Life of SurprisesAplenty and plans for the future

I am unemployed.

I am looking for work and a white-skinned English speaker in Korea with a clean record will always find work.  I would prefer to work at a university, as I have for more than 12 years, but I will to settle in the short term for more ... work.

A quick discussion of ESL teaching at a Korean university:   Honestly and sadly, the single best part of being a 'professor' (some universities bestow that title, while others stick with the more honest 'instructor') is how little there is.
At my last university, I worked twelve to sixteen hours a week, thrity weeks a year.  Those were class-time hours and I had other duties, but they weren't scheduled and repetition reduced their volume greatly.  And naturally, I worked off campus, but when I wanted a month or two to do something else, I had it, and was paid.
The students were polite and many, even most, wanted to learn but few were driven or excited by the non-major, mandatory ESL classes.
At children's after-school classes, the English being displayed was not much lower than that of my uni students; the biggest difference was that, instead of being too active and disruptive in class, my uni students were too sleepy.
Teaching at an extended learning school for adults was great; the students were eager and since they were paying, they focused on the material and tried to use English.  On the other hand, classes for adults are scheduled early and late; I used to teach 6:30 to 12:00 pm and again in the evening 5:00 to 9:30pm.

Back to me and this blog.

I want to be a professional writer.  I am trying to write every day but it is so easy to leave my writing for later and later until there is no more later left and I go to sleep. This is my chance to see if I can do it.  I've completed Nanowrimo a few times but I haven't completed a book.
I started this blog because I was curious about what it means to be creative.  It became a diary and study notes on creativity research.  I want this blog to continue in these functions but advice from authors and creatives is that I need to be in the public eye and producing interesting content as a way to promote my style or brand or self so that a future, hypothetical book will sell the first few copies.
There is an author I follow on Twitter and I have mentioned this person on my blog, how recycles posts. This probably means the author has more time to write the books that pay the bills but I think it reduces the value of the author's social media outreach.  I digressed lengthily on ESL teaching so I'll save my thoughts on social media outreach for another post, but I want my posts here to be fun, to be of Goldilocks length and not to get in the way of my book writing.

Here are my ideas.  As I work these out, I will likely assign specific days to  individual ideas but for now, I will work through the list once or a few times to see how they work out.

Creativiti ideas:

Clickbait answers and guesses I have found links and suggestive images as 'promoted content' at the bottom of various blogs. They are often of the, "How did this woman become a millionaire at age 25?" and a picture of a woman showing a whole lot of leg in a luxury car.  I am going to see if I can guess how or why "Doctors don't want you to see this video!"  I may actually follow the link and read or watch that video but I don't think I need to.

Exploring Incheon I am unemployed because my wife was transferred to a new city, Incheon, and I followed her here. In my fifteen-odd years in Korea, I have visited Incheon only once so now I can be a tourist again and explore a city that is far less grimy than I had been led to believe.  This will not necessarily be 'creative' but perhaps my photos will be of exhibition quality.

TWIC Naturally, I will continue This Week In Creativity, where I post a number of links to relevant material.  In the past, this has been to author's blogs, archives of public domain images and somewhat scientific articles on the study of creativity.

Evolution I have another blog, one focused on evolution and creationism.  I will try to post material there on a weekly basis and post a link to this blog for anyone interested in the subject.

Education Can you teach someone to be creative? Can you teach so as not to damage your student's creativity?  I have written on the subject before (and given lectures and seminars on the subject) and you can expect more of the same.

Animals I was joking earlier about 'exhibition quality' photos.  I have some eye for framing but my images are typically more educational than stylish or artistic.  Still, when you take a lot of pictures, a few turn out pretty well.  Expect images of local animals here.

Book reviews As a wannabe writer, reading is a good way to learn the craft.  I read a lot but tend to skim through a book. Case in point, despite all my reading, I still have trouble with basic grammar and punctuation.  I don't expect this to become a grammar blog but I will write about ideas found in different books and how the authors describe things.

So, these are my goals.  Let's see what happens!

TWIC: self-diagnosis of epilepsy and whole lot more!

This summer, I noted the absence of two medical complaints that had appeared and disappeared mysteriously.

This condition started, I think, during a bout of food poisoning. between races to the toilet, I would relax and fall asleep. The dream would get weird and very realistic and I felt strong dejavu. Then my stomach would tighten and I would awaken trying to remember the dream.
But trying to remember also seemed like a trigger. For the next few years, I would be daydreaming and sometimes my train of thought would take me to a buried memory and as I tried to recall it, suddenly my stomach would cramp, I would feel weak and have trouble standing – just too tired. Then it would go away. I would get maybe five episodes over a day or a day and half and those episodes would start very intense but fade. I distinctly remember two things. 1) being afraid to remember something for fear it would trigger another attack and 2) trying to remember the scene or event that tantalized just before the attack.

