by Naomi | Apr 1, 2016 | Creative Life
In The Art of Possibility, Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander point out that this harmless little question might not be so harmless after all. Why? Well, the underlying question for most of us is, “What did I accomplish today?” And the danger is that we’re measuring the value of our day based on our answer.
If you’re a novelist and you spend the day working on a difficult passage, ending up with 500 words, it’s all too easy to judge the day a failure. Only 500 words today. Or, what if at the end of a day of teaching, you realize that you spent most your time resolving a heartfelt conflict in your classroom but hardly any time on spelling?
Asking the wrong question leads to the wrong answer. And the wrong answers, over time, lead to skewed thinking, poor decisions, and too often, a sense of discouragement and confusion.
And yet, reflection is an important part of growth. The momentum that growth brings is key to staying motivated and engaged.
So … What helpful reflection questions might we ask ourselves at the end of the day?
Here are a few I’m going to try.
- When did I feel grateful today?
- When did I feel connected today?
- When did I listen to someone today, and what did I hear?
- What did I learn today?
- What challenged me today?
- What made me curious today, and how might I explore my questions tomorrow?
Donald Miller used to have a course about life-planning. In it, he encouraged people to ask themselves in the morning: “If I could do today over, what would I do differently?” Projecting yourself to the end of the day and thinking about what honestly matters shifts the day’s focus from that addictive to-do list to something more lasting and important.
I’m enjoying the experiment–these book-end question sessions at the start and end of the day. Want to try it out too? I’d love to hear about your experience. Tag me on Instagram or Twitter and let’s chat about it. In the meantime, here’s to you and your creative journey.
by Naomi | Mar 31, 2016 | Creative Life
Patricia Newman is the author of numerous books, including Plastic, Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and Ebola: Fears and Facts. She is a passionate literacy advocate and profiles authors and illustrators for California Kids, a regional parenting magazine. I was delighted to have the opportunity to chat with Patricia about creativity and writing for one of her thoughtful profiles. Here’s an excerpt from our interview.
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INTERVIEW WITH NAOMI KINSMAN by PATRICIA NEWMAN
Naomi Kinsman weaves her life around the creative process. Not only plumbing the depths of creativity for her middle-grade novels, but in teaching children and adults to find their passion for their stories. She started the Society of Young Inklings about eight years ago—named for C.S. Lewis’ and J. R. R. Tolkien’s Inklings group—to help children find their voices as writers. Naomi and I are represented by the same literary agency, and our paths frequently cross in the writing world. Her devotion to her craft is both inspirational and instructive. I spoke to Naomi by telephone to find out more about her creative process.
Patricia: Is there a childhood memory that sticks out in your mind?
Naomi: I was a very, very shy child. When I was in second grade, my mom took me to see a production of Annie, and I saw this little girl up on stage and she was exuberant and boisterous and I wanted that opportunity to try on a different personality. Around the same time our school was doing a musical called “Totally Buggy.” There was this character, a ladybug, who had this beautiful jazzy solo. I had my heart set on being the ladybug, but I couldn’t bring myself to audition. I admitted to my friend that I wanted the part. She got me to sing while we were alone on the swings. “The wind will be so loud I won’t be able to hear you,” she said. We did that day after day, and we got louder and louder. One day in class the girl who was the ladybug was sick, and the teacher asked for volunteers. Somehow I raised my hand. Everyone looked at me. No one thought I would do it, but I sang. I remember hearing my own voice in my ears, having my class look at me, and saying to myself you can do the impossible thing.
Read more …
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by Naomi | Oct 28, 2015 | Creative Life
Every year, the Litquake staff put together a special event to serve students in San Francisco during their literary celebration. This event, Kidquake, provides an assembly where kids meet and learn from authors such as Jim Averbeck (In a Blue Room, One Word From Sophia). Also, a few classrooms are chosen by lottery to attend a writing workshop. And for the past two years, I’ve had the honor of providing one of these workshops, using Writerly Play.
Now, I know play works. I see it work every day in my classrooms—helping kids move from stuck to story.
So, why am I always surprised after a sequence of games, when each and every student hurries to his or her seat to pour ideas onto the page?
If ever there was a moment that Writerly Play wouldn’t work, it would be at Kidquake. The kids are out of their school environment, on a field trip, and meeting me for the very first time. I don’t know their unique quirks and I only have one hour to create a meaningful experience. They may expect to have fun, but they’re also guessing the workshop will be stressful—they’re going to have to write. They are usually young, in first, second or third grade. Even though their teachers prep them for good behavior, the odds of true focus are pretty low. And then, in these circumstances, I ask them to “stand up, push in their chairs and imagine with me.”
I have to admit … I was worried. But, then, as I witnessed their grand success, I was reminded of some key of the reasons play works.
1. Play is efficient
While teaching a Writerly Play workshop, I facilitate the physical movement activities with a series of questions. I could, instead, ask similar questions and discuss the various students’ ideas while all the rest listen. Even though kids do learn from listening to examples from their peers, if the immediate reaction to the question is application—movement—to show the first idea that comes to each of their minds, they all engage simultaneously. Then, as the questions help them deepen their surface ideas into more layered concepts, they continue to learn while playing. Play bypasses resistance, and students learn without having to wrestle through their fears, frustrations or perfectionism.
