As most of you know by now, I’m pretty excited about the possibilities  of brainwave entrainment.  Oh, I know it sounds a bit flaky, and yes, sure, my first exposure to it was in new age music during the 90s. 

And although the core theory  behind entrainment (exposure to  specifically applied frequencies of sound and light can temporarily shift the state of most people’s brainwaves - and thereby temporarily affect their state of awareness - ie, awake, daydreamy, or sleepy) is pretty well  accepted, a lot of the claims out there are not so… um..  accepted.

But like hypnosis, meditation, brain-games and other mind-training techniques, the loose definitions and early stages of  applied research leaves it open to a lot of marketing hoopla and woo.  

Here are a few of my favorites:

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Really. I’m not writing this. I mean it! I’ve declared this year’s NaNoWriMo  an epic FAIL - one worthy of full LOLCat status. But if I were writing… the title would be:

Bell, Book and Bones

Overarching Theme:  Rebirth from the bones - an archetypal initiatory concept in which the initiate is stripped to the bones, disassembled, and then rebuilt and rebirthed, a new being. 

Summary:

When  freelance writer Darcy Tillman reluctantly accepts a contract for a book  on the history of a little known pagan sect,  she has no idea that she is about to tumble through-the-looking-glass, discovering uncomfortable truths about human nature, magic,  and miracles -  as well as a sinister intent behind the book project.

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It has been 5 days since my last wordcount update, and I have both good news, and bad news about my NaNo-ing future.

The good news is that I’m writing.

The bad news is that I’m not writing my fiction novel for NaNoWriMo.

A full week (and then some) into the novel-in-a-month project, I still cannot seem to find my "voice".  I’ve tried most (if not all) of my tricks, from free-writes to letting my main character write me a letter, to switching gears and attempting to write an entirely other story.

It ain’t workin’.

So I’ve shifted gears entirely, and have started a full force focus on writing  content for the brain-training e-course.  It won’t qualify for NaNo (unless I can find a way to twist it into fiction, which, granted, is always possible) but it IS productive and positive, and I won’t complain about that.

As a result, you won’t be getting all the nifty NaNo fiction writing hints I’d planned on.  But you will get to see some of the rough content as I churn it out - and I might just give you a summary of the fiction story I’d planned to write.  It was a good one, dang nabbit, even if my brain refuses to shift into fiction mode!

How are you other MindTweaking NaNo participants doing? Chugging along frustration free, I hope?

If not, no worries.  You can always join me in my acts of penance, which consists  mostly of gnashing of  teeth around left over halloween candy!

The NaNoWriMo boards are seemingly back in full service, which means I was able to create our own little discussion thread. 

MindTweakers: Kicking The Brain Into High Gear!

Participants and Supportive Lurkers welcome!

(And yes, I’m still expecting to open our own real live MindTweaks forum, but it has to wait just a *little* bit longer!)

Now that National Novel Writing Month is into its sixth day, the wear and tear is starting to show. We’ve been living on pizza, coffee and Twinkies, our butts are glued to our computer chairs and we’re short on sleep -  it’s no wonder our creativity is abandoning us!

Step one? Go get a glass of water.  Yes, Now.  You’ve been staring at that screen too long and you’re probably a bit dehydrated. 

And while you’re up, do some stretches.  Move around. Get the blood flowing!

Your brain works best when your body is in motion, and no, wiggling your fingers on a keyboard does not count as "being in motion" smarty pants.   Just for that, I want you to walk around the house for the next five minutes.  

Oh, come on.  It’s just five minutes.   You are not going to fall behind on your word count because you took a five minute motion break - in fact, by moving around, you’ll probably get those thoughts moving  a bit more freely.

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Writing is among the least expensive hobbies out there - so long as you focus on actual writing, and not tools, toys, seminars and other accoutrements that more often than not, keep us from writing.   But it’s a rare aspiring writer who can resist the search for shiny new tools - and I found a few real gems this year.

1.

 In fifth grade,  Miss Duncan taught us  to use index cards to take notes and organize our reports and papers. There was something immensely satisfying about moving those cards around just so… shifting a quote here, a notation there.    As an adult, I’ve longed for a means of organizing my thoughts that way - hopefully one that accounted for my now-horrific hand writing. 

So when I discovered this nifty little software program that works with virtual index cards that actually look like index cards,  I got pretty excited.    You can create piles of cards, move the piles within one another, re-order the cards, tag and sort the cards with keywords, color them, mark them according to the intensity of the scene, and so on. 

It’s really quite cool.  

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One of the greatest things about preparing for NaNo is that you don’t have to prepare at all.   It’s perfectly ok to wake up one day in November, decide to participate, and start churning out words with no characters, no plot, and no genre in mind whatsoever.    A lot of people do just that, and have a blast along the way. 

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So. Where were we?  Oh yeah!  When last we left our intrepid hero, she   had insanely decided to structure the next 30 plus days of her life around National Novel Writing Month.  The really scary part? It just might  work.

You see,  to be truly successful at NaNo requires one of the following approaches:

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(If you already know all about NaNo, feel free to skip ahead to the good parts, where I beg for your participation.  Again. )

No,  NaNoWriMo is not some sort of exotic disease.  It’s far more mundane than that.  NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month.

Doesn’t sound horribly impressive, does it?  Just a silly label for an ordinary month,  dedicated to the art and science of noveling, right? Wrong!

NaNo is a creative feast of frustration, insanity, and productivity.  The goal is daunting… each participant has 30 days to write a 50,000 word  novel from scratch.

It doesn’t have to be a good novel.  It doesn’t have to be coherent,  publishable, or even readable.    It just needs to be 50,000 words presented in the vague shape of a novel, and written entirely in the month of November.

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For those of you following my ongoing organizational & productivity  struggles, I did indeed take Maureen up on her offer of a month’s personal coaching as a challenge/experiment.   We started with a phone call last Monday, a number of emails, and followed up with a slightly mixed-up-call this week.   And things seem to be headed in the right direction - sort of!  

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