Blog Musings

This blog will be on hiatus this month as I consider how best to manage it and what it will be about.  It needs to be reinvented.  As you can tell, I've had many ideas, but few of those have I stuck with.  I need to decide what this blog is about, and that will take time, especially as I take on other tasks during this last quarter of the year.  So, please bear with me while I do some blog musing.

Thanks,
Jodi

Creativity and the Circadian Rhythm

Are you a night owl or a morning person?  If you are a night person, you may want to try coming up with new fiction ideas and solving old ones in the morning.  If you are a day person, the best time is in the afternoon.  This data comes from Mareike Wieth and Rose Zacks as found in the article "To Speed Up The Creative Process, Slow Down" by Sam McNerney.  According to the research, it turns out you are better at creative thinking at non-peak times.

I found this information through a long and tangled path whose trail head began with Sue Shellenbarger's article "The Peak Time for Everything" and ended with Sam McNerny's.  But it was intriguing enough to make me wonder how true this is and which person I am.  I feel that I am a natural night owl, but because of my career, I have been forced into a day-time rhythm.  As for as creative ideas go, I generally record date and time for many writing-related things, but not always.  I'll report back in if I have enough data to figure out how true any of this is for me.

Cite:  McNerney, Sam. "To Speed Up the Creative Process, Slow Down."  Why We Reason.  N.p., 10 Feb. 2012. Web. 27 Sept. 2012.

Getting to Know Your Blog Neighbors: Two Regency Blog Posts

I've never been a social butterfly, but as the Internet cuts out the scary face-to-face aspect of socializing, I have no excuse to be a Net recluse.  So I decided to launch a campaign to spread my wings a little by reading, commenting, and linking to some blog posts.  I'm starting with my Regency blog neighbors.  Two of them.

•  Author:  Rachel Knowles.  Blog:  Regency History.  Blog Post Read:  When Is the Regency Era?  Post Date:  September 25, 2012.  My Summary:  Useful information on the official and unofficial time span of the Regency.
• Author: Kathryn Kane.  Blog:  The Regency Redingote.  Blog Post Read:  Boy to Man:  The Breeching Ceremony  Post Date: August 31, 2012.  My Summary:  There's more to "breeching" than just putting the young Regency boy in a pair of pants.

   

New Paths, New Blog

I haven't been writing fiction much lately because I have been working some things out.  As my writing-related dreams go down different paths, so too must my blogs.  I will be working on separating out my fiction from this blog.  The new home is Weirding Out Fiction.  Once I get both blogs tweaked, I'll let you know my thoughts about my fiction and other things.  For now, bear with me, please, as some things get moved about.  Thanks!

More Book Buys

I've been trying to keep better track of my books buys, so this is likely to become a regular feature.  Anyway, I was busy Friday and Saturday.  I got 50 books for $12.90--or an average of approximately $0.26 each. They are listed below.

History Tidbit: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Herschel?

Turns out, the planet Uranus could have been . . . Herschel or Georgium Sidus.  When I was first reading this in the article "On Astronomy: The Solar System Explained, &c.," I couldn't figure out what planet the magazine and the original source, Mrs. Bryan, meant.  So I turned to Wikipedia article "William Herschel," and it had the answer.  Sir Frederick William Herschel discovered Uranus.  To curry favor with King George III, he named it the Georgian star.  Later, the name became Herschel.  Then, finally, Uranus.

So I guess the mnemonic could have been very different: My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Him . . . .  
Which would have tied nicely into the male-centric view espoused in this line: "In the center of the solar system is placed the sun, like the father of the family, surrounded by bodies dependent on his emanations, called planets . . . " (Bryan 88).

But hey, I'm just surprised by the fact they have articles on astronomy in a lady's magazine anyway.  Or that they think astronomy is "elegant and useful" knowledge for female readers (Bryan 88).  Especially considering that the original lecture came from a woman no less!  Huh, go figure.

Cites:

• Bryan. "Lectures on Natural Philosophy: The Result of Many Years' Experience of the Facts Elucidated" [Excerpt]. Rpt. in "On Astronomy: The Solar System Explained, &c."  La Belle Assemblee 3 June 1807:  88-91. Google Book Edition.
• "William Herschel."  Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 12 Sept. 2012. 

Writing Tidbit: Suspenseful Delight, Not Torture

In The New York Times, author Alex Stone explains the psychology behind why waiting is torture.  The article has some excellent points that I would like to highlight here and relate to writing.  In particular, I want to relate to how writers open up a question but delay when they answer it.  Sometimes the sense of suspense works, sometimes it doesn't.  Perhaps this article gives some hints as to why.