Monday, March 2, 2015

mourning dove
  Last month, reality settled in my joints, slowing movements in all directions.  I'm still a writer and a fighter, but I sustained a pretty hard blow.  I'm somewhat dazed because half of me is searching for answers I'll never find.  This month, I resolve to climb all the way back in the writing rink and return to regular exercise too.  Wish me luck!
song sparrow

I neglected to mention, in January the Royal Society of Chemistry published my article on vultures.  It was challenging to write that in one week because I don't consider myself a fast writer.  The edits for that article arrived on January 13th, not a great time by any means.  It was extraordinarily difficult to focus on revision, but I did my best because I was dealing with a new editor.  After emailing my edits, I informed the editor of the situation.

mourning dove
I'm halfway through a six-week massive open online creativity course.  I'm glad I signed up for this because it's serving two purposes.  First, it's keeping me busy when I really need to be kept busy.  Second, I'm trying to squeeze every ounce of creativity out of me.

I have always considered myself creative, but I'd like to strengthen that if I can.  I've learned that creativity involves original ideas and divergent thinking.  At the start of the class, I took a creativity assessment.  I did pretty well on originality, but only mediocre on divergent thinking (the number and uniqueness of ideas).  I also learned that my most original ideas aren't my first ideas.  Since play stimulates creativity, I went sledding as a class assignment.  Now that was a thrill!