Category Archives: Mental health

Scoring Your Sense of Humor

My patience is often short with motivational speakers. They may tell interesting stories but often their techniques only work for themselves. I listen to one who was humorous enough to get a chuckle out of his audience. However, afterward in … Continue reading

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Why Do We Read Emotions?

In the last blog I described the difference between real and faked laughter. Both are quite useful and will be heard in the feasts that mark the cooler seasons in the United States. We indulge in food and conversation at … Continue reading

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The Price of Staying Connected

Before I entered grade school, I knew something about computers. That may be ordinary today but unusual for someone born in the 1950’s. However, my father worked for General Electric in Louisville, Kentucky which housed one of the first non-government … Continue reading

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The Happiness Requirement

“And they lived happily ever after” is not just a matter of fairy tales. A Happily Ever After (HEA) ending remains a favorite of many readers and has likely been one ever since stories were first told. In this age … Continue reading

Posted in Characters, Ideas for writing, Literary devices, Literature, Mental health, Novels, Psychology, romance, Teaching writing skills, Trends in books | Tagged | Leave a comment

The Crazy Writer

Writers, like other creatives, tend to exhibit pathological symptoms from time to time. So, psychologists have studied the life of writers, researching their unconventional behavior like they examine the pathology of a disease. Writers can appear contradictory because the strongest … Continue reading

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Is Creativity Fair?

Creative people often feel driven to be different, to strive for the original idea and take it as far as possible despite the deprivation and pain that results. They fear that inspiration may abandon them and leave them stranded, or … Continue reading

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Obnoxious characters

Creating villains is much like creating protagonists. They are people with depth and a history. A villain follows discernible motives just like the hero does. Only at some point in their life, villains take an ethical shortcut to get ahead. … Continue reading

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“Crazy” characters

If you want to write fiction involving mentally ill characters in a realistic way, to show how and why they no longer think clearly, you must get to know real people with real psychiatric disorders. There are many places that … Continue reading

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The price of self-awareness

Much of what I’ve perused recently on self-awareness tout the benefit of meditation in increasing self-awareness. This has led to a boom in meditation instructors providing both classes and retreats for mastering the techniques. Search for meditation on the internet … Continue reading

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Self awareness and leadership

According to the original meaning of self-awareness over 99.9 % of humanity qualify for this trait because people are aware of their existence. So, this is not enough to be considered special. However, self-awareness has a new meaning along with … Continue reading

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