Time now for a word from a young woman who has everything.
Goddammit all! Way to go, Rachel Bloom!
by Joe BerkowitzThere is nothing else on television quite like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, the delightfully unstable show whose heroine regularly breaks into song. There almost wasn’t anything like it on television at all, though.
A film of mixed genres, BONE TOMAHAWK is simultaneously a western, horror film, and a classic love story. What else would you expect from a production that can best be synopsized as, “This film follows four men as they set out to save loved ones who have been captured by Cannibals?”
The Good:
The Bad:
And now a few words to give us comfort when our careers seem stuck at – gulp – the bottom:
by Brian J. Lucas and Loran NordgrenWhat determines whether the ideas we generate are truly creative? Recent research of ours finds that one common factor often gets in the way: we tend to undervalue the benefits of persistence.
In a series of experiments we observed that people consistently underestimated the number of ideas they could generate while solving a creative challenge. In one, we brought 24 university students into the laboratory during the week leading up to Thanksgiving and asked them to spend ten minutes coming up with as many ideas of dishes to serve at Thanksgiving dinner as they could. Then we had them predict how many more ideas they could generate if they persisted on the task for an additional ten minutes. After that, they actually persisted for ten minutes.
Your brain is really important, right? No brainer, so to speak. For writer’s that’s particularly true, just as it is for software developers or lawyers or any other ‘brain-oriented’ pursuit.
So, what’s the best way to coddle the brain, to give it what it needs to optimize work and creativity? And, let’s face it, we all get older, so how does that affect what we’re trying to accomplish? What’s going on as we age?
For starters, from what I’ve read and from personal experience the young brain is faster. But, and it’s a big BUT, it isn’t necessarily better. Despite the great pride may 20-somethings take in working 16 hour days and more, of pushing it to the limit, writing all night long, then crashing, sorry, that’s not the way to attain an optimal work and create flow. What’s that? Well, it’s an extended (key word extended) amount of time during which mind an body are in sync, engaged in high-thinking and wild imagining pursuits (yep, like writing that script or novel). You’re focused, your body is comfortable (no, you’re not sucking down caffeine), your attitude is positive and all this give rise to your imagination and creativity playing like the creative kid you used to/and still want to be.