from Gnome to Goliath

Taking a Sabbatical in 2023

Tin Mayer is taking a sabbatical for 2023. Read the full post to find out why.

Dear Goliaths, 2021 and 2022 were huge years for me, this is why I am taking a sabbatical in 2023.

A Gnome’s Quest

After four years of writing and one year of querying, I decided to self-publish my first book – A Gnome’s Quest. In parallel, I increased the frequency of my posts to twice a week. Also in parallel, I was dealing with the pandemic (like everyone else), supporting my family (like most of you), and working my full-time job (again, like most of you). Now, at the end of 2022, I decided to pause and reflect on the experience.

Tools of Goliaths

A few months ago, I started querying agents and publishers with a pitch about my next book (tentative title of Tools for Goliaths). There, I hope to dive deeper and explore the more specific tools which helped me get to where I am now. Just like with my first book however, it has been a frustrating experience so far. But this time I have promised myself to keep trying until I can convince an agent to represent me and a publisher to invest in me. Otherwise, it is just a hobby.

Zettelkasten

Finally, I have been working on establishing a more formal process of knowledge management for myself. It based on the Zettelkasten method and, like everything else, it takes time to setup and internalize. The initial results have been really promising and in the summer I doubled down on it and started organizing my thoughts into Zetteln.

Sabbatical

But long story short, the goal of this post is to announce that I will be taking most of 2023 as a sabbatical. Blogging in the current form I am doing it, ceased to be fun for me. I need to rethink my commitment to it. Writing books and querying agents and publishers is also rather boring and unsatisfying. Writing, in general, continues to be my passion. I intend to keep ready and to keep working on expanding my knowledge base.

Where can you find me?

I do not plan to write any more posts in my blog in 2023. But I plan to still write my signature “Best Books I Read in 2022” post, because I think I read some incredible books in 2022. I will only remain active on my Twitter profile (although with the current developments at Twitter, I might soon have to stop that too in case Elon makes it a paid platform). If you would like to reach me, go to my Contact.

I wish you a great holiday season and a very successful 2023!

Ten Positive Habits to Improve Your Life

When you think about life what picture comes into your mind? Do you think of your life as a struggle? Or a burden? Have you seen people who stroll through life as though they are having fun? Nothing bothers them, they seem in control.

Well, as you know, I believe that most of life is about habits. There are positive habits and negative habits. If you want to improve your life, cultivate more of the positive habits. This is the simplest equation in life. If you are interested in more of my articles about habits – there are a few recommendations:

By the end of this short article, you will have a list of ten positive habits as ideas which you can use to improve your life. Don’t take this as the end of your journey, this is just the beginning. Keep reading and keep discovering other positive habits.

Nine Actionable Steps to Improve Your Attitude About Life

Have you ever wished you lived someone else’s life? Someone who looks happy all the time, nothing bothers them, and they always smile. Someone who weathers every storm, keeps their cool during stressful situation, and generally performs better. Well guess what? It is not about the person, or the life, or the circumstances, the key is your attitude about life.

This article will give you nine simple and actionable steps to improve your attitude about life starting today. You will not become that person overnight, but it will happen gradually.

How to Be a Writer

To be a writer means to be alive. To be alive is a gift of privilege, not a right. Writers earn life by practicing what was awarded to us.

Ray Bradbury was a writer and one of the most famous authors of science-fiction that has ever lived. I have read numerous of his short stories, to which my father introduced me when I was about ten years old. I was really surprised recently when I discovered one of his non-fiction books: Zen in the Art of Writing (link to Goodreads).

I decided to become a writer many years ago. Not because it is cool (it is not). Not to become rich (I am not … yet). And not because I have a lot of free time (I don’t). I did it because I could not not do it.

In this article, I will show you a few of the tips which Ray Bradbury shares about writing. Most of them really resonate with me and with my decision to pick up writing.

How to Conquer Fear?

In order to do anything worth doing, you need to overcome and conquer fear. You do this by tackling fear with logic.

Today, I am writing about fear. It is one of the oldest emotions. Usually, in order to do anything worth doing, you need to overcome your fear(s). It can manifest as a worry, anxiety, or not feeling confident, but it is still the same.

I am a long-time fan of (almost) everything Ryan Holiday writes. The way he digests hundreds of sources and boils down the message to the essence really fascinates me. When he wrote the book Courage is Calling in 2021 (link to Goodreads), in the middle of the global pandemic (is it too early to start capitalizing it?), I knew it would be worth the read.

In this article, I will emphasize on deciphering fear in order to conquer it.