I still don't know why they started or stopped but a writer being interviewed at A.C. Fuller's excellent Writer 2.0 podcast described having similar symptoms.  Turns out, deja vu can be caused by epilepsy!  At epilepsy.com, Mikey4 writes:

...tip me off to possible temporal lobe epilepsy after searching around a bit. They generally last about 10-20 seconds and are not accompanied by the same dread, or stomach discomfort, or fear, or happiness that seems to be common with many TLE patients, but they're also momentarily quite strong (and frustrating!) for me.

Kristin Seaborg, a doctor and the author interviewed by Fuller described similar sensations in her interview.  I don't know what this means for me. Seaborg was free of symptoms for many years so my current period without episodes doesn't mean that much.  Well, if I have another episode, I will know what to suggest to the doctor.

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There are a lot of books and more that claim to improve a person's creativity.  I still don't know if any of them work but many of them have been handy and useful in my ESL classes if lacking in other value.  Working to link disparate words in the Central Word activity requires the creation of new sentences and, well, might improve creativity.

Luminosity's Brain Training games are now known not to cause cognitive improvement and the company has been fined millions for making such claims.

“Lumosity preyed on consumers’ fears about age-related cognitive decline, suggesting their games could stave off memory loss, dementia, and even Alzheimer’s disease,” FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Jessica Rich said in a statement. “But Lumosity simply did not have the science to back up its ads.”

Again, I think lateral thinking puzzles and such can work as homework and improve fluency, so I'm happy to link to these examples.

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This link might be the same as I recently gave regarding mnemonics, but it is via another source.  Joshua Foer via Kottke.

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Sci Am says the key to creative greatness appears to be doing things differently, even when that leads to failure.

It’s a great myth that creative geniuses consistently produce great works.

They don’t. In fact, systematic analyses of the career trajectories of people labeled geniuses show that their output tends to be highly uneven, with a few good ideas mixed in with many more false starts. While consistency may be the key to expertise, the secret to creative greatness appears to be doing things differently—even when that means failing.

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So how are creative masterminds so successful, if they don’t really know what they’re doing? Simonton’s extensive analysis of geniuses found two major factors to be critical in explaining the creative process of geniuses. First, creative geniuses simultaneously immerse themselves in many diverse ideas and projects. Second, and perhaps even more important, they also have extraordinary productivity. Creators create. Again and again and again. In fact, Simonton has found that the quality of creative ideas is a positive function of quantity: The more ideas creators generate (regardless of the quality of each idea), the greater the chances they would produce an eventual masterpiece.

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Last year, I took a free creativity class online from Stanford University.  Going into it, I decided to adopt a 'student's mind'; that is, I worked to be positive and open to new ideas and to restrain my  sarcasm.  I was wise to do that and should keep working on the practice. 

Giving others the benefit of the doubt, then, may not invite deception; it instead seems to pay off—literally, Stavrova says: “So in most places in the U.S. and western Europe, being less cynical might be a better way to go.”

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During the course, the professor lauded open offices.  I was skeptical at the time but they sure look nice.  Turns out, open offices are mostly terrible.

Maria went to a school with an open design. "Distracting at best and frustrating at worst," she writes, "wide-open classrooms went, for the most part, the way of other ill-considered architectural fads of the time, like concrete domes. The biggest problem with an open design, she writes, is noise. I agree with that. Wired magazine had an open plan and the constant noise and interruptions made it impossible to do actual work there

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Con artists are master story tellers.

The lies described here were such that people feared to question them.  When a young woman in front of the Winnipeg bus station told me she needed money to go home, I was suspicious and didn't give her any.  If she had claimed sexual assault, I would have felt terrible if I were to ask questions or ask for proof.

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Mark Frauenfelder has a course available on Skillshare.  I am sure it is a good one but I am more interested in the proliferation of online classes.  I have taken classes through Coursera and others that offer them from universities even though the classes don't always include university credit.  Skillshare doesn't seem to have any connection to universities.

Skillshare is a terrific online learning community for creative people. It teaches you new skills through well-made videos with great production values. I've been using Skillshare to teach myself Adobe After Effects. All the videos feature people who are professionals in their field. I love this site.

