The Writing Reader
“Most public policy is based on offering people incentives and disincentives,” Berns says. “Our findings indicate that it’s unreasonable to think that a policy based on costs-and-benefits analysis will influence people’s behavior when it comes to their sacred personal values, because they are processed in an entirely different brain system than incentives.”
Research participants who reported more active affiliations with organizations, such as churches, sports teams, musical groups and environmental clubs, had stronger brain activity in the same brain regions that correlated to sacred values. “Organized groups may instill values more strongly through the use of rules and social norms,” Berns says…
“As culture changes, it affects our brains, and as our brains change, that affects our culture. You can’t separate the two,” Berns says…
Future conflicts over politics and religion will likely play out biologically, Berns says. Some cultures will choose to change their biology, and in the process, change their culture, he notes. He cites the battles over women’s reproductive rights and gay marriage as ongoing examples. -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Write a story, scene, or poem based on a cultural shift that challenges people’s sacred values.
Journaling Prompt: Write about your personal values and how you feel if they are challenged.
Art Prompt: Brain and Societal Change
Photo Credit: mariopiperni on Flickr
In the new study of desire regulation, 205 adults wore devices that recorded a total of 7,827 reports about their daily desires. Desires for sleep and sex were the strongest, while desires for media and work proved the hardest to resist. Even though tobacco and alcohol are thought of as addictive, desires associated with them were the weakest, according to the study. Surprisingly to the researchers, sleep and leisure were the most problematic desires, suggesting “pervasive tension between natural inclinations to rest and relax and the multitude of work and other obligations,” says Hofmann, the lead author of the study forthcoming in Psychological Science.
Moreover, the study supported past research that the more frequently and recently people have resisted a desire, the less successful they will be at resisting any subsequent desire. Therefore as a day wears on, willpower becomes lower and self-control efforts are more likely to fail, says Hofmann, who co-authored the paper with Roy Baumeister of Florida State University and Kathleen Vohs of the University of Minnesota.
Scientists who study the complex interplay between desires and self control say that passing up on temptation is made ever more difficult by the idea that there is no single or clear feeling that alerts us to when our willpower is low. “But we find that when willpower is low, everything is felt more intensely,” says Baumeister, author of Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. “Low willpower seems to turn up the volume on life.” -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Write your character’s internal monologue about resisting temptation.
Journaling Prompt: What strategies work for you in resisting temptation?
Art Prompt: Willpower
Photo Credit: Unfurled on Flickr
I record these words for a posterity that will not exist. -Zachary Jernigan, Pairs, Asimov’s Science FictionAug 2011
Writing Prompt: Write a story, scene or poem inspired by the quote above.
Journaling Prompt: Write the journal entry you would want to leave as your last entry for your descendents to read.
Art Prompt: End of the World
Photo Credit: John Althouse Cohen on Flickr
Lucas was born into the Lunar Temple, a group of Americans, most from the Southwest, who believed that the Moon was a part of the Earth that was broken off in an ancient cataclysm, and that humans were devolved from more pure creatures who now lived in vast, spiral cities below the satellite’s surface. These beings were building monstrous engines two hundred miles across on the dark side of the Moon that, on the Day of Joining, they would use to bring the Moon hurtling back to Earth. -Brian Francis Slattery, Spaceman Blues: A Love Song
Writing Prompt: Write about a strange belief that one of your character’s holds.
Journaling Prompt: Write about the strangest thing that you once believed.
Art Prompt: Cult
Photo Credit: bilbord99 on Flickr
Welcome to the Carnival of Creativity for May 6, 2012. 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.
Responses to Writing Reader Prompts
Melanie Marttila presents Why Spoilers are Good for Writers posted at Writerly Goodness. Written in response to Prompt #134 Spoilers.
The Creative Mindset
Angela Ackerman presents The Positive Side of Rejection posted at Live, Write, Thrive.
Resources/Tools
Jason Boog presents YouTube Time Machine for Book Research posted at Media Bistro.
Sharing Our Work
Eula McLeod presents Chickens Live Longer posted at View from the Winepress.
Liz Shaw presents I Talk, It Types posted at Liz Andra Shaw.
Writing Quote of the Week
Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words. – Paul Engle
Writing Tips and Prompts
Chrys Fey presents Movies as Writing Inspiration posted at Write with Fey.
Sarah Goslee presents World Building with Real Worlds posted at Science in my Fiction.
Amber Lee Starfire presents A Week’s Worth of Journaling Prompts: Uncertainty posted at Writing Through Life.
Jennifer Derrick presents Journaling for a Frugal, More Productive Life posted at Saving Advice.
Michael presents Wedding Thank You Note Etiquette posted at Thank You Notes.
Creativity Boosts
Michael Nobbs presents The Creative Magic of a Daily Ritual posted at Writing Our Way Home.
Podcasts
James Artimus Owen joins the Writing Excuses podcasters to discuss Discovering Your Voice.
The Business of Creativity
Ali Luke presents Eight Powerful Ways to Build a Loyal Readership for Your Blog posted at Cat’s Eye Writer.
Spam of the Week
The wiring is different, so that would have to be changed too, along with a different relay, tho not sure about the relay.. . The wiring is part of a larger harness, so I doubt they could install it after it’s made.
That’s all for this week. Be sure to submit your article for next week’s Carnival of Creativity by Friday at midnight!
The walls were kittens and puppies… – Lydia Millet, Ghost Lights: A Novel
Writing Prompt: Write a story, scene, or poem using the first line above.
Journaling Prompt: Write about an interesting room that you’ve seen.
Art Prompt: Kittens and puppies
Photo Credit: Sarah_Jones on Flickr
chi·can·er·y [shi-key-nuh-ree, chi-] noun, plural chi·can·er·ies.
1. trickery or deception by quibbling or sophistry: He resorted to the worst flattery and chicanery to win the job.
2. a quibble or subterfuge used to trick, deceive, or evade.
Writing Prompt: Write a story, scene, or poem using the word of the week.
Journaling Prompt: Write about when you’ve used or been affected by chicanery.
Art Prompt: Chicanery
Photo Credit: surrealuv on Flickr
Anne woke with the strangest feeling of calm. Not the everything’s-going-to-be-okay kind of calm— but the kind where you’re tougher than the tough times. Of course, this feeling faded somewhat with the onset of reality. -Lee Doty, Out of the Black
Writing Prompt: Write a story, scene, or poem based on this reading.
Journaling Prompt: Write about your process of waking up in the morning.
Art Prompt: Waking up to reality
Photo Credit: Carl Lovén on Flickr
Research led by scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute found that small-group dynamics — such as jury deliberations, collective bargaining sessions, and cocktail parties — can alter the expression of IQ in some susceptible people. “You may joke about how committee meetings make you feel brain dead, but our findings suggest that they may make you act brain dead as well,” said Read Montague, director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and Computational Psychiatry Unit at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, who led the study. -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Write a scene about your character in a small group. How does his or her behavior change in this setting?
Journaling Prompt: Write about an experience you’ve had in a small group.
Art Prompt: Committee
Photo Credit: Editor B on Flickr
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