Slow Works, Slow Wins

You have an idea. It’s a great idea. You gather materials and carry it out. It doesn’t work. You give up. What made you think that would work, anyway?

Slow motion water burst from 3dverstas

Wait. Act fast, fail fast, criticize fast. All that speed doesn’t allow you to learn a damn thing. Cutting your losses doesn’t teach you anything except how to cut.

There is a huge benefit to doing things slowly. We live in a super-fast culture, but it’s the same culture that doesn’t like mistakes, that encourages blamestorming as a fair shot in competition.

What’s the benefit of slowing down?

You can anticipate. Slowing down let’s you think before you act. You can think through the next several steps to see if they are what you want, if those steps move you to the result. If they don’t, you can choose another plan.

Slowing down saves time. Anticipating helps you plan more than one step ahead, create a Plan B, and discover options. All that saves time. Saving time reduces anxiety and possibly money. All because you slowed down.

Practice helps you get it right. Slowing down allows you to practice your steps before you have to do them. Practicing anything, from a piano concerto to a speech, makes you better at it. “Winging it” will just result in making your mistakes public. Slow down. Practice. Then when you do it, it will work, and you will know how come it worked. That allows you to do it again–the right way.

Slowing down slows time down. When time slows down, you see more and you understand more. The more you understand, the more you learn, the more you can use what you know.

Excellence takes time. No one was born an expert. You are not the exception. When you do things step by step you can see mistakes, often before you make them. You have more time to do each step, if you aren’t racing. John Wheeler, the physicist, said, “Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.” Take advantage of time.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, trainer and life coach. She understands the value of slow.

Wrong, Wrong, Wonderfully Wrong

“Sometimes it hits me that I’m wrong about most things. About time. About my place in space. About the nature of the body. About the nature of the divine. About human nature. About what death is. About who I am and who my kids are. And about what the creek needs to support the salmon and all its visitors.

But heavens, let’s not worry about being wrong! I’m gradually learning that, paradoxically, it’s the foolsgold–the blunderings, giving ups, breakdowns, in spite ofs, chance encounters, shatterings, letting gos, and mess-ups, that has led to most of the creativity in my life, not the sweet making of something beautiful, or “enlightened” inspiration, and certainly not feeling in control. It’s the opposites, listenings, buzz hums,  the falling (leaping) down the rabbit hole, the stepping through the looking glass, barefoot, with no suitcase, in new territory.”

–Susan G. Wooldridge, Foolsgold, p. 88.

After reading that, I began to wonder why it is that when we notice we are wrong, we are so concerned with having been wrong, instead of pleased and delighted in our ability to detect a mistake and fix or change it.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, life- and creativity coach.

Journal Reviews: Variety for Journalers

Karen Doherty of Exaclair, Inc. in New York was kind enough to send me four journals for review. They have websites at Exaclair and Quo Vadis. They were four nice-looking, thick journals. All are about 8.5 inches tall and 5.5 inches wide. They varied from 3/4 inches thick to 3/8 inches thick.

Left to right: Rhodia, Exacompta, Clairefontaine (unlined), Clairefontaine (lined)

I tested the pages by writing on each page with a fountain pen, a thin Sharpie (the one guaranteed not to bleed through), and a Sharpie fine-point permanent marker. I also used Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils and water to test each journal. People use journals differently, and it’s good to know how each one will stand up to the use you will purchase it for.

The orange Rhodia journal (far left, the color is tangerine, not as pale as shown) has a leather-like cover. It has a comfy, cushy feel.

It has a ribbon marker and an elastic closure, a great feature if you toss your journal into a bag.The paper is lined in light blue and the Rhodia logo is on the bottom of reach right-hand page. Paper is 90g/m, 96 pages. The book is made for writing, not drawing, and doesn’t easily open perfectly flat. The pages are ultra-smooth, almost slick, which comes from hot calendering, or passing them through big, hot rollers under pressure to finish them.  Writing on the page is comfortable, although the fountain pen takes a while to dry. That makes it better for right-handed people than left-handed.