I found a cheap set of classes -also from Boingboing (Frauenfelder writes there) on public relations and the like.  I also registered for classes from 'goodriter' which were briefly free.  I'll be sure to describe what i think of their value once I find time to take them. I don't feel online classes have to be from a university to be valuable but I do trust the content more -even after describing my concerns with the creativity class I took. Does my reader (is it too much to hope for readers?) have any opinion on such classes?
Added Later: The Boingboing-promoted courses were with Stack Social and the goodriter classes were with Udemy.

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Justin Green was a comic, uh, maker?  Author?  He made comics. They didn't pay the bills.  He went on to make signs in the final days of hand-lettering and hand-painting such things.  Then he wrote comics on the subject.  His comics are here.

The early strips tell how Green found his footing; including the one-thousand hours required to brush a perfect “O.” In later strips he requested techniques and stories from veteran brushmen. They offered priceless knowledge like how to mix your paint so it stays put under the hot sun or how much arm-twisting to apply when a client lets an invoice sit for too long. Some of these sign painters became recurring characters in “Sign Game,” and a few died during its run leaving these strips – and a few fading signs – as their final memorial.

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Make a bicycle out of two Ikea stools!

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Escape rooms are the new thing.  Earlier, I wrote about Altered Reality Games, a presentation I enjoyed from the 2015 International KOTESOL Conference.  They seem to have a few things in common.

...we met the six other players we were going to be locked in a room with. After a staff member explained the rules (no phones, no bathroom breaks, no brute force attacks on combination locks) we were led into a small room with a long table and a wall of old books. The door was locked behind us. We had one hour to figure out how to unlock the door and get out.
This is the smallest escape room yet, I thought. Were we going to spend an hour cramped together in here? I put the thought out of my head as I joined the others in going over the clues that would lead to the solving of the various puzzles. It didn't take long for us to crack the first puzzle. As soon as we did, one of the walls slid away to reveal a much larger room: the mysterious laboratory of of the Alchemist, an unseen evil being who was in the final stages of concocting a Philosopher's Stone to take over the world. It was our job to foil the Alchemist by solving a series of puzzles that would unite the elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water and let us escape from the room before our time ran out.

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I am still working on my steampunk book set in 1830's Italy (and elsewhere) and secret societies play a big part.  Boingboing describes a book of Secret Society art.

What is made most apparent is how deeply these societies are entangled with folk elements. Images of death and resurrection abound, as do beehives, goats, and of course the all-seeing eye. There is esoteric lore and mystery layered with mystery. As David Byrne says in his foreword to the book, “The obscuring layers are the content.” And yet, the humble often outsider nature of the examples in this book reveal the most startling truth about Freemasons and others secret societies: these are the homegrown fellowships of our ancestors, people looking for fraternity and the warmth of a lodge, often during our country’s most difficult times. These were simple men and women, not the secret rulers of the universe.

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What is the next frontier for science fiction and fantasy?  Tyler Cowan, at Marginal Revolution, looks at an Economist article.  Briefly, the answers are caves and forest canopies.

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I love used book stores and hope they do make a comeback.

Maintaining momentum after Nanowrimo

Word count

Sat Dec 5: 544 words
Sunday, 0
Monday, Dec 7: 960 words
Tuesday, Dec 8: 730 words
Wednesday, Dec 9: 438 words*
Thursday, Dec 10: 591 words

Some Nano authors in Korea are posting their website and blogs on the Nanowrimo in Korea Facebook page and I thought I would mention them here.

Evydraws - and also writes, i presume
Simon writes, too.
Marcus Medina is nearly done and ready to publish his book.  I think it is a sequel to Yscariot: Neo-Alpha.
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I'm a fan of AC Fuller's Writer 2.0 podcast and he recently had Helen Sedgwick, an author and lawyer, on his show to talk about various legal issues.  Among other things, she offers a free set of instructions for asking music companies for permission to use lyrics in a book.  This information is specific to the US but probably broadly applicable elsewhere.
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My understanding of genre writing versus literature is that literature is more character-driven while genre writing is more plot-driven.  I'm not big on divisions myself, but that's a fair starting point to understand the differences.  If you are worried about plot, Angela Meadon has a post on planning and organizing your plot.

