Adjectives Can be a Nuisance

I substituted in a second grade class the other day. Their language arts for the day was learning about adjectives. The flowery descriptive adjectives they were coming up with made me cringe.

As far as I'm concerned, adjectives--and adverbs too--can be a bit of a nuisance. It is so much more important to dig for powerful nouns and verbs to put your point across. Instead of writing a long skinny dog with floppy ears and a pointy nose, why not use the word dachshund, then everyone will know what you're talking about.

Let Me Make Myself Perfectly Clear

Sometimes we assume that young children have an understanding of things that we as adults consider elementary.

This week I substituted in a third grade class. The science assignment was to study two paintings and to list the things in the picture that are living and the things that are non-living. When I first read the assignment, I thought, how simple can it get. Was I surprised.

Many of the children struggled with the distinction between living and non-living. "Mrs. M., is sky living? Are clouds? They move." "No, the sky and clouds are not living." "Are mountains?" "Well, some of the things on the mountains are living, like bushes and grass, but mountains are basically rock and dirt. They aren't living." And so it continued.

When we work with children, or write for children, the challenge is to make sure they not only understand what you're trying to say but also don't misunderstand you. How do you do that without talking down t them?

Happy Creative Halloween

Happy Halloween! I subbed today at an elementary school. The kids were all so excited and looked fantastic in their Halloween costumes. I was especially drawn to the costumes that were obviously put together by creative families, using a minimum of materials. What fun it is to see what you can come up with out of what you have around the house.

Ahhhhhhh!

Last Saturday my sweet daughter and her family invited me to go fishing with them. We spent the morning sitting in a boat in the middle of Payson Lake enjoying the beautiful fall day. It was so quiet, so peaceful, so relaxing. Whenever I think about it, I still get a warm fuzzy feeling.

I even achieved one of the items on my "bucket list." I saw a bald eagle, flying across a backdrop of evergreen pine trees. Awesome!

Being in nature always brings out the creative streak in me. Just sitting in that boat surrounded by such beauty, I was itching to have a notebook and pen to write, write, write!

Ask Questions

A good way to blast through "writer's block" is to ask questions. What would happen if...? How would it feel to...? What's another way to do this? Or describe this? Or solve this problem? What's another way to say this, other than use a tired old cliche?

I substituted in a junior high technology class the other day. The reading assignment had to do with innovation and invention. 

I wanted the class to get a tiny taste of what innovation means, so I held up a paper towel and asked the students to come up with different ways of using that paper towel.

At first they kind of just looked blankly at me, but gradually the ideas started come and before long it was hard to stop the overflowing creativity.

Not a bad little exercise to try to jump start the brain into writing fresh, exciting material.

Being Creative Means Taking Risks

http://hbr.org/2008/09/how-pixar-fosters-collective-creativity/ar/1

I really like this article in Harvard Business Review entitled "How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity."

The author, Ed Catmull, wrote: "Pixar is a community in the true sense of the word. We think that lasting relationships matter, and we share some basic beliefs: Talent is rare. Management’s job is not to prevent risk but to build the capability to recover when failures occur. It must be safe to tell the truth."

The creative process of making a movie, he says, involves the creative input of a host of people. It's the sum result of tens of thousands of ideas.

The same holds true in writing a book. When a person reads a book, she isn't consciously aware of the number of ideas and choices make up that book. It's really quite staggering. The selection of each scene, each trait of each character--yes, even each sentence and word--is the result of the author's conscious choice.

Creating a movie, says Catmull, is all about being scared; it's about taking risks. Again, the same holds true in writing books. Will our burst of imagination be understood by the reader? Appreciated? It's the chance we must take.

Take Time to Day Dream

Why is it when you get older you think there's something wrong with daydreaming? I think daydreaming is a marvelous mini-vacation that we can take. It's refreshing. It's rejuvenating. What's wrong with escaping from reality for a few minutes and letting our mind soar? It's great for boosting creativity.