Rhodia pages are ultra-smooth

Neither of the writing pens soaked through, although you can clearly see the writing from the reverse side of the page. I wouldn’t write on both sides of the pages with a fountain pen. The Sharpie permanent marker did soak through, and left spots on the next page as well. The watercolor pencils went down well, and when I painted over them, the water didn’t soak in quickly. It did not cockle (wrinkle or buckle) the page seriously after a day, although it did at first.  When dry, the back of the page was very slightly buckled, but not enough to cause a problem. Surprisingly, once the water dried, the watercolor pencil strokes were still visible, it didn’t blend well.

The Exacompta had 100 pages of 100g/m paper. It’s a heavier paper, slightly ivory, with a laid finish. It looks mould-made, a watermark you can see on each page. The book itself has a sturdy paper cover and the page-edges are silver. It came with a removable leather-like protective cover with “Sketch Book” stamped on it discreetly. When the book is closed it looks expensive, with the silver edged paper. It has a ribbon marker, no elastic closure.

Heavier Exacompta paper is perfect for watercolor and ink

The Exacompta lies flat when open, making it an idea sketchbook. The writing inks did not soak through, so you can write or sketch on both sides of the page. The watercolor pencils blended well, with no buckling on either side of the page once dry. The Sharpie permanent marker did soak through in spots, but left no marks on any other pages.

The two Clairefontaines were very different, which is sure to please a wider variety of customers. Both are stitch-bound and lie flat when opened. The multi-colored cover one is unlined, with smooth,  bright white pages. These pages are also calendared, which gives the paper a smooth finish, without a “tooth.” (Tooth creates a slight drag for pencils, and is generally preferred by artists.) The paper is lighter in weight, I’d guess it at 90g/m. The fountain pen takes about 45 seconds to become smear-proof, although the Sharpie writing pen dries faster. The Sharpie permanent marker soaks through and leaves some marks on the third page as well. If you use pen and ink or watercolor, you won’t want to work on both sides of the pages, although there is no visible buckle to the paper when dried.

Clairefontaine Red-cover journal can handle watercolor

The Clairfontaine red-cover uses lined paper. The paper is white, and again, I’d guess 90g/m. It has a slight drag on pens, which is vital for “fast writing,” a Natalie Goldberg term that I use to describe a journal that’s comfortable to write in. I believe this is the journal used by Julia Child when she was in Paris at the Cordon Bleu. A fountain pen dries quickly, and with the flat-lying book, this can be used by either right- or left-handed people. The Sharpie permanent bleeds through and marks on the third page. The water color blends well, and there is no buckle on either side of the page when dry. A good journal for writers who may occasionally sketch.

Necessary disclosures: I paid for none of these journals, they were donated. I will pass them on to people who take my journaling classes and can’t afford a good journal.

Of the four journals, I liked the Exacompa the best. And not because of the lovely silver gilt-edged pages, but because of the weight and tooth of the papers. I have a strong preference for unlined, heavy-weight pages. And I have a strong aesthetic preference for mould-made papers. My journals have to stand up to some abuse–heavy use, being carried in a purse or backpack. they also have to stand up to fountain pens, watercolor pencils and Pitt Pens–permanent markers that generally don’t bleed through heavier papers.

—Quinn McDonald is a life- and certified creativity coach. She teaches people how to write and give presentations. She also  manages four journals that travel the world.

Theme Thursday #16 9.10.09

There is something magical about artwork that is not functional–that is made from a vision for the sheer joy of beauty. Judith Hoffman is just such an artist. She created a dream focusing device so ancient, so modern and mysterious it delights the eye and sets the imagination racing.

The fish who swims in the sky, Judith Hoffman ©1993. 3.5 x 6 x 1.5 inches. Sterling silver, brass, plexiglass, coral, star fish, pearl. $1600.