The story is set in a world similar to ancient north west Africa and the plot is loosely based on the fall of the Wagadu Empire. I realised, about 37,000 words in, that I was quickly loosing track of my characters and their goals were getting fuzzy. I didn’t know where the novel was going.
I wasn’t prepared to throw out the whole thing and start again, because I think I have some good work in there and I’m not prepared to give up those words. Not yet.
What did I do? I read.
Step One
I started with a revision of the Heroes Journey, the 12-step structure of mythical stories that just about every novel I can name adheres to. The official definition, from the link above, is:

[-deleted - follow the link for it]
I got out some colorful pencils and sketched it out for myself:
[-deleted image - follow the link for it]
Step Two
The next thing I did was to write out my plot according to the three act structure.
This is very important, I wanted my story to have a tight, compelling and satisfying structure. I want readers to be drawn in by the flow of the story as the characters move through the world. I needed to make sure that I had my three acts properly laid out from the beginning.

Seriously, there is good stuff at that link - at all of them, really, so click on over once you have finished reading my drivel.
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*438 words is not only less than my intended minimum but I also threw out a few hundred words of yesterday's output as well.  In addition, I had typed more in Ommwriter and accidentally hit CTRL V instead of CTRL C.  Ommwriter doesn't have an 'undo' button.  After cursing to myself, I rewrote that bit.

writing and blogging

Word count:

Thurs, Dec 3: 554 words
Fri, Dec 4: 574 words

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How do you describe a blog? This is almost the entire post - something I am uncomfortable pasting - but the author did ask for input, so I guess or hope that gives me the leeway to share the content.  For crying out loud, answer the question with me, so it is clear I am sharing and not taking!

But there is more too it [a blog and blogging] than that. A blog is not just about a place for the author to broadcast, it is also a place for conversation. To be a blogger is to be a part of a community of the bloggers. Different types of blogs have different cultures. The blog-o-sphere isn’t one thing. It is not something that can simply be identified.
...
We could think of a blog as a living thing. Something that is fed – primarily by the blog author – but also by those who choose to comment. Those who engage in conversation also feed the blog, encouraging the author to continue.
I have a challenge ahead of me. I want to blog as dissertation. I want to blog as data collection. But before I can do that, I need to define what a blog is. I need to define it for the lay person who is note familiar with technology. I also need to define it for my community. I need to define it for an external examiner. I need to someone make static the dynamic and living thing that is a blog.
And so, I ask my readers, how do you define a blog? What are the ‘things’ that make a blog a blog, rather than a website or a personal public journal? What makes a blog a unique digital media?

I don't think a blog can fully be described as " a journal or log that is online" even if that is the origin of the name - weB  + LOG = 'blog'.  It is used as a journal but for so much more.  I personally have six or seven currently in use and I use most simply as a simple form of content storage online.

"Six or seven blogs!", you say incredulously.  "What the heck?"

Well, three of them contain content for classes I teach.  I am uncertain how easy it would be for you to find them as I originally set them as private.  Privacy settings change all the time.  Anyway, I am not offering links. The blogs are filled with Powerpoint and Google Slides that I can use in class with the link but without signing in.  I don't like to use my password on university computers for fear of keyloggers or other password gathering malware.

So those three were in roughly chronological order but exist now only as storage.

I infrequently post content on my evolution proponent page where I argue against creationist talking points. I focus on easily rebutted creationist claims in the hope that creationists would see my simple responses and move on to new or less outdated arguments.  That's a lot to expect from a fourth rate blog by a third rate biologist. Still, I enjoy writing there.  It is not topical in the way I expect a 'proper blog' to be.

My blog Gangwon Notes was my original blog and it was my signature effort.  I was one of only a few English speakers in the rural province of Gangwondo, South Korea, so I had the niche to myself.  It was a mix of wildlife and nature posts, ESL discussion and local news and events.

This blog is focused on my efforts to be creative and also be a place for me to store research and inspiration from other creative people.

So, I have now described my blogs as places for: storage, PPT and educational resources, daily events, news, a space for argument and persuasion, and as a scrapbook.  I feel a 'real blog' should consist only of daily events and news, scrap-booking and persuasion.  It shouldn't primarily be a place for online storage.  Why I feel this way, I cannot fully say, but it feels to me like using a screwdriver as a bottle opener -it works but isn't designed for it.

TWIC: How I should be titling my posts...

Wordpress and a few other sites run a 'better blogging' article every few months.  I do hope that others read this blog and get something useful from it, but it mostly seems a storehouse for things I find interesting.  SEO isn't that interesting to me and I don't make money from this blog.  Still it is number four on this list, Number five: use at least one image for each post, is one I really need to remember.
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Another recurring them is 'routines of famous creative people'.  Here is an example from Business Insider.

