[Gossamer's Scrapbook] The Ethereal Canyon I

[Gossamer]

Funny, Katie, that was the book in question.

[Legion]

I told you I was psychic.

But seriously, YA is a lit genre that is often incorrectly perceived. Most recently, we have Meyer to thank for that. I could ramble forever about this, but YA is my jam these days. I'll save it for my own scrap so as not to rub my soapbox all over yours. In conclusion, I will just say that I have never seen a novel based script that manages to completely convey all of the novels many facets. These jokers are missing out.

[Archelon]

Hey guys saw the comments, made me think of something I wanted to share ^-^.

As much as the hunger games goes... it was thematically done before in an old asian based b movie and book series called battle royale and Battle Royale II.

I've actually read the translated book by the battle royalle authors and the book , the Hunger games and have found them remarkedly similar with only slight differences in themes, though honestly hunger games has a lot more plot to it .

Strange though, how a cult film gets to be an influence on modern books and media ^-^ and ... that's all I wanted to say . Hat's off for good book recognition .

[Paragon]

Was thinking the same as Archy! I want to read Hunger Games, everyone says it's great, but the plot sounds much like Battle Royale...

[Aidara]

I am speechless with the awesomeness of this sign and all you people too.

[Gossamer]

. Creativity & Criticism "Criticism allows people to dig below the surface of the imagination and come up with collective ideas that aren’t predictable." - Jonah Lehrer Amazon Best Books of the Month, March 2012: Combining cutting-edge neurological research with the age-old mystery of how and when inspiration strikes, Jonah Lehrer’s Imagine: How Creativity Works is a fun, engaging study of creativity. Lehrer uses case studies like 3M’s and Pixar’s innovative corporate cultures and Bob Dylan’s songwriting habits to frame scientific findings about the brain and where creativity comes from. You won’t find exercises to help you think more creatively or ways to avoid creative blocks in this book. Instead, you’ll learn how and why creativity is stimulated by certain activities—like looking at the color blue, traveling, or daydreaming productively—and how these activities stimulate creativity in everyone, not just in ‘creative’ people. Lehrer’s focus is as wide and fascinating as his topic itself and there’s something to engage every reader, no matter where you rate yourself on the creativity spectrum. --Malissa Kent As I was telling people in chat earlier, I heard a fantastic interview today and ran out and got someone's book. I usually don't do that, but sometimes you just hear someone who seems so in line with your way of thinking that you want to shout and jump up and down and go... "YES! Finally! Someone understands!" I briefly tried to mention these ideas in chat hours ago (while at work on my phone), but now that I'm home I get a chance to say what I heard and what I took away from this utterly fantastic interview in a far more detailed fashion. It also gives me a chance to share my thoughts on criticism which is what I was trying to do earlier in chat. So for years, basically since 1948 and the publishing of a book called Your Creative Power we've had the concepts of cooperative work, brainstorming, and group projects. When I heard this, not knowing where the concept of brainstorming came from, I stood up and took notice because Mizahar is in essence a cooperative enterprise beings that its a collaborative storytelling forum. Now when I was in school I've always hated group projects, because I ended up doing most of the work, beings that those who ended up in my groups never seemed to lift a finger. I'm sure you can relate. I work better on my own challenged by my own limits and driven by competition with - you guessed it - myself. Since about 1948, scientists have been studying brainstorming (yea, that's the year the term was coined, right?) and guess what? They have found over and over again that it doesn't work effectively and that its often counter productive. The reason its counter productive is simple. Anything goes, no one is judged, and criticism is not a factor. The idea is that if people aren't afraid of being criticized, then they feel more free to come up with ideas. I'll leave you to look up these studies yourself if you are interested in exact design and findings. I did a precursory looksee in the scientific circles I like to roam in and found a ton of them. But moving on... The problem with that notion is that the level of creativity when unchallenged drops significantly. In 2003, Charlan Nemeth, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, did quite a few studies on brainstorming and found out that basically, like I already knew intuitively, brainstorming was terrible for creativity. Brainstorming