When one makes a hopeless investment, one sometimes reasons: I can’t stop now, otherwise what I’ve invested so far will be lost. This is true, of course, but irrelevant to whether one should continue to invest in the project. Everything one has invested is lost regardless.
More ...
http://skepdic.com/sunkcost.html
. @Huwtube Your post highlights therapeutic alliance & client are key common factors for change, not so-called evidence based techniques.
— Jeffrey Guterman (@JeffreyGuterman) August 31, 2015
Goodbye Dr Sacks: Oliver Sacks Dies at 82; Neurologist and Author Who Explored the Brain’s Quirks http://t.co/UOHyYhoSsw via @nickyclayton22
— Vaughan Bell (@vaughanbell) 30. august 2015
Psych burnout
Is Our Profession Breaking Our Hearts? A Valentine’s Day Concern http://t.co/J6GSDdZLb2 #Blogs
All challenging behaviour is a communication http://t.co/8t7RwfeyCz (by @patriciaohara)
Connecting to Madness | Jim van Os | TEDxMaastricht:l
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE3gxX5CiW0&sns=tw
Oh dear
Another piece suggests the answer to gun crime is forcing meds on those 'without insight into mental illness'
http://t.co/vPfifAaXLe
— Anne Cooke (@AnneCooke14) August 31, 2015
Communicating Effectively to Improve Your Self-Esteem
http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/buildingselfesteem/2015/02/communicating-effectively-and-your-self-esteem/
COMMENT: Ask yourself in a mental help situation: Is it possible to communicate effectively with this mental helper?
Placebo versus medication for psychosis
http://www.thementalelf.net/publication-types/meta-analysis/placebo-versus-medication-for-psychosis/
Psychotherapy Works, But Not for Everyone February 13, 2015 | Couch in Crisis, PsychotherapyBy Allen Frances, MD - See more at: http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/couch-crisis/psychotherapy-works-not-everyone#sthash.Ktqria5I.dpuf
Efficacy and Safety of Pharmacological and Psychological Interventions for the Treatment of Psychosis and Schizophrenia in Children, Adolescents and Young Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0117166
Conclusions: For children, adolescents and young adults, the balance of risk and benefit of antipsychotics appears less favourable than in adults. Research is needed to establish the potential for psychological treatments, alone and in combination with antipsychotics, in this population.
http://jezebel.com/we-survived-an-opening-night-screening-of-fifty-shades-1685672861?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
https://legiononomamoi.wordpress.com/2015/01/24/the-myth-of-the-scientific-method/
The real problem in the sciences:
https://legiononomamoi.wordpress.com/2015/02/13/the-real-problem-in-the-sciences/
http://www.madinamerica.com/2015/02/occams-razor-elusive-pursuit-social-justice/
Here is my latest post, about calling yourself a "critical psychologist": http://t.co/sr23DNp7N9
— Huw (@Huwtube) February 7, 2015
#Psykisk helsetjenester bør ikke insistere på at folk ser på seg selv som syke, sier @AnneCooke14 og @peterkinderman http://t.co/eutKMfdt2z
— Sigrun Tømmerås (no) (@Sigrun_T) 4. desember 2014
3 distinct processes of communication make #psychotherapy effective claims @PeterFonagy http://t.co/tbZIh7hv5y
— Jørgen Flor (@jorgenflor) 10. desember 2014
In some therapists' view, acceptance and compassion for your incest rapist is "the most adult perspective" http://t.co/XAhrSinLzD
— Sigrun Tømmerås (no) (@Sigrun_T) 10. desember 2014
If psychosis is a rational response to abuse, let’s talk about it | Clare Allan http://t.co/WZgzseJX3r via @guardian
— Clare Allan (@clareallan) 2. desember 2014
The problem with telling your kids they’re "special" http://t.co/2qduBVCuuv via @WaPoThing
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 2, 2014
Why Your Therapist Should Go 'Back to the Future' http://t.co/YfsPDNozpv #Psychoanalysis #Psychotherapy @douglaslabier via @HealthyLiving
— Catherine_Hyland (@journaleyes) November 30, 2014
New blog from @BipolarBlogger: are home treatment teams containing and supporting people like they're supposed to?