A.J. Jacobs: “Force yourself to generate dozens of ideas.”
In an interview for the series How I Write, Jacobs talks about his daily writing routines and dishes out some advice for young writers …
My kids wake me up. I have coffee. I make my kids breakfast, take them to school, then come home and try to write. I fail at that until I force myself to turn off my Internet access so I can get a little shelter from the information storm.
I am a big fan of outlining. I write an outline. Then a slightly more detailed outline. Then another with even more detail. Sentences form, punctuation is added, and eventually it all turns into a book.
I write while walking on a treadmill. I started this practice when I was working on Drop Dead Healthy, and read all these studies about the dangers of the sedentary life. Sitting is alarmingly bad for you. One doctor told me that “sitting is the new smoking.” So I bought a treadmill and put my computer on top of it. It took me about 1,200 miles to write my book. I kind of love it — it keeps me awake, for one thing.

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Ani Alexander interviewed Gabriela Pereira.  I think both are writers.  I've kept the tab open for a while so I guess I think it's important.  You know what? This cold that I have that is sucking all my energy away from me is kinda important right now.  If I felt better, maybe I wouldn't be snarky about this:
Quote 1: There are no accidents in writing.
Quote 2: Every word should be in your writing for a reason.
Is it the virus talking or do these kinda contradict each other? Pereira has a book out next spring called DIY MFA.
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The Washington Post discusses why America's obsession with STEM is dangerous.

If Americans are united in any conviction these days, it is that we urgently need to shift the country’s education toward the teaching of specific, technical skills. ... and about new initiatives from companies, universities or foundations to expand STEM courses (science, technology, engineering and math) and deemphasize the humanities.

I think Fareed Zakaria has started with some confusion. Engineering definitely fits the description of "specific technical skills" but Science and Math do not. The big difference is that the latter two are ways of looking at the world and fit this description (intended for liberal arts): " A broad general education helps foster critical thinking and creativity. Exposure to a variety of fields produces synergy and cross fertilization." He also describes 'design' as outside of STEM.  I don't understand why he thinks this.

What the Hell does this mean?

One final reason to value a liberal education lies in its roots. For most of human history, all education was skills-based. Hunters, farmers and warriors taught their young to hunt, farm and fight. But about 2,500 years ago, that changed in Greece, which began to experiment with a new form of government: democracy.

Science people can't understand democracy?  I would say scientific training is what allows people to test political claims and improves democracy.
As Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi found, science enriches art but art doesn't empower science.

I think Zakaria has a point about Engineering and over specialization in education. The majors at my university are ridiculously specific and I wonder what will happen to the students in my Bodyguard class - seriously, that's an actual major my university offers.

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The CBC short story Prize is available to be won.  Entries are due by Nov 1.  You might have to be Canadian.  I'm using my sick-card to justify not having read the information at the link.

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Misbehavior In School Pays Off For Some Students. I don't know if this relates to creativity at all but it might.  Certainly, previous research on teachers showed the most creative ones typically made trouble.

when we recognize that misbehavior in the classroom can be reflective of two very different non-cognitive skills—externalizing and internalizing behaviors—a much more nuanced story emerges. Both of these characteristics are associated with lower schooling attainment. However, whereas internalizing behaviors, like being unforthcoming, depressive or withdrawn, predict lower earnings, externalizing behaviors, such as aggression, predict higher earnings. In other words, the externalizing factor lowers schooling attainment, but appears to have value in the labor market. This finding calls into question the role of schooling in identifying and cultivating skills that are productive.

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David Malki retweeted something from Farooq Butt that I like.  I hope the embedding works.

The most important thing creators do. From "How to Fly a Horse" pic.twitter.com/gmUosjAnIT

— Farooq Butt (@fmbutt) September 23, 2015

Crossposting: Summer plans

I have too many blogs.  Here I write about creativity and writing.  At creationevolutionbusan, I write about evolution and science. And at surprisesaplenty.wordpress.com, I write about other subjects, mostly family life, teaching and travel.

At the Surprisesaplenty site, I wrote this:

This summer I appear to have a lot of free time.  I hope to work an ESL camp in August and have a few other commitments but essentially I have time to work on my own projects.  Most of these projects deal with writing.

Writing Plans and Goals:

• 13 blogposts for 6,500 words.  Why 13?  I can't recall why I chose this number.  Somewhat more than two a week, I guess.
• 3 short stories: Working titles are 1) Ants, 2) Vampire on a boat and 3) Hyperbaric Chamber.  I'm figuring 2,000 words each
• Push forward one or all three of the books I have started and let sit.  30,000 words is the goal and I don't mind jumping from book to book as seems fit. Working titles are 1) Return of the Haloed Hunter, 2) the Distancing Engine and 3) Creationism's worst arguments
• 2 letters per week to friends.  Around ten letters and 2,000 words.
• Perform research and planning for future "Crowded Sky" story. As much as 5,000 words.