stifled creativity whereas debate (the alternative when talking about groups) which counted on criticism (and no not constructive but flat out old fashioned natural criticism) was far more effective. Here's what she said. “There’s this Pollyannaish notion that the most important thing to do when working together is stay positive and get along, to not hurt anyone’s feelings. Well, that’s just wrong. Maybe debate is going to be less pleasant, but it will always be more productive. True creativity requires some trade-offs. Authentic dissent can be difficult, but it’s always invigorating. It wakes us right up.” Yes.. it does. It does so beautifully. I've always known this. Always. Hats off to this doctor for running this study and having this concrete proof. And hats off to this amazing author who's book I can't wait for Amazon to deliver to me. Competition is healthy. Why did I love this interview so much that I went out and bought his book and am reading it? Well I've always thought muses were bullshit. This author does too. He also talks about creative blocks ("I've lost my muse!") as a heck of a great thing that always spawns creativity. He lectures that creative blocks are amazingly good for us. "It's often only after we've stopped searching for the answer, that the answer often arrives. Before there can be a breakthrough, there has to be a block." Blocks force your brain to dig deep down and look for what we call insight. Criticism does this as well. Criticism is the breeding ground of insight. Blocks produce insight, so embrace them. Insight is what Doc found in Back to the Future when he fell off his toilet and invented the Flux Capacitor, remember? Insight is what we get when we have those 3am AH HAH moments and sit straight up in bed suddenly knowing the answer to whatever it was we were searching for. "The lesson of letting go is that we constrain our own creativity. We are so worried about playing the wrong note or saying the wrong thing that we end up with nothing at all, the silence of the scared imagination." I want my imagination to be a bigger thing than that. I've always had very little fear in my life, which is probably why the exercise for delving into Kavala's fears was hard for me. And even though some people immediately dismissed Kavala's fear of just flat out fearing things as common and unnoteworthy, it was still a significant revelation to me and that's in the end what counts the most. I don't write for others, I write for myself. And that's why I talk about things. I'm not afraid of people talking about me behind my back and not too me. That's humanity for you and fortunately (for I do love humanity) that's what people do... talk about other people. So, getting back to criticism. We, as a society, have had to invent what I consider totally inappropriate terms like Constructive Criticism because we have personal problems as people. We can't set things aside. Our knee-jerk habit, when criticized, is to take it personally. Don't we have enough negativity in our lives? Why do we take it personally though? Our egos get in our way. We get offended, even if what people say to us is true. I grew up in a culture that was free spoken and criticism was a part of life. Nothing was personal, not really, and everything was a chance to grow. If you didn't grow from criticism you didn't deserve to breathe. I think, sometimes, the rest of you suffer from your more modern society and have to 'unlearn' a lot of these damaging habits like taking things personally or having to label criticism as 'constructive' to remind yourselves to be nice. Natives aren't perfect, but in some things I think our more primitive culture (I didn't even have electricity for part of my youth) put us wisdom-wise ahead in many ways. When one can accept criticism gracefully you'll start to realize that you don’t know everything. This is something you actually already know, but acknowledging it is really important too. What other people say to you, always, is valuable. Be open to it so you can learn from it. You're rate of personal growth will rise dramatically while your fear will plummet. And when I say plummet I mean it will completely and utterly erode out of your life until there is nothing left. You won't care if people criticize you and you'll find in fact you're eager for folks to do so. Why? It makes you better. Even mean criticism has grains of truth and you can grow from it. And it doesn't even come across as MEAN if you don't take it personally. Seriously people, most of what you fear is in your head. And when that fear has been set aside, your creativity will skyrocket. You'll dig deeper, try harder and soar. There's no one, absolutely no one, on the face of this planet that can hold you back if you aren't chained to the ground with fear. And this is why I ordered Lehrer's book. He 'gets' it and backs it with scientific proof. What's more beautiful than that? .