2. Play creates an atmosphere of suspense
During a game, kids don’t know what’s coming. Ask any marketer, author or screenwriter and they’ll tell you. Suspense is one of the best ways to keep an audience with you. Writerly Play engages learners in an experience filled with an absorbing question: What story might be hidden–like buried treasure–in my mind? With each answer, more of the treasure is revealed, and writers are compelled to keep digging until they find the full picture.
3. Play leads to discovery
Our brains are busy focusing on playing the game, and while we’re distracted, ideas spring to mind. Nearly everyone has had the experience of being asked a simple question, and not being able to come up with the answer. Being put on the spot is one of the most sure ways to shut the human brain down. So, it makes sense that presenting the invitation to create in a fun and nonthreatening way would lead to better results. Rather than panicking at the blank page, writers can let go of their inner critics and their need to know every detail as they play. We can’t know how the story will turn out as we start, and that’s frightening. We need a process that allows us not to know as we develop the idea past its fragile beginning into something that feels more solid and steady.
I learn something every time I play. The higher the stakes, the more I learn. Even though I was anxious about how the class would go, in the end, when the students arrived, I let go of all my worried thinking and threw myself into the game. In fact, I allowed myself to truly play too. To model the map-drawing activity that the students would do, I drew my own large-format map using their input. They threw out all kinds of ideas. Some were simple to draw. Others, like the dog or the dog-bone bush weren’t so simple. I felt myself hesitate. I don’t know how to draw a realistic dog. Rather than stalling out, I just drew the first shape that came out–which in my own defense, did have rather dog-like ears. We laughed over it together, and when it was the kids’ turn to draw, I noticed they didn’t hesitate either, even when they didn’t know how to draw whatever they were about to create.
Play allows us to do what would otherwise feel beyond us–which makes it a powerful tool. What about you? Has play allowed you to do something beyond your own skill set? Share in the comment section below, or on my
Facebook page. I’d love to hear your stories.
by Naomi | Jun 26, 2015 | Tools & Apps
Object: Reminding myself to play a little in the middle of a busy work-day.
What Didn’t Work: Telling myself to lighten up. Brow-beating myself when I got to the end of the day and realized I hadn’t even taken even two minutes to have fun… major fail on the play front. Was I a hypocrite, preaching play yet never doing it myself?
My Aha! Moment: My mom gave me a set of Smencils for Christmas. There’s something about smell that touches your heart and transports you someplace different. Just try to write with a root-beer scented pencil and stay in a no-nonsense mood.
- I keep my smencils on my desk and pull one out every now and again when I need to brainstorm and would like to add a little play to the process.
- Keep your smencils in their containers, so they maintain their scents as long as possible.
Take it to the Next Level:
- Bring out your smencils for your next team meeting or one-on-one session. Let your colleagues or students in on the fun, and add some whimsy to your time together.
by Naomi | Jun 19, 2015 | Tools & Apps
Object: Understanding how my time is spent, to gain a big picture view (and if needed, adjust) my work-habits.
What Didn’t Work: Trying to put things on the calendar and stick to strict pre-determined time slots. Hopping from one project to another in response to whatever pinged at the moment. Simply hoping I was getting to all of my projects. Only vaguely being able to answer the question: so how long did it take to… (fill in the blank)?
My Aha! Moment: I was listening to Amy Porterfield’s podcast (
Episode 47). In this interesting interview about mindset she interviewed Todd Herman. Todd suggested keeping a chart of $10 work, $100 work, and $1000 work for a week. The challenge was to notice each task you did and record it into one of those columns. I loved the idea of the activity, but wasn’t yet in the place where I could afford to outsource anything. Outsourcing is the ultimate goal of the activity— acknowledging that when you’re the content-maker, creating your content is your greatest contribution, and that perhaps you oughtn’t to be coding HTML so your website works.
I remember thinking, “But I don’t even know which projects I’m spending my time on, let alone the amount of money I’d someday be able to pay someone to do the tasks!” For me, the first problem to tackle was “which project does this task fit into?” I needed to better understand where my hours were going before I could determine where any time-leaks might be. Maybe I was spending 20 hours a week on a project, but on all of the wrong parts of the project. Or maybe I was ignoring certain projects for too long, only returning to them after they had turned into raging problem-fires. I needed a way to track my time.
Enter the
Timely app, a very nice-to-look-at visual time-tracking tool.
- I’ve connected the Timely app with my main calendar, so the app knows what I’m supposed to spend my time on.
- I can create a new task with just a couple easy clicks on my phone or desktop, and start a timer or enter time spent manually.
- I use big categories, such as “admin” or “planning,” and sometimes add a few notes. The main thing for me is to see what I’m doing in broad strokes.
Player’s Notes:
- If my day gets busy and I forget to record some time spent, I record estimates at the end of the day, when I still remember.
- Timely has saved me so much time going back and trying to remember, particularly with invoices. Often, scheduling and hourly billing shifts due to various factors, so having a day-by-day record what actually happened is very helpful.
Take it to the Next Level:
- Review how your time was spent every couple weeks with the Timely reports. Are there trends that point to problems? If so, how can you turn that problem into a question, for which you can then seek a solution?