To keep the writing interesting, I have made further goals.

• I want to write over the course of a full day.  That is, at least once in the month write from 12:00 to 1:00 AM, once from 1:00 to 2:00AM ...
• I want to write in a variety of locations.  The local mountaintop has a good table. There are some nice libraries to write in.  I'll talk about coffee shops in a moment.  Eulsookdo Eco Centre might be a nice place to work in for an afternoon.
• Soundtrack: I may use Ommwriter which has its own soundtrack but otherwise it will be autoplayed classical music starting with some Janecek and letting Youtube suggest from there. Away from Internet connections, Doug and the Slugs and other 80's music would work; the tunes are so familiar that they can be white noise or a fun background as needed.

Snacks: I bought snacks for my Nanowrimo writing and I will definitely eat in front of the computer but I need to show restraint here.  My weight is slowly dropping and I want to keep it going in that direction.  Controlling my weight is my greatest concern this summer.

Fitness:

• 18 runs with an average of 7.0 km.  I hope to attempt a solo half-marathon this summer late one evening and have been working out the course and where to place energy drinks along the way.  I am currently at 96 runs over the past six months so only the weather could prevent reaching this goal.
• Run faster than a subway train.  The local subway stations Seo-dae-shin and Dong-dae-shin are about 500 meters apart and the train takes 2:35 seconds from doors open at Seo- to doors closed at Dong-.  Further, this route is slightly downhill.  I can easily run this fast on a level surface but Seo-dae-shin is deep underground. I have no qualms or conscience problems about using the escalators but even with that assistance, there is a big climb at the start of the run.
• Swim 2km at a time. Korean pools are crowded with conversationalists and it is hard to get an unbroken swim in.  I am likely to need to stop a the end of a lane a few times.  Today, I did 1250m, with breaks and could have gone farther.
• Find 3 snorkeling places in and near Busan
• For at least 6 days, eat three meals, plus one snack plus one sweet drink.  I snack a lot and plan to spend a lot of time in front of a computer so this will be a challenge.

Education:  I am enrolled in 3 MOOCS.

• The Bilingual Brain
• Modern Korean History
• Archaeology of Portus

Family

• Teach my son to swim.
• Go on a weekend trip with the family. I would prefer a swimming site but that is negotiable.
• Read two books with my son.  I don't want this to be a purely teaching experience but one we both enjoy.  Tintin is a good contender here.
• Work on the farm.

A good day to Nanowrimo

I am currently at nearly 2,400 words for the day and am satisfied with the progress.  Now, I have to focus on how to end it all.  The story, I mean.

I found a fellow K-blogger's posts on his nanowrimo exploits from days-past.  Liminality 1, 2, 3, 4.

From the first link:

 ... ending that features lightsaber-wielding penguins in the catacombs beneath the Vatican.

Since then, I've always wanted some unlikely foes to do battle 'in the catacombs beneath the Vatican.' This year, I might have a story line fits - if any does.  My story could have proto-Nazis fighting steampunk-powered Victorians and Yetis, in the catacombs, beneath the Vatican.

All the action so far has taken place in Asia - Nepal and Lake Baikal, Russia, so having them travel another 6500 km, to an entirely new continent, seems a little unwieldy.  We'll see - soon, I hope.
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I was curious about windows  open to internet sites.  I currently have 10 windows open, including the one i am typing in right now.  The two that responded, don't do research during the month, but perhaps after the month is down and during revision time.

Alternatives to Nanowrimo

Wordpress is offering two blogging U courses.  Blogging 101 and photos 101. Hurry, the  4 week classes start Monday!

Photography 101 is a photo-a-day challenge combining a daily photo theme with shooting and photo editing tips on composition, lighting, cropping, and more. You’ll publish new posts, make new friends, and hone your photographer’s eye. It’s also a great way for photobloggers to participate in NaBloPoMo this November. Charge your camera batteries and get ready to shoot!
For three years, I’ve tried to start a blog. Before Blogging 101, I never built enough momentum. Now, thanks to the accountability of regular assignments – and thanks to receiving such wonderful, encouraging feedback – I’ve reached the critical mass I needed.
Practicing My (Gray)ScalesBlogging 101 is a month of bite-size blogging assignments that take you from “Blog?” to “Blog!” Assignments help you publish posts, customize your blog, and engage with the community. You’ll walk away with published posts and a handful of drafts, a theme that reflects your personality, a small (but growing!) audience, a grasp of blogging etiquette — and a bunch of new friends.

