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We know that people make up false memories if prompted. But since our brain never stops being a jerk, we can also convert real memories into things we believe we imagined…
Cryptomnesia – the misattribution of memories – is a fairly easy trap to fall into. According to the The British Journal of Psychiatry, we experience partial cryptomnesia all the time. We remember things, but don’t remember where we learned them. So we may recommend a book to the person who recommended it to us, or tell a new piece of gossip to the person who first told us about it. We remember learning something, but not where we learned it. -Esther Inglis-Arkell
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story that relies on cryptomnesia as a plot point.
Journaling Prompt: Write about a time when you misremembered something.
Art Prompt: Cryptomnesia
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Inform your audience about the phenomenon of cryptomnesia and give a humorous example of a time when you experienced it.
Photo Credit: knitsteel on Flickr
Send to KindleSend to KindleWelcome to the Carnival of Creativity for May 19, 2013. All links will open in a new tab or window, so feel free to click through and leave some love in the comments. Once you close that window, you’ll be right back here for more linky goodness.
The Creative Mindset
Kevin Ashton presents Creative People Say No posted at Thoughts on Creativity.
Jennifer presents Do We Really Have to Choose? posted at Officially Jennifer.
Resources/Tools
Structured Journal makes it easy for you to keep a daily journal online. Simple to customize to meet your needs.
Sharing Our Work
Emi Bauer presents Bananas posted at Confessions of an Incompetent Blogger.
Liz Shaw presents Gratitude at Work posted at Create a Brilliant Life.
Randy Boude presents Angel Among Us posted at Randy Boude.
Writing Quote of the Week
Writing Tips and Prompts
Chrys Fey presents More on Character Development posted at Write with Fey.
K.M. Weiland presents A Powerful Storytelling Tool: Getting Readers to Fill In Your Character’s Blanks posted at Helping Writers Become Authors.
Erin presents Show Don’t Tell posted at Daily Writing Tips.
Monique Jacobs presents That Next Project posted at Amazing Stories.
Juliette Wade presents How Linguistics Can Help You Part 5: Pragmatics posted at Science in my Fiction.
Gabriela Pereira presents Read Like an Agent posted at DIY MFA.
Creativity Boosts
Tanner Christensen presents The best way to keep your ideas? posted at Creative Something.
Podcasts
This week’s podcast at Writing Excuses is all about Writing and Convention Culture.
Visual Arts
Liron presents How to Draw a Ferrari Enzo posted at Drawing Lessons.
Jennifer Saksa presents Get Ready to Compete – Video Competition Advice posted at Do More With Software.
Food
Audrey presents Audrey’s Morning Latte posted at Fairy at Heart.
Spam of the Week
I used to be suggested this site through my personal nephew. I am don’t convinced whether or not this particular release is usually created as a result of him or her seeing that nobody else recognise these kinds of particular roughly the problems. You are remarkable! Appreciate it!
Credits
Thanks to Le.Sanchez for the background for today’s writing quote.
That’s all for this week. Be sure to submit your article for next week’s Carnival of Creativity by Friday at midnight!
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Create whatever this visual prompt inspires in you!
Photo by Bert Heymans on Flickr.
Send to KindleRelated posts:
- Prompt #443 – Visual Prompt of the Week – Stonehenge and the Milky Way
- Prompt #589 Visual Prompt of the Week – Favorite Hat
- Prompt #408 – Visual Prompt of the Week – Longing
- Prompt #457 – Visual Prompt of the Week – Moon over a Country Road
- Prompt #526 Visual Prompt of the Week – Fire Escape
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It was the baby, of all things, that woke her up. Not her husband. Not the police. Just the baby and his crying. -Todd Ritter, Bad Moon
Fiction Writing Prompt: Use the first line of the week as the starting point or inspiration for a scene, story, poem, or haiku.
Journaling Prompt: What is usually your first indication that something is wrong at your house? Describe how it happens.
Art Prompt: The Curious Incident of the Baby in the Night Time
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write a humorous piece about your personal security system, whether it be a baby, a dog, or something else.
Photo Credit: rabble on Flickr
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mithridatism noun: The developing of immunity to a poison by taking gradually increasing doses of it.
Fiction Writing Prompt: Use the word of the week in whatever you write today.
Journaling Prompt: Write about a poison that you indulge in (gossip, holding grudges, etc.) and how it affects you.
Art Prompt: Mithridatism
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Use the word of the week in your article or speech.
Photo Credit: Cavin on Flickr
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“What a Fuller Man did was virtuosic. ‘The Fuller art of opening doors was regarded by connoisseurs of cold-turkey peddling in somewhat the same way that balletomanes esteem a performance of the Bolshoi — as pure poetry,’ American Heritage wrote. ‘In the hands of a deft Fuller dealer, brushes became not homely commodities but specialized tools obtainable nowhere else.’ Yet he was also virtuous, his constant presence in neighborhoods turning him neighborly. ‘Fuller Brush Men pulled teeth, massaged headaches, delivered babies, gave emetics for poison, prevented suicides, discovered murders, helped arrange funerals, and drove patients to hospitals.’ ” -Daniel H. Pink, To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story, scene, poem, or haiku involving a door-to-door salesman.
