores some unlikely parallels between creativity and football (or soccer). I found it a thoroughly interesting and informative read, despite being completely clueless about ‘the beautiful game’ myself!

You can get it here: Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com and at most Amazon stores worldwide. You can also read Paul’s post about the Great North Run over at his blog Fruitless Work.

Another upstanding member of the CMC community has also released a book! Margaret Pinard has written her first fiction novel, ‘Memory’s Hostage’. For more details see her blog, Taste Life Twice.

Lost Map Records

My friend Johnny, aka The Pictish Trail has just founded an exciting new micro-label called Lost Map Records, based on the Isle of Eigg. Sign up to now to get an excellent free sampler from the bands on the label. You can also read a recent interview I did with him here.

This is Why I Love the Internet

In August I had the pleasure of meeting Celestine Chua, a popular personal development blogger from Singapore. She arranged a meetup in Edinburgh for her blog readers, and I found out about it because of friend of CMC and prolific blogger, Vishnu (of Vishnu’s Virtues) who told me she was visiting.

I attended the meetup and met some really great Edinburgh people who I had never met before. I loved the fact that this only happened because a US-based blogger told me that a Singapore-based blogger was visiting Edinburgh!

Even better, one of the bloggers I met, Scott Torrance of the site ‘Eating Dog Food’, was inspired to take up sketchnoting thanks to the Graphic Recorder’s sketch of a previous episode of Mountain Shores. He’s been doing some great sketch notes so far, I recommend checking them out!

@milomclaughlin and thanks, it was through your work that I found @TheGraphicRcrdr & the wonderful world of sketch noting 🙂

— Scott Torrance (@scottorrance) September 4, 2013

You can read Celestine’s full round-up of the Edinburgh meetup on her blog, Personal Excellence.

Hopefully Building a Habit

Congratulations to Cathryn, aka Concrete Moomin, for drawing every day during August! I really like her drawings which you can see at her blog.

Busy Doing Nothing

The Independent has rounded up ten years of The Idler’s interviews with outstanding bohemians.

Are You Cut Out for a Creative Career?

Asks CMC Type Mars Dorian, with a particular focus on being an online content creator/blogger. I don’t agree with everything in this post (e.g. solitude is a choice!) but I think it’s good to be as realistic as possible when it comes to this kind of work.

A Cartoonist’s Advice from Bill Watterson

You’ll probably have seen this as it’s been shared all over the internet, including the CMC Facebook page (you are following aren’t you?). It’s advice for creative people from Calvin & Hobbes creator Bill Watterson, that has been illustrated beautifully by Gavin Aung Than.

Creativity vs responsibility

Alison has a new podcast about the friction between creativity and responsibility and the importance of trying new strategies at transitional times in our lives.