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P.D. James has advice that seems a little counter to the Nanowrimo experience.  As part of her ten pieces of advice, she recommends

Never talk about a book before it is finished

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Alright, back to Nanowrimo stuff.  Scrivener is offering an extended free trial - til Dec 7 - so your work isn't lost at the end of the normal month-long trial.  I'm an Ommwriter fanatic, but Scrivener offers all the resources you may need.

Fastpencil also offers a discount to nano people.  It seems to be a resource for finishing and formatting your book for publishing.

I'm a little fearful, but mostly tired

I have three or four blogs, each focusing on individual subjects, and haven't posted in any of them for around a month (quickly checks this blog's output and finds a post from Aug 20 - c'mon, it was a short one).  Mostly, I've been trying to enjoy summer and keep my son busy enough not to drive me crazy.

The biggest productivity-killer for me is putting him to sleep.  He insists that I lay down next to him until he falls asleep.  Then I find myself so comfortable that I choose to stay there.  I often get up in the middle of the night but feel more like an consumer of internet content rather than a producer.

Anyway, I follow Margaret Atwood's on Twitter and she linked to a Terrible Minds post on the four fears that inhibit writing.  They are 1) Fears about a lack of talent, 2) Fear about feedback, 3) Fear about publication and 4) Fear about being judged.

I have to say that most of my published writing is in in-house magazines for the universities I worked at in Korea and I didn't have much fear about them.  I am proud of this article but in the hard-copy version there some odd editing and image placement choices that my colleagues kindly blamed on the magazine staff rather than me.

Now that I have am facing a higher bar regarding quality I am feeling the fears listed above.  I especially like the advice for dealing with the fear of being judged:

This makes your writing suck. The absolute best work you have in you is always going to be the stuff that’s closest to your heart, the stuff that’s absolutely the hardest to let another human being read. It’s risky to show people those deep and true parts of yourself, but life is risk. Look that fear in the eye, spit it in the face, and then write more effing words.

TWIC: how to- list, marketing and profitable blogging

Behance (via lifeblogger), has a list of 29 ways to stay creative.  The ideas are good but not profound.  The list shines in its presentation, which is one of my weaknesses.  The list covers a few things I am good at but mostly omits the work of creativity, which is another of my weaknesses.  #29 is Finish Something. The actual work of making or writing the dang thing.

A.C.F. Crawford, author of Sailor of the Skysea, has given me his book on digital format asked me to read and review it on Goodreads.  This is part of his marketing strategy.  Many authors are now offering a few of their first books for free to build up a readership before actually trying to sell one.  Scott Sigler (Wikipedia) is the one I'm most familiar with.  Even established publishers do this now with Baen offering the first book of several series' to get people interested in their worlds. Well, Baen is using the technique to re-introduce older authors and series. I like the idea except that it means even more work before seeing that first paycheck.  Self-publishing is a scary gig.

In the above two examples, I've discussed my aversion to work.  Colin Schultz's post appears, at first, to be more my style.  He describes how he writes each blog post in one hour and gets paid well for it.  On the other hand, he had to earn his chops (is that the right metaphor?) before he was offered a blogging position at the Smithsonian.  He specifically says that nobody he knows makes money with Google Ads and Wordpress or Blogger.

The core of his post is how to be successful at science blogging and this paragraph introduces all the elements:

Now, those two goals: to be right, and to be original, run smack into the biggest and most important constraint in this kind of quick turn-around blogging: time.

twic (7) Happy Darwin Day!

I follow Boingboing and nearly daily read Cory Doctorow opine on copyright issues.  Some time ago, Freakenomics got into the discussion with Who Owns the Words that Come Out of Your Mouth.  I hope I can quote this section:

DUBNER: Coming up on Freakonomics Radio: What is the going rate for a word once written or spoken aloud by Winston Churchill?
SINGER: I used 3,872 words of Winston Churchill’s in the book. And that cost me £950, which is roughly 40 cents a word.DUBNER: Hello, British copyright law! And, it turns out, Barry Singer is not the only one who doesn’t like it:
Rohan SILVA: We were having a coffee a few years ago with Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and they said to us that they’d been looking at the intellectual property regime in the U.K., and they thought that they actually couldn’t have started Google in the U.K.