Hoffman makes books that can be worn as jewelry. The photo on the left is from her website. I didn’t ask for permission, but I made sure the copyright material appears. Take a close look and bookmark her site, if she asks me to remove the image, I will.

It’s from Hoffman that I learned about Marc Snyder, the artist who created the Zero Sum Project, almost the exact opposite of how Hoffman works. Snyder explains it:

“The goal of the Zero Sum Art project is to create a financially isolated studio environment, in which every cost and every profit is documented and made visible to the viewer, and see if it is possible to create a self-sustaining studio practice. I have been looking for a long time for a project that would make use of eBay AS the artwork, not simply as a venue for selling artwork.”

If you are a clutter-creator, you may remember the Collyer brothers. They created such a huge collection of clutter, the only way through was a narrow path they left. Oddly paranoid, they then booby-trapped the piles and at some point one of the brothers tripped the trap. End of Collyer brothers. Marcia Davenport wrote a book about them–My Brother’s Keeper. I found the book on a bus when I was about eight years old and read the sensational paperback with a sense that there were some very strange people in the world.

E.L Doctorow (author of Ragtime) has just released his version of this bizarre story,  Homer & Langley. I found out about the book on a blog called Quo Vadis, Latin for “Where are you going?” Quo Vadis sells journals, calendars, datebooks of many styles, shapes and brands. There blog, however, covers a wide range of interesting stories about writing, reading and experiencing a big slice of life.

This fall promises to be a reader’s paradise. Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler’s Wife, has a new book out, Her Fearful Symmetry, about twins who inherit their aunt’s apartment near a cemetery.

Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale) is releasing a science fiction book, The Year of the Flood.

And two books that will be popular but that I’ll most likely skip are Nicholas Spark’s The Last Song and Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol, and for similar reasons. Once you’ve read one of these author’s books, you’ve done your due diligence. Spark’s books strike me as a simpler, sticky-sweeter version of plot lines that Jody Picoult handles with more tension, depth and interest. And plot development, character growth and vocabulary. OK, so I’m not a fan of Spark’s. You may be.

If you are a fan of typography, or if your artwork contains word, check out 30+ Creative Typography Art, a blog that will satisfy your deepest typography needs.

You can join in on Theme Thursday: post three links to sites you love or blogs you follow. You can do it on your site or in comments here.

Five Most Recent  Theme Thursdays:  * * *  Creative Play 9.3.08 * * * Creative Play 8.27.09 * * * Creative Play 8/20/09 * * *  Creative Play 8/15/09 * * *   Creative Play 8/6/09 * * * Creative Play 7/30/09 *** Creative Play 7/23/09 * * *

—Quinn McDonald is a life- and certified creativity coach. She teaches people how to write and give presentations. She also  manages four journals that travel the world.

Think Yourself Free

When I teach any of my writing courses, I ask who has had a class in analytical thinking. I’ve had maybe two or three hands go up in over 1,200 students. Why does a writer need analytical thinking skills? Because otherwise you believe the last thing you hear. Every speaker sounds true. We believe what we hear without question because, well, why not?

Snake oil never cured anyone

Analytical thinking is the hand-grenade in the hand of someone who demands meaning. You pull the pin and drop it into a pile of deep verbal fluff and all the easy answers go away.

And that, of course, is the problem with analytical thinking. No one wants messy. No one wants unanswered questions. No one wants to live in ambiguity. It’s easier to be spoon-fed fads, trends, poll numbers, and sound bites. See it on You Tube. Find someone you like and agree with their choice.

Analytical thinking involves asking simple questions with hard answers. It’s hard to think of good questions, but without good questions, all the answer sound similar.

The trouble is, if no one asks the hard questions, we’ll each have to do it individually, and each become experts, which is too much work for the average person.

There are a lot of talk- show hosts who spout opinions based on “it could have happened.” Because the reaction is loud and colorful it gets on the news. I’m embarrassed over my colleagues in the journalism profession, but no one asks the questions of these infotainment opinion-pushers.