http://t.co/YPuo6AJXe8
— Leigh Emery (@SafeUncertainty) June 24, 2014
From Dee to Patti: Transgender Women Fighting Back Against Sexual Assault in Detention -
"But this time Patti... http://t.co/iFBgoaJ2fD
— Kat Haché (@papierhache) March 26, 2014
http://jonathanturley.org/2014/03/19/the-uncensored-the-rape-joke-surviving-rape-in-a-culture-that-wont-let-you/
Treating Adult & Juvenile Sex Offending - terrific special journal issue - all articles available for free download http://t.co/EzhoSU9sqz
— Karen Franklin (@kfranklinphd) March 19, 2014
A Psychological Vision of Life Beyond the Disease Model
Int J Law Psychiatry. 2014 Jan-Feb;37(1):99-108. doi: 10.1016/j.ijlp.2013.10.003. Epub 2013 Dec 6.
Sexual assault, irresistible impulses, and forensic psychiatry in Sweden.
Abstract
After forensic psychiatry was firmly established in Sweden in the 1930s, many rapists and individuals charged with assaulting children underwent a forensic psychiatric examination. The physicians found that most of them had not been "in control" of their senses or not "in complete control" of their senses at the time of the crime. If the court ordered a forensic psychiatric examination, the defendant had a very good chance of either being discharged or having his sentence reduced considerably. By the 1950s psychological perspectives began to dominate in forensic psychiatry. In the forensic records of the 1950s we can notice a shift from a biomedical to a socio-psychological perspective, and crime was increasingly related to conditions that were not seen as mental derangement from a legal point of view. As a result, it became less and less common, from the 1950s onwards, for sentences to be commuted or defendants discharged
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24315847
Trauma and Psychosis Review article John Read et al. (2014) Blows reductionist biological models out the water http://t.co/o8xapWDuyL
— Steven Coles (@Steven_Coles_) February 7, 2014
More honestly reported early psychosis trial by statistician for @TheLancet study. Why not in CBT/psychosis study? http://t.co/XxGPNX67KB
— James C.Coyne (@CoyneoftheRealm) February 10, 2014
Jerome Bruner and the process of education
http://infed.org/mobi/jerome-bruner-and-the-process-of-education/Malevolent war:
@PeterDLROW OMG, they're not just advocating war, they're pro-atomic bombs! (p. 5) http://t.co/TekE7Sw4B3
— Melissa Raven (@psychepi) January 9, 2014
CLICHES:
@ivaalsg @Frihagen @miaspora @Sigrun_ pic.twitter.com/kWcUuPZxiE
— cuculus canorus (@CuculusC) January 9, 2014
The customer reviews on this piece of garbage made my day. http://t.co/lmUJuA5iPM
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) January 8, 2014
We have an #education which is not prioritising the #well-being of our #children or our educators http://t.co/6Oqo1burxj
— Janeevans (@janeparenting) December 8, 2013
5 Cookie Tips to Make You a Rock-Star Baker http://t.co/mGqGPRneCv Thanks @NancySilverton!
— epicurious (@epicurious) December 6, 2013
Our blog #NigellaLawson vs #Charles Saatchi. How do victims/ perpetrators of #domesticviolence find each other? http://t.co/FDcwh8Yvtv
— CCCU Salomons Psych (@CCCUAppPsy) December 6, 2013
Should Oppressed People Know Better? http://t.co/YagYa02Gpq (Spoiler: No.) cc @ivaalsg
— Doremus (@Doremus42) December 6, 2013
Esther Cohen-Tovee reminds us that organisational values must come from all involved. #dcpconf pic.twitter.com/4m32yqIsIH
— Stephen Weatherhead (@SteWeatherhead) December 6, 2013
Abused women have increased risk of mental disorders | Mental Healthy: http://t.co/7jQetdAG7W
— Janeevans (@janeparenting) December 5, 2013
Diagnosis: Human
By TED GUP
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/opinion/diagnosis-human.html?_r=0
People who brag about being politically incorrect tend to also be morally, ethically, factually, and grammatically incorrect.
