I first heard of shine when they said it was going to be a bit different, but it’s not.

It is simply plugging a gap in yahoo’s content offering, and getting revenue (why else have astrology?)

Just looking at the headings: Fashion + Beauty , Healthy Living, Entertainment, Parenting, Love + Sex, Work + Money, Food, At Home, Astrology

Where is art (if anything they could have women artists!), culture (not even books), current affairs, politics (if anything some issues around feminism!), sports, science and technology, or even creativity? No mention of it anywhere! I know that content is elsewhere on Yahoo but I would expect it to be repurposed here, perhaps with a different perpective.

I get the point that most “men’s” magazines have more about sports, cars, gadgets, fitness than most men care about - but they usually have a section or two still covering more generic news, as acknowledgment that men have brains.

There’s almost never anything of the sort in women magazines, especially not in the english language (some european magazines will have at least some .

Still it would have created a lot of buzz if Yahoo had integrated the more news/thinking headings within this platform, maybe with comments and perspectives from the editors. That would have gottent the attention of all the smart, articulate women bloggers out there in a big way.

But i suspect this is not necessarily a mistake by yahoo, as I bet convincing advertisers of the value of something like this would be hard.

119. Create a framework. As many writers have said, the blank page can be the biggest show-stopper. Instead of trying to rely on pure inspiration, set your topic or theme and start creating within confines. Think within the box you create for yourself.

20. Remove obstacles to creativity. That friend who calls to complain about their life can wait until you can afford to get stressed about their problems.

21. Don’t judge your ideas until you have plenty to judge. Don’t be embarrassed by yourself – just write them all down! Even if you start with “pink polka-dotted lizard.”

22. Keep a journal. It can get your mind working, and in a month, or a year, when you’ve gained some distance from what you’ve written it can give you new ideas.

23. Stop telling yourself you’re not creative. If you tell yourself not to come up with ideas, then you probably won’t – no matter how hard you try.

24. Don’t be a workaholic – take breaks. Your mind needs a chance to wind down so it doesn’t overheat and crash.

25. Experiment randomly. What does a flanger sound like on a vocal track? Like Lenny Kravitz, of course.

The Night Journey

by Terri Windling

Go by coombe, by candle light,

by moonlight, starlight, stepping stone,

and step o'er bracken, branches, briars,

and go tonight, and go alone,

go by water, go by willow,

go by ivy, oak and ash,

and rowan berries red as blood,

and breadcrumbs, stones, to mark the path;

find the way by water's whisper,

water rising from a womb

of granite, peat, of summer heat,

to slake your thirst and fill the coombe

and tumble over moss and stone

and feed the roots of ancient trees

and call to you: go, now, tonight,

Simplicity

Simplicity, of course, means many things to many people, but for me contentedness is at the core of simplicity. It’s about being content with less, with a simpler life, rather than always wanting more, always acquiring more, and never being content.

Simplicity means examining why you want more, and solving that issue at its root. At the root of wanting more is not being content with what you have. Once you’ve learned to be content, you don’t need more. You can stop acquiring, and start enjoying.

Being positive, optimistic and appreciative makes you more open towards other people - no matter who they are. It becomes easy to connect to co-workers in other departments, projects or divisions.

Complaining, on the other hand, makes people gather in cliques with their fellow complainers where they can be critical and suspicious of everybody else.

• Avoid anything billed as “infotainment”. Infotainment, that bastard child of the mass media’s onanistic self-importance, is supposed to be information combined with entertainment; far more often, it’s neither.


• If you find yourself nodding enthusiastically in agreement with everything someone says — even me! — chances are you are not being informed.


• Turn off your TV. (Yeah, like that’s going to happen…)


• Shoot your TV. 550,000 Elvises can’t be wrong.


• One in, two out. Don’t add another RSS feed without deleting two. (But not this one!) Don’t subscribe to an email list unless you first unsubscribe from two. And so on.


• Have goals. Make sure every input in your life has a purpose — and delete it when it no longer serves that purpose. You might subscribe to a magazine to get a free book bag — fine. If the goal has been met, go ahead and throw out the magazine — don’t feel obligated to maintain an input once it’s achieved its purpose.

Old Tree Healing

by Taiko Haessler

Lightning curls around the trunk of Old Tree.

Sap curdles close to the chestnut heart—

Knots and joints twist with electricity in the night air.

The strike retreats to the whirling sky,

powerless against charred black clouds

reeling it in.

Blackened skin peels away

revealing bright Green underneath . . .

Roots shiver into earth.

Quiet night, last whisper of storm fades.

Lightning, ashamed of what it's done,

Ghosts into death–blind, silent.

Old Tree sends its sap to sing in the calm

After the torment.

First novels

• Grey, Jon Armstrong (Night Shade Books)
  
• One for Sorrow, Christopher Barzak (Bantam Spectra)
  
• The Sword-Edged Blonde, Alex Bledsoe (Night Shade Books)
  
• City of Bones, Cassandra Clare (McElderry)
  
• Breakfast with the One You Love, Eliot Fintushel (Bantam Spectra)
  
• Heart-Shaped Box, Joe Hill (Morrow; Gollancz)
  
  
• Wicked Lovely, Melissa Marr (HarperTeen; HarperCollins Children's UK)
  
• Maledicte, Lane Robins (Del Rey)
  
• The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss (DAW; Gollancz)
  
• Flora Segunda, Ysabeau S. Wilce (Harcourt; Scholastic UK as Flora Segunda at Crackpot Hall)