Here are some questions to ask the next time you listen to the news or, sigh, those talk-show spouters:

1. Who pays your salary? Where does that money come from?

2. Who is paying for the commercials? As Deep Throat said, “Follow the money.” The person who is paying for this must have a reason for running it.

3. Where are the sources for your stories? “The internet” is not an answer. I can show you six sites that claim the earth is flat. The internet is like a bookstore. Lots of information, not all of it is true.

4. Are you expressing your own opinion or are you presenting facts? Do you have a financial interest in the outcome of this story. (Incidentally, that’s a question I’m asking every doctor I see now–Do you have a financial interest in any of the medications you are prescribing? That ought to make for some interesting answers.)

5. What does the radio station/sponsor want the result of your show to be?

6. Who stands to gain financially if the result of the show is as your sponsors/company gets what they want?

Each answer will bring more questions. And eventually your discover facts you didn’t know before.

Analytical thinking can be as interesting as unraveling a mystery, help you discover real answers and make good decisions for your life. Not a bad advantage for a few questions.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach who asks a lot of questions and lives happily in ambiguity. See her work at QuinnCreative.com and at Raw-Art-Journals.com

Expanding Hearts

My friend Ruth and I were having lunch last week. Our kids are grown, and we were talking about how different families look in today’s life. There are kids, step-kids, step-grandchildren, half-siblings, ex-husbands, ex-in-laws, and other complicated relationships.

As our hearts expand, old hurts stay the same.

I mentioned that my parents-in-law had decided that all children in the family were their grandchildren–whether ex-, half- or foster. It seemed a reasonable solution, and while there are always tricky relationships, the inclusive ones seem easiest.

Ruth said the wisest sentence I’ve heard in a long time:

“It’s not about how many people we can leave out to make a relationship, it’s about creating family-extensions. I won’t date a man who doesn’t have family ties, my heart is expandable.”

Ruth not only has a big heart, it is expandable. And it is. I was her client a year ago when I was looking for a house I could afford, and now we’re friends. We talk about our kids, grandkids, life and love as if we had known each other forever.

Because we are not looking for tests to see whom we can trust, we are starting from a belief in trust. Rather than “Why should I trust this person?”, it’s “Why shouldn’t I trust this person?” And so we have moved from polite conversation to the things that matter. And Ruth’s heart is expandable, indeed.

Expanding hearts work well in every stage in life. Make room for someone else’s past in your combined present. There’s always more room in your heart.

—Quinn McDonald is a life- and certified creativity coach. She teaches people how to write and give presentations. She also  manages four journals that travel the world. In her spare time, she teaches people who can’t draw how to keep an art journal.

We Need More Maps

Maps are disappearing from the internet, from newspapers, from informative sources, and we need them back. In the past two days, I have tried to find the exact location of the Station fire in Los Angeles and of hurricane Jimena in the Baja Peninsula, and couldn’t find maps for either ones.

Photo courtesy National Hurricane Center

There are photographs of the fire, lots of photographs of big waves at Cabo San Lucas, but it took me serious searching to find a good map.

When I showed the map on the left to some participants, they said, “Well, how do you know where that is?” Although the West half of Texas is shown, and most of New Mexico, Arizona, a chunk of California and Mexico, and all of Baja California, most people couldn’t figure out the image. We are no longer used to maps. We rely on photos for emotional food, but we dieted away our spatial-relationship food.

We may not need paper maps as long as there is a GPS system to tell us how to get where we want to go. But don’t we need to know where we were and how we got here? If life is a journey, don’t we want a map of the trip?

My dirty secret is that I hate using GPS systems. They make me feel dizzy and disoriented. I have the same problem as digital clocks– I need to know where I’m not as well as where I am. I need to have a sense of connection, of space, of logic on the freeway as well as downtown. A few days ago a friend and I were driving to the airport. She had mistakenly programmed her GPS system for someplace else. And while we could both clearly see the airplanes landing a few miles away, she headed in the other direction because her GPS system told her to.