— God (@TheTweetOfGod) December 4, 2013
The selfish gene is a great meme. Too bad it’s so wrong http://t.co/O4uUcqkovL via @aeonmag
— Ash Paul (@pash22) December 5, 2013
The Disease-Centered Model Versus The Drug-Centered Model http://t.co/InzODKYlCs (New Post)
— Phil Hickey (@BigPhilHickey) December 5, 2013
CJ Werleman : Why Atheist Libertarians Are Part of America's 1 Percent Problem
http://www.alternet.org/belief/why-atheist-libertarians-are-part-americas-1-problem
Montana judge admits he broke ethics code by suggesting 14-year-old rape victim was "in control" of the situation http://t.co/wbNtZdRXDY
— ThinkProgress Health (@TPHealth) December 3, 2013
How Can We Talk About Difficult Experiences Non-Violently?
Shared by
Dr. Brent Potter
Walls and Ladders http://t.co/dYO7MYpV1k
— Terry Burridge (@Kleinrules) December 2, 2013
Talk therapy may reverse biological changes in PTSD patients http://t.co/m6Fv7AMqKb
— Atle Dyregrov (@Dyregrov) December 3, 2013
— Atle Dyregrov (@Dyregrov) December 3, 2013
"Can any religious person who owns a company refuse to pay for insurance that would cover any health-care procedure or device that he or she doesn’t believe in? "
Two really good pieces on #HobbyLobby decision: http://t.co/BTUZb4wbr0 ht @LEBassett & http://t.co/aCY8bTjFB4M ht @JessicaValenti #fem2
— Soraya Chemaly (@schemaly) December 3, 2013
The human body is full of serotonin. Can SSRI’s affect the eyes? This man’s story suggests they can. http://t.co/lxtxcMwPcc
— David Healy (@DrDavidHealy) December 3, 2013
— Soraya Chemaly (@schemaly) December 3, 2013
— David Healy (@DrDavidHealy) December 3, 2013
Interesting India LGBTQI+ blog
“Homophobia and transphobia are violence
http://t.co/wXDEVWM9mS”
Via @prajnya @safeworld4women
cc @TWkLGBTQ
— Colin Tom (@ReporterPhoenix) December 3, 2013
— Colin Tom (@ReporterPhoenix) December 3, 2013
"Can Pain Be Tamed?" A new post from Amy Price on the topic of #PainReduction today on #DxSummit http://t.co/LRTTlwXmR2
— DxSummit (@dx_summit) October 28, 2013
Speaking a second language may delay dementia by 5 years. Largest study yet. http://t.co/BWl1ITbo15
— Ward Plunet (@WardPlunet) November 13, 2013
Dear Joss Whedon: STFU
from the blog of foz meadows— DxSummit (@dx_summit) October 28, 2013
— Ward Plunet (@WardPlunet) November 13, 2013
Posted: November 8, 2013 in Critical Hit
Tags: Feminism, Gender, Intersectionality, Joss Whedon, Language, Much Ado About Nothing, Race, Racefail, Sexism
http://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/dear-joss-whedon-stfu/
A Child on the Shock Ward | Mad In America http://t.co/ISjSCr3sxX
— zebdot (@zebraspolkadots) November 12, 2013
NPR: Brazil's largest archive of photographs of slavery in world. "Emancipation, Inclusion & Exclusion." http://t.co/dXu8qlU2P3 HT @asheda
— Soraya Chemaly (@schemaly) November 12, 2013
On #VeteransDay Remember More Vets Die From Suicide Than In Iraq & Afghanistan #HonoringVets http://t.co/XGFLy2pPr2 pic.twitter.com/Dq909c0WfT
— The Baxter Bean (@TheBaxterBean) November 11, 2013
Great explanatory piece by @hildabast - Statistical significance and its part in science downfalls http://t.co/izIpMzxz2n
— Ross D. Silverman (@phlu) November 12, 2013
Entitled: “You should write that down.” “What? What did I say?” I was at a Mexican restaurant in Pilsen, post-... http://t.co/qz8iaM5XpG
— toska (@toschenka) November 11, 2013
“First do no harm” revisited | BMJ http://t.co/Id0uN9qXgD Clinicians don't inflict zero harm
