#alice flaherty

[trendynewsnow]

The Impact of Pregnancy on Cognitive Processes in Reading and Writing

How Pregnancy Transforms the Reading and Writing Mind How does the experience of pregnancy reshape our cognitive abilities in reading and writing? I offer my own reflections for consideration. During the time I was pregnant with my daughter, I found myself engrossed in crafting a lengthy Google document of 295,233 words, yet my reading habits dwindled significantly. The fragments of my attention…

The Impact of Pregnancy on Cognitive Processes in Reading and Writing

[lanekluski-blog]

Dlaczego na dobre pomysły wpadamy pod prysznicem?

Dlaczego na dobre pomysły wpadamy pod prysznicem?

Jednym ze składników, bardzo istotnym do powstania kreatywności jest dopamina. Im więcej dopaminy, tym większa kreatywność. Jedna z najbardziej cenionych neurobiologów, Alice Flaherty, zajmująca się badaniami nad kreatywnością, wyjaśnia, że za kreatywność odpowiedzialny jest ten sam proces. (more…)

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[nightlightwriting-blog]

The drive to write produces a first draft; it is the drive to write well that produces the second, third, twentieth.

Alice W. Flaherty, The Midnight Disease

[nightlightwriting-blog]

Writers write every which way; the only ingredients their habits have in common is that having habits helps, and that, as a rule it's better not to be interrupted much. (Even this isn't universal. I like to work in a room where my family is milling about.)

Alice W. Flaherty, The Midnight Disease

[dimartblog]

Γιατί οι καλύτερες σκέψεις σάς έρχονται στο ντους

Γιατί οι καλύτερες σκέψεις σάς έρχονται στο ντους

Η δημιουργικότητα, η διάσπαση της προσοχής και η «περίοδος επώασης»

—του Josh Jones / Open culture | Μετάφραση για το dim/art: Γιώργος Θεοχάρης—

«Το μεγάλο Τάο ξεθωριάζει».

Έτσι αρχίζει μία μετάφραση του 18ου κεφαλαίου του Tao Te Ching. Η πρόταση αποτυπώνει την απογοήτευση που προξενείται από μια χαμένη αποκάλυψη. Είτε πρόκειται για κάτι που το κατανοείτε πλήρως όταν έχετε μόλις ξυπνήσει, είτε…

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[unfoldedbysurprise]

Motivation's Effects on Creativity

“How, specifically, does motivation affect creativity – both the generation and the editing of ideas? It matters where the drive comes from. All driven writers focus on their work. But people driven by intrinsic motivations such as curiosity and enjoyment have a relationship to the produce of their work different from those moved by extrinsic motivations including praise, money, and a constantly varying world of punishments. Someone who is fascinated by language attends to details and to the overall texture of a writing project more than she will is she is writing simply to satisfy the public. While strong intrinsic motivation increases creativity, surprisingly, adding extrinsic motivations – even positive ones – can actually decrease creativity. If that is true, paying a writer may paradoxically make him write less well. (As you might guess, I wouldn’t say that this means writers should not be paid) Reward may encourage the writer to stop work as soon as he or she has completed the minimal amount necessary for the reward, resulting in what the economist Herbert Simon calls satisficing. Extrinsic motivation may also have a negative effect on creativity by distracting the subject’s attention from the task to thoughts of reward or punishment.

This implies that the best way to foster creative writing is to give the writer freedom to work on a subject he loves.”

-Alice W. Flaherty

[junk-pile]

Ew

There is this weird thing that happens to me that makes me write horribly. I use idiotic, complicated words and sentence structures and write things like "it would behoove so-and-so" or "something with which he might find himself blah blah blah." You get the idea. I think it's anxiety. 

If I could use these structures in a seamless way, it would be better. But I don't, so the writing is clunky. I guess that's why people "edit." But further anxiety makes me edit and re-edit and re-edit until it's still not very good, because I can't get my head around how a normal, non-anxious person would hear it.

I think about 5% of the time, my writing flows in interesting, unforced ways. I'm still trying to figure out what substances I need to be on/how much sleep I need/what inspiration I need/what emotional pits I need to emerge from in order to get into this state.

The book The Midnight Disease addresses this issue somewhat, by the way. I recommend it. Oddly enough, there seems to be a rumor going 'round that depression causes good writing/makes you more creative. Um....it doesn't. Just wanted to clear that up.