Odin Halvorson
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Odin Halvorson

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Recent posts by Odin Halvorson

Writing

How National Novel Writing Month Changed My Life

Able to pour my heart and my soul into those 50,000 words, I brought my confused and crazy life into some sort of alignment. Able to pour my heart and my soul into those 50,000 words, I brought my confused and crazy life into some sort of alignment. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime,

Writing

The Importance of Rejection

Something about that older model of SASE envelopes strikes me as important to consider. Something about that older model of SASE envelopes strikes me as important to consider.

Essay

Hard Work: The Greatest Con

You’ve heard it before: Poor people don’t work because they’d rather do drugs and fornicate with themselves. But is this really true? You’ve heard it all before: “Hard work is good for you. The people who don’t work are lazy. Poor people don’t work because they’d rather do drugs and fornicate with

Zen

Aikido and Zombies

Aikido can change your life… and the world. “The purpose of the Art of Peace is to fashion sincere human beings; a sincere human being is one who has unified body and spirit, one who is free of hesitation or doubt.

Writing

Richard Wright: The Best American Haiku

With Haiku, a self-nurturing could begin, albeit so close to his own death. Wright offers his perspective, his own loneliness, and his own desire for wholeness within three simple lines of poetry, allowing us to know him intimately at his most vulnerable and his most human.

Essay

Don’t Market Yourself

How many times in our life do we decide to do something based, solely, off of what other people are going to think of us? It’s tempting, isn’t it? “If you just market yourself correctly, you’ll make the big bucks!“ How many times do we decide to do something based off of what other people are going

Essay

Solarpunk: The Fiction of the Future

There are limitless options for storytelling, if you set your mind to it. Have you ever wondered what the future might be like? And I am not talking about the future of tomorrow or next week; I’m talking about the future of our species, our civilization; our world.

Politics

The Voting Teen

Why teenagers should be allowed to vote for the good of the country. The Republic is flailing rather wildly as we enter the first quarter of the 21st century and, to the eyes of many, the future is far from secure. It seems clear that we need all hands on deck.

Essay

Irritation: Factor Nine

I am irritated. I am irritated by the man in the silver Porsche who drove through the T-lane intersection ahead of me today at 50MPH. I am…

Essay

3-D Empathy

How we can become better empaths in a thoughtless age — for the betterment of ourselves and everyone around us.

Writing

To Write Big, Start Small

Learn the art of weaving description and your reader will never leave. It’s better to make the reader do the work than it is to hand them the finished puzzle.

Education

Become a Self-Directed Learner

If we wait for someone else to manage our lives we’re always going to be falling short of our aspirations Learning good habits — habits that work for our own lives — is key, but so is how we approach the situation; how we look at the work ahead of us is just as important as how carefully we take no