— Duncan Double (@DBDouble) November 11, 2013
Countries with better psychiatric services experience higher suicide rates. (Psychiatry kills.) http://t.co/RHUfKrYNlE
— S Randolph Kretchmar (@MentalHealthLaw) November 11, 2013
Patrick Stewart: the legacy of domestic violence
As a child, the actor regularly saw his father hit his mother. Here he describes how the horrors of his childhood remained with him in his adult lifehttp://www.theguardian.com/society/2009/nov/27/patrick-stewart-domestic-violence
Everything You Know About Your Personal Hygiene Is Wrong
The Huffington Post | By Todd Van Lulinghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/08/personal-hygiene-facts_n_4217839.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
Another way of understanding #schizophrenia http://t.co/zfBWCFOjqi
— INTERVOICE (@VoicesUnLtd) November 11, 2013
Is PTSD contagious? http://t.co/HXcad98ZU5
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) November 11, 2013
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) November 11, 2013
Hana's Story
An adoptee's tragic fate, and how it could happen again.By Kathryn Joyce
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/11/hana_williams_the_tragic_death_of_an_ethiopian_adoptee_and_how_it_could.html
Science has lost its way, at a big cost to humanity http://t.co/VQld5bahs5 #Science Is Corrupted Too?
— TherapyCG (@TherapyCG) November 10, 2013
From a Psychiatric Survivor - Why Psychiatry Should be Abolished | CCHR International http://t.co/UgqEuh1zBF via @sharethis
— CCHR United Kingdom (@cchruk) November 10, 2013
Dissociation and the Dissociative Disorders: DSM V and Beyond - for Behavioral Health Professionals http://t.co/ApZSdFOxdP #therapists
— zebdot (@zebraspolkadots) November 10, 2013
Deepak Chopra the piece of crap,the ignorant ass, the quantum jargon continues to fool around.Beware of that man. http://t.co/lfpwf1vjW5 … …
— taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) November 10, 2013
— taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) November 10, 2013
Living in One of R. D. Laing’s Post-Kingsley Hall Households
Michael Guy Thompsonhttp://www.madinamerica.com/2013/11/living-one-r-d-laings-post-kingsley-hall-households/
How many freaks claim they spank their kids "for their own good," when their true intent is pleasure and/or profit? http://t.co/Jr1kduQNwa
— Andrew Vachss (@AndrewVachss) November 6, 2013
RT @darrylayo: This article is called "Annoyed By Bad Structure" http://t.co/EYyhIZZoAi it's about how much I resent manipulative essayists.
— Xavier Santana (@xbsaint) November 9, 2013
Is the cult of positive thinking a threat to psychoanalysis? http://t.co/3mACzoltyi
— Dr. Brent Potter (@DrBrentPotter) November 8, 2013
.@Skepticscalpel The Sometimes Fatal Incidentaloma - http://t.co/SptgMWqgUV An example of how one accidental finding leads to disaster
— Medicalskeptic (@medskep) November 8, 2013
— Medicalskeptic (@medskep) November 8, 2013
Catherine Malabou’s The New Wounded: From Neurosis to Brain Damage
By Raad Fadaak
CHILDREN: protective factors against mental health problems
Speaker: Head of Research Anne Inger Helmen Borge, Department of Psychology
http://www.uio.no/english/about/news-and-events/events/global-citizen/the-global-infant.html
@DrBrentPotter
When “psychiatric survivors” think they know it all…
October 28, 2013 by Monica Cassani
@DBDouble
Allen Frances, M.D.