Here are the three reasons we need maps:

1. Maps help us figure out the world around us. Most people who don’t live in Arizona think the entire state is desert, with saguaro cactus and drifting sand, like the Sahara. (The Sahara doesn’t have saguaros, but that’s another blog.) When they hear it snows in Flagstaff and that the road to the Grand Canyon is closed due to snow, starting in November, they think I’m making it up. A topographical map, showing elevations, helps explain why that is.

Ancient map with Jerusalem as the center of the world

2. Maps help us figure out where to go next. This isn’t necessary about physical geography, this is also true in writing. I use a mind map to organize almost everything I write, and once I organize the studio, I can complete the map of where things are. This is a goofy map I’m making because the room is small and doubles as the guest room, so I often have to disappear things in a closet. A strict rule of putting things in the same place every time and an Excel spread sheet (I can search for items in different ways) helps me locate gesso, spray bottles and sponge brushes once the guests are gone.

3. Maps help us know what’s beyond the horizon. We usually care about our houses and our back yards. It’s also important to know what’s in your back yard, what’s in the next state, the location of the nearest gas station, food store, body of water, firehouse, and friend. A good map can do that, particularly if you add to it or draw it yourself.

Which reminds me. Draw your own maps. They don’t have to be elaborate or even exact. Drawing a map helps you think spatially, locally and globally. And that has to be a good thing.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, life and creativity coach. She draws lots of maps for fun. And to write well.

Maybe It’s NOT “Meant to Be”

In the last weeks, when my spouse needed help getting around, almost everybody told me it was “meant to be,” and that “there is a reason for everything.” I’m taking a big step outside my comfort zone here, and I’m going to say, “I don’t think so.”

Fuzzy question mark

The “reason for everything” phrase seems to me to be a way to avoid critical thinking, push unexplained events out of the realm of real-world and into the world of religion. And once it’s in the world of religion, it falls into the crack of fate, dusted over by the will of some special god.

I’m a spiritual person. But my kind of spirituality allows for not knowing everything, questioning things I don’t know, and leaves a lot of room for dumb mistakes, personal wrong-doing, evil people and tragic events that are not of a divine retribution or even a divine cause that we are to untangle like a thin-chain gold necklace, till the knots are out and we can wear it again. Wow. That sentence has 68 words, and I teach my writing classes that  a sentence should have a maximum of 16 words.  Must be a reason for that. See? There isn’t. I just rattled on.

And my spouse tripped over the cat, who was not divinely placed for some larger learning, he was just asleep under the fan.

Now, if those “everything has a reason” people puzzled over what the meaning is, I could understand it. But the phrase has become a way to avoid thinking, to shove the responsibility into a divine realm, where it cannot be questioned. And should not be. And that’s the part I have trouble with.

control/option keys

I don’t want to wander through my life, blindly believing there is a reason for everything but having no idea what that reason is. I want to know. If there is a lesson, I want to learn it. Otherwise, trips happen.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer who teaches writing to companies that are having trouble being heard or making themselves clear. She teaches PowerPoint for what it was meant to do–explain through words and images, rather than bullet points. Quinn is also a life- and creativity coach who helps people through change. She teaches people who can’t draw how to keep art journals.

Head Shots On Blogs: Friend or Foe?

It’s become a convention for successful blogs, LinkedIn profiles, even business cards: put your picture on your online (and print) material to add credibility. Recently Neal Schaffer of Windmill Networking wrote an article making strong points in favor of photos.  All his reasons were good ones—people can see who you are, credibility is important in a world of impostors, and people want to know who they are dealing with.

Quinn's pencil avatar

Reading Neal’s article brought up some other thoughts I’ve had for a while. We have a tendency to like people who are like us. So when we look at photos, wouldn’t it be true that our own biases lead us to the “credible” image, which is “someone just like me”? Wouldn’t white people choose white people in photographs, young people choose young images, fat people prefer other fat images? We feel more comfortable doing business with people who look like we do–we assume that if they look like us, they also have our values and beliefs.

