Brain workouts

I have been watching a really interesting series called Redesign My Brain and it's got me thinking about how I could give my brain more of a workout. I've read very mixed reviews about the app-based programs you see advertised on TV. Luckily, though, at work yesterday I found two books that look really interesting and have many lateral-thinking, creativity-inducing activities.

The first is called How to Be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith. This is a book I wish I had written. It's filled with interesting and often simple ideas, which will help you see the world in a different way. Many of the ideas would be great to do with kids from four and up.

Second is Caffeine for the Creative Mind by Stefan Mumaw and Wendy Lee Oldfield. Its 250 exercises are engaging and quick (or long if you want them to be). Many of them could be turned into writing exercises, ice-breakers or time-fillers for the classroom.

I did one of the 'Caffeine' exercises at work in a lull between helping students. It was a word association. Here is mine:

To give it a go yourself, get a copy of the book. It's worth it!

Reviews: is there anything more transitory?

I just finished reading a light, quick, holiday read, then rated in on GoodReads. While reading others reviews, I learned an important lesson that I'll need to hold onto as a writer. Likes and dislikes are highly subjective and are often inconsistent. I quite liked the book and ignored the minor problems with the writing, whereas others hated it and didn't finish it before writing a detailed, negative review of it. It's not that I didn't know people have different opinions about things, especially subjective topics like art and literature. This was particularly clear last night at my book club when four of us expressed differing perceptions of a currently popular book. I need to hold onto this understanding when my writing is subject to reviews. What someone says in a review is more about them and their perception of your piece than it is about the quality or validity of your work. If one book can range from one-star, I have nothing nice to say, all the way to five-star, I've never read a better book, then that has nothing to do with the author. The negative reviewers all picked up problems which I noticed but wasn't bothered by. Interestingly, many of the issues with this book were things I'd criticised in the last book I reviewed. It all comes down to your mood and your particular sensitives at the time of reading the book and writing the review.

New book = new friends

I started a new book today and it feels a little like I'm getting to know some new friends. It's nice to watch their good-natured bickering; there are hints at past adventures which I'm sure I'll hear about in time; and there is a sense that something interesting is going to happen. So partly I'm grateful for books, libraries, authors, literacy all those wonderful things that make reading possible. Also, I'm hopeful that my stories will elicit similar feelings in my readers.

I'm a readie (like a foodie, only smarter) (79/100)

Someone asked me last week what I like to read. Answering with 'everything' seemed too undiscerning so I mumbled something about 'all sorts'. Reading is a lot like eating. Right now I'm savouring a large dish of early 20th century literature in the form of On Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. Although I'm enjoying it, I'm beginning to crave a light, fluffy YA fantasy for dessert.

My husband said my slogan should be 'been there, read that'. He's probably right and I don't mind being widely read. It annoys the members of my book club so much so that I'm now in charge of collating the others' to-read lists into three varied choices each month. To this end, I was reading a list of the best book club books on GoodReads. I had read 45 out of the top 50 on the list.

For me books are as vital and varied as food, so what is your preferred meal/genre?

Look, new books! (11/100)

I picked up a book at school yesterday, of which I expected to skim through only the first ten or twenty pages, then put back on the shelf when my next student arrived for our meeting. I actually ended up creating a library account for myself, despite being based in the school library for over a year, and taking the book home. Now I'm fifty pages in. Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is interesting, thought-provoking and hopefully useful for being more mindful and happy. Then this afternoon on our way back through the city to the car my husband and I stumbled on a used book sale in a public square. We let ourselves buy two new books even though there isn't room on the current bookshelf for them. Pleasure is reading a stimulating book and knowing other books are there waiting for me.

'A very stubborn person'

I like Keith Johnstone observation in Impro: Improvisation and Theatre that to be very stubborn to be an artist. I think this idea will give me a reason to keep trying to publish rather than giving in to despair and frustration after my next rejection. Who are they to tell me I can't be a writer? I know I'm doing what I'm meant to be doing; I can feel it.
Another thing I've learned about writing from Johnstone's book is about status. He talks about how pretty much all interactions between people (and often between people and objects) is about status. There are behavioural and vocal indicators of high or low status, and often people are jockeying for their preferred position. This will help me to write scenes between characters in my stories. It's something I knew, but hadn't put consciously into words before.
Johnstone's book is making me think about how similar writing fiction is to doing improv (something I've done in the past). The context/back-story of the characters is like the setting or other suggestions given by the audience to the improv actor. From that, the writer creates the interaction and moves the plot along with similar freedom and constraints as actors on stage builds the scene.

Lessons from books

I have had several very different lessons from the books I've read recently that I don't want to forgot.

From Half of the Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie I've learnt about the attempted independence of the Igbo people in Nigeria and the resulting civil war during the 1960s. This has made me think about how cruel and violent people are towards one another and the deprivations of war. However, one of the main characters becomes someone who finds small things to laugh at in life despite its horror, which I also think is a valuable lesson. So I'm torn between feeling immense sadness and despair at the state of the world and enormous gratitude for the ease and blessings of my life.

I've just started Andre Agassi's Open in which he often says 'control what you can control'. The subtext of this is don't worry about the rest. This is useful partly because I'm a natural worrier, and partly because it fits my attitude to our marriage and my writing getting published. I often catch myself wondering nervously about our marriage sinking back to where one of us decides it needs to end, particularly if we're tired, stressed or sick and haven't been very communicative or loving towards each other. I can only do what I can do, I can't actually change my husband or his state of mind; I have to remember this. In terms of writing, I can keep writing the stories I feel inspired to tell in the best way I can, then I have to wait for the agents, publishers and magazines I send it to, to take the next step. It's a lesson in patience and letting go. Also, Agassi's book talks a lot about doing something you hate as a job of career, which reinforces that I do not want to be someone who goes to work hating my job everyday and resenting the hours I'm there. This seems especially unfair if you're working with children. Therefore, leaving my school and doing other things this year was the right decision.

Finally, I'm also reading The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman. He advises that when things don't work, like a new TV or an unfamiliar shower, it's a problem with the design. He suggests when you pick something up and figure out how to use it right away it's because someone has worked hard to design it well. This comes at the end of a chapter describing why people shouldn't beat themselves up over not being able to use a complicated new phone system or program a VCR (to use some slightly archaic examples). Also, it hints at how we can be a bit more mindful about the items we use for mundane tasks and feel appreciation for the objects that make our life easier (and for the people who designed the objects well).

To finish or not to finish?

I am reading a brick-sized book at the moment and I think I'm almost defeated. I used to have a rule that I had to finish any book I started, but when I told my mum about it she pointed out that there are so many great books out there, why spend time reading not-great ones. Now I'm getting bogged down in the middle of an enormous tome. I enjoy most of the book, but there are a litany of reasons I'm starting to give myself not to continue: I've renewed it twice already, I don't really care about any of the characters, I don't feel like I'm learning anything (personal or about writing) from the book, it's so big that I can't read it in bed, I've read another quick book just for a break from the drama of this book and I have a book club book I'm supposed to read. But then this little, stubborn voice says, 'You don't want to give up on it, do you?' In principle I like finishing things I start, even if they have no greater significance than my own principles. In this case that's kind of annoying.