Does It Make Sense To Scrap Psychiatric Diagnosis?
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/saving-normal/201310/does-it-make-sense-scrap-psychiatric-diagnosis-0
http://narrative.ly/pieces-of-mind/
via @sigrun_
Nick Brown Smelled Bull: by Vinnie Rotondaro
debunking positive psychology
Top of the heap: Angela Woods
By Ekaterina Anderson and Maria Cecilia Dedios
This week we feature two clusters of books, one on depression, the other on voice-hearing, which are at the top of the reading list for Angela Woods, Lecturer in Medical Humanities at Durham University and Co-Director of the Hearing the Voice project. Also, check back next week for Woods’ review of Anne Cvetkovich’s Depression: A Public Feeling.
Joar Ø. Halvorsen @joarhalvorsen 1m
The psychology literature is unquestionably distorted http://www.biomedcentral.com/2050-7283/1/2 by @Keith_Laws. Ought to be curriculum for all psychologists
The Dangers of DSM-5
by Patrick Landman
http://dxsummit.org/archives/1559A solution to the ossification of community psychiatry. Peter Tyrer
http://www.theferrett.com/ferrettworks/2013/10/talk-to-me-not-of-patriotism/
"Despite what the world would tell you, “meaning well” is a virtue, because if someone means well then you at least have the opportunity to convince them that your course is the right one."
Another Sexual Harassment Case in Science: The Deafening Silence That Surrounds It Condones It
Priya Shetty, Science journalist
Marshall Helmberger on
"Don't Think of an Elephant!
Know Your Values and Frame the Debate"
by George Lakoff
Esther Inglis-Arkell, psychology today :
The Backfire Effect shows why you can't use facts to win an argument
http://io9.com/the-backfire-effect-shows-why-you-cant-use-facts-to-wi-1443792942What's it like to be Held Down and Injected?
Katy Gray @SchizophrenicGB
http://schizophreniasucks.blogspot.no/2013/10/what-it-like-to-be-held-down-and.htmlRecovering From Psychiatry
Laura Delano
http://recoveringfrompsychiatry.com/When Psychiatry Retraumatizes
By Laura K. Kerr
Finding Normal
by Tim Carey
Is Therapeutic Alliance Over Rated?
http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/10/therapeutic-alliance-rated/The Subtle Violence of Nonviolent Language
By Flack, Chapman
Magazine article from Cross Currents, Vol. 56, No. 3
http://www.questia.com/library/1G1-152267677/the-subtle-violence-of-nonviolent-language
It is perfectly fine to be emotional in front of patients
Brené Brown: Are You Judging Those Who Ask For Help?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/28/brene-brown--judgment-oprah_n_4005335.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003
When Virtue Becomes Vice
The nature of a virtue is that a vice is almost always hidden inside.
By Mary Loftus, published on September 02, 2013 - last reviewed on September 05, 2013
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201308/when-virtue-becomes-vice
Are “Mental Disorders” Bad?
by Jeffrey Rubin
http://dxsummit.org/archives/1343
Most of the quotes about writing are
via a daily email from http://www.advicetowriters.com/
Try to Be Alive
The most solid advice . . . for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell, and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.
WILLIAM SAROYAN
Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.
BARBARA KINGSOLVER
You can’t learn to write in college. It’s a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do—and they don’t. They have prejudices. They may like Henry James, but what if you don’t want to write like Henry James? They may like John Irving, for instance, who’s the bore of all time. A lot of the people whose work they’ve taught in the schools for the last thirty years, I can’t understand why people read them and why they are taught.