These personal likes can also go one step further–we eliminate people because of a comb-over, ugly jewelry, a hair style we gave up years ago, an unfortunate color we associate with someone we don’t like. Worse, we do this all without giving it much thought. It’s part of our taste, our preferences, our choices.

Sure, we can say, “Well, I wouldn’t want to work for such an opinionated person,” but you probably already are. Your client might have chosen you for exactly such a reason. And because our opinions are deeply buried in our subconscious, we justify them. Or worse, deny them.

It’s easy to believe in the photo/credibility story if you are young and good looking. If you aren’t, you begin to wonder about the truth of the New Yorker cartoon that shows two dogs at a computer. One dog says to the other, “On the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog.”

Over at Mashable, there’s a post that makes me think . It’s a list of Twitter’s most prolific spammer avatars, and they are predominantly of attractive men and women. Spammers offer no credibility, but they offer great photographs. Because they can be anyone they want to be.

I’m not an expert web marketer, I speak simply from my own ideas and experiences. I often use an avatar that shows what I do, not who I am. I find it works well, for exactly the same reason those photos do: It shows a skill I have that people need. Instant identification through a photo.  As for credibility, I’ll let the content of my work speak for me.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, life- and creativity coach. She owns QuinnCreative, a site for businesses who want communication training, and Raw-Art-Journals.com for those who want to keep an art journal, but can’t draw. (c) QuinnCreative, 2009 All rights reserved.

Practice, Please

Big sigh. Hang head.

Yet another client wants a four-hour class to cover what six years of grade school, two years of middle school, four years of high school and four years of college could not. The topic doesn’t even matter, this is about time.

Bart know practice. He does it at the start of every show.

“See one, do one, teach one,” is the new business mantra for learning. That means that after you see a procedure, you can do it correctly without practice,  and then are capable of teaching it. Business people must be a lot smarter than I am.

I teach business writing–how to write an email that gets read,  how to write a good PowerPoint (seriously, cut down on those bullets) and then deliver it, how to write and give a good speech with no PowerPoint at all, listening skills, negotiation skills, and dealing with difficult people.  But I can’t do it in four hours. Particularly if the client won’t let me do exercises with the group. Certainly not if the participants arrive without a single idea that taking notes might be a good way to learn.

The other part of the mantra in business education is that no one should have to take notes. That’s what class materials are for. No class material should be that detailed that the topic can be learned by listening to an instructor and reading notes afterward.

Here’s a giant secret: in the history of the universe, no one has learned anything well by hearing it once, not practicing it, and then trying to be an expert at it. Practice takes time. A good class allows people to try out their own learning techniques and see what they understand, adjust it, try it again, ask questions, try it again, then find out what’s needed to make it stick, try it again and then practice on their own.

I don’t want my brain surgeon to be a “see it, do it, teach it” learner. In fact, I don’t want the bank teller, the mail delivery person, the bus driver,  fire fighter or the pot-hole fixer to be a “see it, do it, teach it,” learner, either.  (Although I think I’ve met the bank teller already.)

You need practice to learn something. You need practice over time. A hundred dives of the diving board in one day will not make you as good a diver as 10 dives of the diving board a day for 10 days.

There isn’t a workbook, textbook, or classroom handout that will give you skill without practice. And having someone come in for four hours and expect to train your group well enough so your group is skilled in something as difficult as listening, problem solving or giving presentations is unrealistic.

Sure, I know it’s money and time. But both of those are wasted if you don’t allow your participants to practice, and practice often.  “Practice makes perfect” was repeated by someone who didn’t bring a scribe and tablet to Periander’s class. The original quote, by Periander is, “Practice is everything.”

For my practice, Martha Graham said it best: “We learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. One becomes in some area an athlete of God.”

–-Quinn McDonald is an instructor whose classes all contain exercises to practice each step along the way.

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