"Even if it sounds a bit cheesy, pursue your dreams.”

“Life is very full for 18-year-old Beth Reeks. Like every first-year university student she is juggling studies, a hectic social life and the challenge of living away from home for the first time.

     But unlike her peers at Exeter University, Reeks is also having to find time to finish off her third novel – and is now coping with the responsibility of being billed as one of the world's most important young role models.
     Reeks – who writes romantic fiction for young adults under the pen-name Beth Reekles – was earlier this month named by Time magazine on a list of the 16 most influential teenagers in the world alongside entertainment stars such as Lorde and Justin Bieber, sporting stars including swimmer Missy Franklin and Barack Obama's daughter Malia. […]
     For those yet to catch up with Reeks's work, she began writing love stories about teens partly because she was fed up with so many books aimed at young people being about vampires, werewolves and wizards (though she grew up on Harry Potter herself and cites JK Rowling as one of her role models).
     She self-published her first novel, The Kissing Booth, a rollicking romance set in California, on Wattpad, the story-sharing website, and watched amazed as her tale attracted 19 million readers across the globe.”
— Steven Morris, The Guardian
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“[…] a string of popcorn on a Christmas tree.”

“Science has long treated religion as a set of personal beliefs that have little to do with a rational understanding of the mind and the uni-verse. However, B. Alan Wallace--former monk, assistant to the Dalai Lama, and respected Buddhist scholar--proposes that the contemplative methodologies of Buddhism and of Western science are capable of being integrated into a single discipline: ‘contemplative science.’”
— Alan Wallace, Wisdom Quarterly
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"Over time, the practitioner [of shamatha meditation] begins to notice the sheer quantity of thoughts and feelings that his mind is generating. He sees the way that these mental phenomena have a mysterious life of their own — that they arise from nowhere and then disappear again. He starts to realize that it is possible to see thoughts and feelings without judging them, reacting to them, or identifying with them.
     As this happens, the practitioner begins to notice some of the stories he tells himself. Some of these are big stories — about the kind of person he is, the ‘meaning’ of his life, and so on. Others are much smaller — his narrative about why he should buy this toothbrush rather than that one, for example. But in both cases he starts to see that these stories are simply composed of thoughts and feelings — like a string of popcorn on a Christmas tree. In other words, he sees that his stories about himself are made-up, too. (Practitioners of contemporary cognitive behavioural therapy — CBT — might find such insights familiar.) […]
     OCD often feels like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel, except that all the choices suck and all the adventures hurt. However, as I’ve begun to learn through Buddhist study and ritual, those ‘choices’ are illusory, and there’s no one being hurt. In fact, there’s no one there at all. The attempt to attain pleasure or avoid pain, to stay consistent with a storyline, to ensure some kind of outcome, to be somebody — this is what causes so much suffering.”
— Matt Bieber, aeon
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“JK Rowling has revealed that the OCD-afflicted lead character in her new novel was actually inspired by her personal experience with the disorder.
     The 'Harry Potter' author describes how her own battles with anxiety and depression helped shape her protagonist in her new adult novel The Casual Vacancy.”
— ANI, Yahoo!
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rich brew

"After JK Rowling's wizards and Stephenie Meyer's vampires, publishers and producers have now been spellbound by a first novel about witches written by a former accountant. Sally Green, 52, had no desire to write until three years ago. Yet her supernatural thriller about witches living secretly among us in contemporary Britain has been snapped up by publishers in 36 countries, from Canada to Ukraine, who see her as a potential big hit, with stories that will appeal to teenagers and adults alike.
     Advances for a trilogy of novels are expected to earn the author about £1m. The film rights have been bought by Fox 2000 and Karen Rosenfelt, who produced The Twilight Saga, inspired by [Stephenie] Meyer's vampires.
     In the story, black and white witches are divided by hatred but united by a fear of a boy called Nathan, who is descended from both sides – "wanted by no one; hunted by everyone.'"
— Dalya Alberge, The Guardian
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pen name calling

"In the wake of JK Rowling’s lawyer blabbing to friends and sundry that she wrote The Cuckoo’s Calling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, there appears to be a bit of an obsession on the internet (mostly by other authors) over why The Cuckoo’s Calling wasn’t more successful prior to the announcement.
      Although the detective novel received across-the-board praise from the critics, including a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly, only about 1500 copies were sold between its release and the reveal that it was penned by everyone’s favourite wizarding author (some estimates are much lower, around 500). This has been used as an example to show how difficult it is to be successful as an author, that mystery readers are the most unadventurous readers on the planet, and that people are only attracted to books with explosions."
— Tasha Brandstatter, BOOKRIOT
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