The whole post -or listen to it as a podcast here - is interesting and Winston Churchill was a remarkable man, but the content is important to anyone who includes realgia in their writings.
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Daniel Fincke discusses writer's block at Camels with Hammers.  He also has been so busy that it has interfered with his blogging.  I know how he feels and want to get back to blogging daily.  Soon.  From a Fincke post on his schedule:

I’ve missed blogging a ton. I suffer something analogous to withdrawal when I don’t write every day. Tonight, soon as I get minimally settled at the new place, it will be time to make Camels With Hammers a daily blog again. Thanks to countless of you for your patience, loyal readership, and personal support these last few months. Please come by every day this week. It encourages me to write more!

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See Darwin's creative process in action.

These two drawings, separated by 22 years, are a perfect illustration of the creative process in scientific thought. On the left is the first ever evolutionary tree, and on the right is Darwin’s final tree from On the Origin of Species.When he sketched out this first tree, Darwin had already spent years coming up with and expanding on his idea of transmutation (what we call evolution). I think about this drawing as a proof, a way to visually evaluate what he had been mulling over for so many years. He used this figure to take a bunch of independent thoughts and pull them together to address one big question: how do the species we see today relate to species that existed in the distant past?

The author goes onto further detail, emphasizing Darwin's "I think" written at the top of his first drawing.  The man had the idea, the flash of genius, but needed time to test and adjust it before considering it complete.

The Friendly Atheist doesn't know how to write

Actually, his blog writing is great and many have recommended I Sold My Soul on E-Bay.

In a recent post on his blog, he wondered how people find time to write and what they wear...

I’ve been writing most of this book late at night when everybody else seems to be sleeping. Fewer distractions. Lots of time to concentrate. I’m better able to focus. And then I just pass out when the sun comes up. (Ah, the joys of being a teacher on break.)

But seriously. I don’t know how other people do it. Especially when they have real jobs and kids and lives.

It is easy to understand that the way to write is to sit down and write. Period.  It is also easy to understand that the best way to diet is to eat less and exercise more.  It sounds easy but most people need a way to trick themselves into getting into the right frame of mind.

Creative and content knowhow

Via Boingboing,  a link to an article on two types of knowledge, both important in the creation of new products.

The article features an air pistol with an air-pressure gauge built into the reservoir. The problem is, the gauge is at the end of the gun, directly below the barrel.  You must point the gun directly at your own forehead to check the pressure.

Technically, I don't think you could put the gauge on the side.  I am not sure where you could put it, but if a pistolry expert had spoken with the design expert, this design might have been cancelled.

I've got to scale back.

Not in the amount of content I produce but in the locations I place it.  I try to niche blog but find my interests to widely varied to fit in one blog.  Right now, I have nine blogs.  Five or six are classroom related - for communicating with students, two are general slice-of-Korean-life blogs and this one is about my attempts to learn about creativiti.

These days, I find myself writing only a few posts in a month.  Luckily, they tend to be long so I am producing some content, but I could do better.  Nanowrimo is coming and I have to get ready for that.

Boingboing has a post about setting a goal of 1000 words a day for your blog(s).  It is something I need to aim for.

This word count is not impossible. It’s about two pages of standard paper a day. At first, do not surpass this word count. This is an endurance race, not a sprint. The recommended dosage of 1,000 words a day is doable by the average writer, is a concrete number for you to strive toward, and is about as much as your audience can read in a day. Do not do less, either. This is a regimen. You need to get used to producing this much content quickly and without complaint. Consider using a speech recognition tool: you’ll be pounding out words without pounding on the keyboard. In fact, you’ll find that by speaking your posts you often write more than you originally intended.

This also brings up an important point: writing for blogs is conversational. 

Prezi and other site for students and teachers

Shelly Terrell's roundup of websites that allow students -and others - to create interesting content doesn't quite fit with the goals of this blog, but she does use the word, "creativity' in the title.

Here is a quote -laden with links that may not transfer over.  If you are interested, visit her site for -presumably- working links and more sites.

Top Sites to Get Students to Create

These are my favorites tools you can use to get your students presenting! Included is a brief description and helpful links to facilitate using these tools more effectively in the classroom. I have also included the links to the free educator accounts for each of these sites.

• Prezi-the alternative to PowerPoint. Create non-linear presentations with images, text, video, and cool transitions.
  • Prezi as a Presentation Tool wiki- Lists several tips, resources, and examples. You will also find useful information in integrating Twitter and other tools with Prezi.
  • Prezi templates
  • Work together in real time with Prezi Meeting post with great ideas!

not a guest blogger

You might notice that this post is by "surprises aplenty" rather than the usual "kwandongbrian". I used to work at Kwandong U, but no longer do so. I have changed gmail accounts and such to put that name behind me. Anyway, I am the same guy who wrote the previous posts.