Inquiring minds want to know where the hunting dogs keep their permit so that it is easily available? Plus, how many dogs can hunt on one permit?
Monthly Archives: July 2015
Haiku to you Thursday: “Imagining”
Thoughts like ragged leaves /
Blown by a wind, bright and wild. /
Beloved imagining.
Filed under 2015, Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
6 Scientifically-Proven Ways To Boost Creativity
by Carina Wolff
Ever notice how some days you’re brimming with ideas, while others you’re staring at a blank canvas or computer screen and wondering how you ever found inspiration in the first place? Unfortunately, a creative block can happen to the best of us, and it can strike at any time. Feeling unmotivated and uninspired can be a frustrating feeling, but just because you’re feeling stuck in the moment doesn’t mean you’re doomed to unoriginality forever.
When these debilitating moments strike, you can sit and stare aimlessly at the computer until your eyes hurt, or you can figure out a way to kickstart your mind and get those creative juices flowing. If you find yourself at a loss for good ideas, or just need an extra boost of creativity in your life, try the following six strategies that have been proven to help stimulate your thinking.
Source: http://www.simplemost.com/6-scientifically-proven-ways-boost-creativity/
Take a walk
Studies have found that walking, whether indoors or outdoors, increases creative thinking in the moment as well as the moments after. Even mild exercise can have a positive effect on cognition, so next time you feel yourself in a rut, consider taking even a brief stroll.
Daydream
Though it may seem counterintuitive, allowing your mind to wander actually boosts your creativity, and it can even help your working memory. Next time you’re feeling stuck, you may be better off letting yourself space out than trying to force yourself to focus, as studies have found that daydreaming does enhance your creative problem solving skills rather than hinder you.
Drink a little
Whip out that glass of wine! Turns out, having a drink or two can help loosen your mind and spark creativity. Researchers have found that having a blood alcohol level of just under the legal limit of .08 helps you perform creative tasks better, likely because it allows your mind to wander to solutions you may have never considered before.
Play some music
Many studies have found that listening to any type of music that you like helps your creative thinking and improves cognitive functioning. It doesn’t have to be just Mozart; as long as you enjoy what’s playing, the song will put you in a positive mood and increase arousal, both factors in how you perform creatively.
Doodle
Now you won’t have to feel so guilty about covering that work memo in smiley faces and flowers during a meeting. Doodling helps stimulate visual thinking, which helps bring you out of one brain mode and into another. It also frees up working memory space, allowing your mind to wander and access new ideas.
Take a power nap
Not only can a quick 20 minute nap refresh and restore you, but it can also help increase activity in the right side of the brain, which is generally associated with creative thinking and problem-solving tasks. As long as you slip into REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, your nap can help boost your cognitive thinking, improve memory, and enhance your problem solving skills.
More ideas at: http://www.simplemost.com/6-scientifically-proven-ways-boost-creativity/
Filed under 2015, writing tip, Writing Tip Wednesday
cARtOONSdAY: “nOVEL bEGINNING”
The Sun was beginning to realize his beginning lacked something.
Filed under 2015, cartoon by author, CarToonsday
Monday morning writing joke: “Writer from the Vatican”
There once was a writer from the Vatican /
Whose soul job was to write about sin, but then /
He wondered: what can I say /
About troubles today /
That gives evil an original spin again.
***
A dyslexic writer walks into a bra.
Filed under 2015, Monday morning writing joke, poetry by author
The Harper Lee “Go Set a Watchman” Fraud
by Joe Nocera
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/opinion/joe-nocera-the-watchman-fraud.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
Called away on family business, I was afraid I’d missed the sweet spot for commentary on the Harper Lee/“To Kill a Mockingbird”/“Go Set a Watchman” controversy — that moment right after “Watchman’s” release on July 14 when it was all anybody in literary circles could talk about.
Go Set a Watchman
So perhaps it’s not too late after all to point out that the publication of “Go Set a Watchman” constitutes one of the epic money grabs in the modern history of American publishing.
The Ur-fact about Harper Lee is that after publishing her beloved novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” in 1960, she not only never published another book; for most of that time she insisted she never would. Until now, that is, when she’s 89, a frail, hearing- and sight-impaired stroke victim living in a nursing home. Perhaps just as important, her sister Alice, Lee’s longtime protector, passed away last November. Her new protector, Tonja Carter, who had worked in Alice Lee’s law office, is the one who brought the “new novel” to HarperCollins’s attention, claiming, conveniently, to have found it shortly before Alice died.
If you have been following The Times’s cleareyed coverage, you know that Carter participated in a meeting in 2011 with a Sotheby’s specialist and Lee’s former agent, in which they came across the manuscript that turned out to be “Go Set a Watchman.” In The Wall Street Journal — where else? — Carter put forth the preposterous claim that she walked out of that meeting early on and never returned, thus sticking with her story that she only discovered the manuscript in 2014.
But the others in the meeting insisted to The Times that she was there the whole time — and saw what they saw: the original manuscript that Lee turned in to Tay Hohoff, her editor. Hohoff, who appears to have been a very fine editor indeed, encouraged her to take a different tack. After much rewriting, Lee emerged with her classic novel of race relations in a small Southern town. Thus, The Times’s account suggests an alternate scenario: that Carter had been sitting on the discovery of the manuscript since 2011, waiting for the moment when she, not Alice, would be in charge of Harper Lee’s affairs.
That’s issue No. 1. Issue No. 2 is the question of whether “Go Set a Watchman” is, in fact, a “newly discovered” novel, worthy of the hoopla it has received, or whether it something less than that: a historical artifact or, more bluntly, a not-very-good first draft that eventually became, with a lot of hard work and smart editing, an American classic.
Rest of the article: Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/opinion/joe-nocera-the-watchman-fraud.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
Filed under 2015, publishing
Photo finish Friday: “The creme de la creme”
Homemade ice cream sandwich on a hot afternoon after a cookout and water slide.
Filed under 2015, Photo by Beth Booker, Photo Finish Friday
Haiku to you Thursday: “Finally”
Finally found me. /
You say you knew me back when, /
But I was not lost./
Filed under 2015, Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
Writing tip Wednesday: 5 secrets from Hollywood
How to Improve Your Writing: 5 Secrets From Hollywood
by ERIC BARKER
Source: http://time.com/3955361/improve-writing-hollywood-secrets/
- Structure lets readers know they’re in good hands. And finishing a draft is just the start. Writing is rewriting.
- Surprise comes from knowing the expectations of your audience — and then turning them on their head.
- The best writers know how to balance the negativity of perfectionism with the optimism that keeps them going. Making sure you have “small wins” can help.
- Collaboration is about suspending your ego. Stop thinking about yourself and focus on what would objectively make the piece better.
- Making a reader feel something is about honesty. You don’t have to come from the future to write science fiction but there does have to be something of yourself in the story for that emotion to show through.
Read the full article: http://time.com/3955361/improve-writing-hollywood-secrets/
Filed under 2015, writing tip, Writing Tip Wednesday
cARtOONSdAY: “iMPOSSIBLE rEALITY”
He dreamed it so well that he didn’t want to wake up to this reality.
Filed under 2015, cartoon by author, CarToonsday
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