Internet Recluse

But not in real life. I spent the Labor Day weekend entertaining some out of town friends. Sunday and Monday I finished up my Harry Potter reading through book 3, relaxed with the husband after a couple of hectic weeks of beginning the semester, saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and just enjoyed the great weather.

Regrettably, Sunday, our dryer of 20 years died the death. Monday was also spent shopping and purchasing a new dryer. Once again I learn that I am not a fancy appliance person.

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How's the writing coming? Well, pretty good. Here's a new recommendation for some of you, although there are good things and bad things about this book. Write. 10 Days to Overcome Writer's Block. Period by Karen E. Peterson caught my eye while I was writing at Barnes and Noble last night. Bryon is spending a lot of time taking tickets for volleyball games the next two weeks. Teacher duty. Yay. I ran out of Potter, picked it up, and was suckered by pop psychology. Anyway, there was a Kurt Vonnegut quote on the cover. That was good enough for me.

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Peterson, a PhD in psychology, suggests that people have one writing agenda with their right brain and one with their left brain. There's a fascinating section in chapter 2 about how brains work, and how brains can be underdeveloped due to certain nurturing techniques or lack thereof. The book is full of ideas and techniques about how to access that creative part of your brain as you write, about how to try to keep that part of your brain from being too all or nothing.

In my own case, I discovered that my tendencies to dislike rewriting, but still require my work to be perfect, probably have some root in my upbringing. I've been playing with the idea of how I write, spending some time with my first draft in a notebook for Substance to engage some playfulness, and shuffling my writing tasks around to be more playful. I'm still writing for my allotted time, but I'm mixing it up a bit. Which is good. You know when writing begins to feel like writing your dissertation, that's a bad thing.

Anywhoo, take a look at this book, especially if you need to jumpstart your creativity a bit. It's a little more woo-woo than I'd like, but I'm finding it useful, so there's that.

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Imagine my delight today when I found the Static Shock entry in my trash bin. So you get that too.

I need to get back to some novel stuff. This was my little break. I'll see you guys later on today. I may get an unplanned day off this week. I have a rather annoying sniffle. Bah.

Cath

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.