[Gossamer]

. I Can Relate Not that I'm exactly THAT vengeful, but I don't ever forget a slight... Greatest Note Ever left On A Dented Car This is probably something I shouldn't admit too, but when I was younger I thrived on getting revenge. Loved it. I would loose sleep to get someone back in an elaborate fashion usually involving a long convoluted plan that would end up in heaps of mirth usually at someone elses expense. I was particularly good at dorm jokes and department incidents with our Wildlife Head. I think I'm still notorious in a few buildings on campus at the UM for things that happened under my watch, though I was never arrested or got into too much trouble beyond having to go talk to a department chair or head. I even once radio collared the dean of students because I heard she was good with a joke and our telemetry prof said we had to track a professional throughout a whole 24 hr period for the practice. He didn't say we had to ask. She was not amused, but in the end was a good sport (because I didn't get put in jail). Anyhow, saw this on Cracked.com and laughed and laughed. Talk about sympathy for the devil. It's not the kind of note you'd ever leave, I'm sure, but its the kind of one you'd fantasize about writing and then leaving for sure. And maybe you wouldn't involve the police or illegal activities, but I'm not above hunting down someone (time notwithstanding) that's wronged me and pissed me off. .

[Caelum]

I’ve come to blather in your scrap. There are a lot of points in this with which I agree, but the thing that leaps out at me that I don’t agree with is when you suggested that all criticism is constructive. However, I do see the point you are making with that and it is a good one. Going with that, if a criticism is constructive under a philosophy stating anything that causes you to re-examine and potentially better your work is ultimately constructive, that does not mean that all criticism is necessarily relevant. Let me explain what I mean. I’m focusing on literary criticism here for the obvious reasons, so please forgive any abbreviation of subject resulting. In both my line of work and personal pursuits, I find myself in a position to critique with regularity. Professionally, I am paid to do this in various forms. This causes me to be hesitant to do it on a personal level for friends unless it is made very clear what both of us are expecting out of it. When I’m paid to do it or I voluntarily do it for still very serious endeavors, part of the goal is to butcher a script. Every flaw needs pulling out, even the intentional ones, to be mapped so as to locate the source of the greater problem (if there is one). Not all of these flaws are relevant to the greater problem, however. To simplify, it would be as if I was provided with a content edit when I was paying for a grammatical edit. If I ask someone to check a piece of mine for spelling errors, typos, etc., whether or not I’ve successfully managed to communicate the motivations of the protagonist (or whatever) is irrelevant. If they tell me that anyway and they are right, then sure, it’s constructive. But it’s not what I wanted and, perhaps, also not what I needed at the time. I might have already known that, too, and therefore the critic wasted their time. Finally, artists tend to be bloody sensitive people by default. There was a time when I was overly sensitive about anything negative directed at my work. It was awful. I was wrong and exactly like you point out – I therefore never improved significantly. Fortunately, time and experience and an ounce of maturity (just an ounce, mind you; know thyself) helped me grow a thicker skin armored with a mostly decent layer of objectivity. Sure, I have bad days where I’d much rather (and even need to) hear a little bit of praise than criticism. I also get a whole butt load of criticism off Miz, so sometimes when it comes to my fun time (read as: Miz) I am at a point where I just don’t want to hear it. Sometimes I want to mess up and it to be okay, if that makes any sense. Criticism can cut down to make way for new growth, but if done poorly or with ill intent, it can just wound.

[Liar]

Oh, crap. Caelum ninja'd me.

Maybe this is just arguing semantics, or maybe I don’t get the point of the minds you’ve quoted above, but I think what you’re talking about is constructive criticism. You don’t have to sugarcoat and flatter to give good criticism, just like you shouldn’t expect the same from others when you ask for help. You could even argue that being too nice isn’t constructive at all, and that politeness and political correctness has nothing to do with true, useful criticism.

Constructive criticism is productive and straightforward. It’s neither insulting nor flattering, and it is aimed toward the idea, not the person who came up with the idea. To use criticism correctly, you have to consider it, however it is given to you, whoever it is given by, and compare it to your opinion of your work. If someone gets offended by it, that’s their problem; I’m sure you’ll agree. In order to take criticism gracefully, you also have to give it gracefully. And so the world goes round.

Society is based around teamwork and cooperation, around brainstorming and constructive criticism. You sort of need to put aside all of these pedantic terms and definitions, and look at the people who critique (not criticize) you for what their words really are. It sucks that a lot of times there aren’t people picking up the slack, but when they do, when creative minds treat each other civilly and logically, amazing stuff happens—especially in the realms of something as subjective as art.

John Donne said, “No man is an island,” and that cannot be ore true when it comes to art and collaboration. Criticism is constructive if it betters you, and challenges you. It’s great and admirable to be driven internally, to be motivated and challenged by yourself, but you’ll never truly expand your creativity, your potential, or your work without the help and insight of other minds.

[Gossamer]

. Response I understand what your saying, Katie. Liar you totally missed my point. Katie edits as one of her jobs in life and that's cool. People ask her for advice and critique. For one of her other jobs she works around chemicals and people that know chemicals so people have asked her advice on that as well. We ask people who are in the know on things when we aren't in the know on things. It's life. I'm sure when people are asked to critique something they think 'how do I make this better' . They should if they don't. That's the definition of critique. I think part of the problem is people think when you are talking about criticism that its something that is sown about like Johnny Appleseed planting apple trees nationwide. It is not. But I can't tell you (well I could if I counted) how many times a week people ask for things to be critiqued and judged because they want special things (gnosis marks, a liaison intervention removed from their CS, a writeup posted into the wiki, etc) and thus ask for it. Keyword: ASK. I think I made the mistake of not specifically saying - this is solicited critique... not unasked for critique. Why would anyone bother to critique someone else's doings (especially on this site) when truthfully the goal of this site isn't for people to work on their writing skills, get published, gain a fanbase, etc. The goal of this site is to have fun and roleplay with others. We call it the Writers RPG because we want the writing to be at a certain level or above, but we don't go up to people and say 'Hey, your writing is shit.. get off'. Instead, we help them if they want it "Maybe you should write more than one line? Or how about you write about something I can respond too?" We don't thread with them if they like their status quo and we don't enjoy their style. That's the judgement... who threads with whom when where and why. My general miff and beef in regards to criticism is that people pad it then give it and in my book without it being honest and thorough. For example... "Your lack of punctuation makes it very hard for anyone to read your posts without being distracted trying to figure out where one thought ends and another begins." That's true. That's good criticism. But you don't really ever see that. You see... "You should really try and work on your punctuation." Which in my book seems just as bad as "Your punctuation sucks." Which of course is the exact opposite. Both have no detail and both don't give the person being critiqued any idea of where the critique is coming from. The first is nicely padded, the second is downright rude. Both have just wasted time, in my opinion. Yet, people try to throw labels on criticism like 'constructive' when in fact its just good and bad advice. My whole point is that I hate this 'terminology' and I'm totally hung up on it. I think its useless and it belittles us as humans in that it is designed to remind us to be nice when such things should be a given. There's no point in asking for advice if you don't want to hear what other people's thoughts are. And there's no point in giving advice if you don't give advice in a way that's clear, precise, and says exactly what your thinking is. Its just that simple, in my mind, no fancy terminology needed. .