Cool Words.

Crafty
Sheepish
Mien
Brassy
Suss
Outlandish

Netflix for Books.

Even though I'm a writer, I keep a check on the books I acquire. 

I used to have shelves heaving with volumes; but over the years, I've pared down to favorites and frequented the library.

But, in an age of cutbacks, libraries can't keep the newest titles--or most obscure--titles on the shelves.  And though it's tempting, I don't own a Kindle or iPad.

Enter Bookswim: bestsellers delivered to your door.

Check it out:  http://www.bookswim.com/plans.html.

Cool Words.

Caul
Lush
Conax
Saucy
Imprinteur

Setting the World Right.

My longtime pal Annie introduced me to the Fibonnaci Sequence.  My newer pal Gordon confirmed it as "math in motion."

It's kinda complicated.  Google it.

But in short, it's about aesthetics.

Stuff that adheres to the FS please the eye.  That includes many things in nature--spiraling shells, flower petals, pine cones--and in our man-made universe--the layout of a room, the design of a business card, a patterned sweater.  Even tattoos.

Things that don't make us a bit squirrelly because they just don't "feel" right.

Then there's the Gruen Transfer.  It refers to a psychological phenomenon of how a store's intentionally confusing layout causes us to...zone out.  We forget what we came for and become impulse buyers.

Some of us, overwhelmed, simply bolt.

Interesting to discover both these concepts in the same week.  Underpins the idea that we are all susceptible to cues and spatial arrangement.

If-Then Solution, Part 2.

Got an interesting reply to the last post.  Here it is:

I concur with you, Suzanne, that the Psychology Today article shed a clear light on a very effective "getting things done" method.

The author, Heidi Grant Halvorstan, is a research psychologist. She has a new book on findings related to goals, setting and attaining.

It is easy to miss the very subtle power of the if-then solution. David Allen, the Getting Things Done productivity guru, makes the same point in his critique of "to do lists," which are generally a accumulations of "amorphous blobs of undoability."

The if-then solution works if we break the "if" down into a specific situation or and exact time/date and we break the "then" down to a specific action.

Oh, but how reluctant we are to take these steps.

Dan Damerville
Professor, English
Communications and Humanities Division
Tallahassee Community College

Creative Mortification.

In the February issue of O magazine Peggy Orenstein writes about unleashing creativity.

She was struck by the idea of creative mortification, a term "so evocative I will carry it with me to my grave." 
I found myself nodding as she described moments when a burgeoning interest and a meaningful insight in music, sports or science were struck down with a too-harsh evaluation. 

Such humbling evaluations result in shame, researchers say.  Shame that often stops us cold from doing what we loved. 

Step one to reclaim creativity?  Jettison shame.

Read the story here:   http://www.oprah.com/spirit/How-to-Unleash-Your-Creativity/1