Journaling Prompt: How do you react to sales tactics? What works and what doesn’t if someone is trying to sell you something? Why do you react the way you do?
Art Prompt: Fuller Brush Man
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Tell your audience how they can become better at sales through studying the example of the Fuller Brush Man.
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Sin Eaters performed a ceremony wherein they took on the sins that the deceased performed — sins that went unforgiven or without confession prior to death. People typically hired a Sin Eater in situations where the deceased died unexpectedly.
By consuming bread and a drink (usually wine or beer) placed on, or ritually waved over, the dead body, onlookers believed the dead person’s sins were digested by the eater after he or she consumed this beggar’s feast. The act appears to be confined to 18th and 19th Century Europe, with no accounts of necro-cannibalism noted.
In time, the practice expanded in popularity, so that Sin Eaters also attended to people who had just died of natural causes — because people believed the ritual could help prevent the dead from wandering the countryside after death. -Keith Veronese -Keith Veronese
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story or poem with a sin eater as a protagonist.
Journaling Prompt: Write about the oldest tradition your family still practices.
Art Prompt: Sin Eater
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Research a strange custom and tell your audience about it.
Photo Credit: Mikamatto on Flickr
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“Intense focusing on a task can make people effectively blind, even to stimuli that normally attract attention. The most dramatic demonstration was offered by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons in their book The Invisible Gorilla. They constructed a short film of two teams passing basketballs, one team wearing white shirts, the other wearing black. The viewers of the film are instructed to count the number of passes made by the white team, ignoring the black players. This task is difficult and completely absorbing. Halfway through the video, a woman wearing a gorilla suit appears, crosses the court, thumps her chest, and moves on. The gorilla is in view for 9 seconds.
“Many thousands of people have seen the video, and about half of them do not notice anything unusual. It is the counting task — and especially the instruction to ignore one of the teams — that causes the blindness. No one who watches the video without that task would miss the gorilla. Seeing and orienting are automatic functions of System 1, but they depend on the allocation of some attention to the relevant stimulus. The authors note that the most remarkable observation of their study is that people find its results very surprising. Indeed, the viewers who fail to see the gorilla are initially sure that it was not there — they cannot imagine missing such a striking event. The gorilla study illustrates two important facts about our minds: we can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.” -Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a scene where your protagonist misses an important detail because he or she is intensely focused on an absorbing task.
Journaling Prompt: Write about a time when you missed something obvious because you were distracted by something else.
Art Prompt: Invisible Gorilla
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Inform your audience about the consequences of intense focus, then tell them what they might be missing.
Photo Credit: Abhinav Mishra on Flickr
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People seeking shelter during tornadoes and cyclones are often called back, or delayed, by people doing normal activities, who refuse to believe the emergency is happening. These people are displaying what’s known as normalcy bias. About 70% of people in a disaster do it. Although movies show crowds screaming and panicking, most people move dazedly through normal activities in a crisis. This can be a good thing; researchers find that people who are in this state are docile and can be directed without chaos. They even tend to quiet and calm the 10-15% of people who freak out.
The downside of the bias is the fact that they tend to retard the progress of the 10-15% of people who act appropriately. The main source of delay masquerades as the need to get more data. Scientists call this “milling.” People will usually get about four opinions on what’s going on and what they should do before taking any action — even in an obvious crisis. People in emergency situations report calling out to others, asking, “What’s going on?” When someone tells them to evacuate, or to take shelter, they fail to comply and move on, asking other people the same question. -Esther Inglis-Arkell
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story using normalcy bias to create conflict.
Journaling Prompt: When do you tend to deny danger, whether it’s a tornado or something more abstract, like overdue bills? How do you act?
Art Prompt: Normalcy Bias
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Inform your audience about normalcy bias and how it reveals information about our ability to deny what is in front of us. Give your audience strategies to break through denial.
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Create whatever this visual prompt inspires in you!
Photo by Robbert van der Steeg on Flickr.
Send to KindleRelated posts:
- Prompt #296 – Visual Prompt of the Week – Surrounded by Words
- Prompt #443 – Visual Prompt of the Week – Stonehenge and the Milky Way
- Prompt #589 Visual Prompt of the Week – Favorite Hat
- Prompt #436 – Visual Prompt of the Week – Storm Warning
- Prompt #575 Visual Prompt of the Week – Waiting
Welcome to the Writing Reader
I believe that the most important thing about writing is to HAVE FUN! You can worry about things like commas, point of view, tenses, etc., later. Right now, just start writing!
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