RAY BRADBURY
We're Looking for Hope
In conversations over the years with other writers and artists, about what we're actually supposed to be doing, I've been struck by how often, deep down, the talk becomes a quest for the same mysterious thing. Underneath the particular image in question, the particular short story or musical composition, we're looking for a source of hope. When a conversation about each other's work doesn't pivot on professional jargon or drift toward the logistics of career management, when it's instead deferential and accommodating, we're sometimes able to locate a kind of Rosetta stone, a key to living well with the vexing and intractable nature of human life. If any wisdom emerges in these conversations, it offers sudden clarification. It's the Grail shimmer. You feel it, and you can't wait to get to work.
BARRY LOPEZ
No One is Ever Going to See Your First Draft
For me, it’s always been a process of trying to convince myself that what I’m doing in a first draft isn’t important. One way you get through the wall is by convincing yourself that it doesn’t matter. No one is ever going to see your first draft. Nobody cares about your first draft. And that’s the thing that you may be agonizing over, but honestly, whatever you’re doing can be fixed.
NEIL GAIMAN
The Important Thing in Writing is the Capacity to Astonish
The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock—shock is a worn-out word—but astonish. The world has no grounds whatever for complacency. The Titanic couldn’t sink, but it did. Where you find smugness, you find something worth blasting. I want to blast it.
TERRY SOUTHERN
Writing Is An Act of Revolutionary Guerrilla Warfare
I don't know how you perceive my mission as a writer, but for me it is not a responsibility to reaffirm your concretized myths and provincial prejudices. It is not my job to lull you with a false sense of the rightness of the universe. This wonderful and terrible occupation of recreating the world in a different way, each time fresh and strange, is an act of revolutionary guerrilla warfare. I stir the soup. I inconvenience you. I make your nose run and your eyeballs water.
- HARLAN ELLISON
603 million women live where #domesticviolence is NOT a crime. That's equal to Egypt, USA & Brazil combined. #16days pic.twitter.com/YlivbXRJDd
— UN Development (@UNDP) November 25, 2013
When people talk listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. You should be able to go into a room and when you come out know everything that you saw there and not only that. If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling. Try that for practice. When you’re in town stand outside the theatre and see how the people differ in the way they get out of taxis or motor cars. There are a thousand ways to practice. And always think of other people.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
“@SMEasterbrook: info is not wisdom. #Qdebate pic.twitter.com/Omj5HJK4nV” fantastic model. I would love to add mentoring in as a catalyst
— Lis Merrick (@LisMerrick) November 12, 2013
“peach cobbler”: dump two cans of peaches in heavy syrup into a 9x13 pan, sprinkle a box of cake mix on top, and slice up a stick of butter and put that on top, then bake until brown-ish. This monstrosity is surprisingly good and has actually won several local baking contests!
-Tamboo Truncated Huxley:
from http://freudfri.blogspot.no/2013/09/thomas-scheff-s-word-shame-as-key-to.html :
Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects... totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations.
- Aldous Huxley
from http://mindbodypolitic.com/2011/09/19/ :
Zahir Ebrahim:
“Virtually one hundred percent of what is deemed respectable Western dissent espouses this foundational axiom. It works well because it draws upon selective empiricism couched in omissions to demonstrate its veracity. But a half-truth is still only a full lie. That full lie works like this:
‘The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects, by lowering what Mr. Churchill calls an “iron curtain” between the masses and such facts or arguments as the local political bosses regard as undesirable, totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have done by the most eloquent denunciations, the most compelling of logical rebuttals. But silence is not enough. If persecution, liquidation and the other symptoms of social friction are to be avoided, the positive sides of propaganda must be made as effective as the negative.’
— Aldous Huxley, Preface (circa 1946) to Brave New World, 1931, Harper, pg. 11
"What's done to children they will do to society" Karl Menninger
"There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way it treats its children" Nelson Mandela
Writing a first draft is like groping one's way into a dark room, or overhearing a faint conversation, or telling a joke whose punchline you've forgotten. As someone said, one writes mainly to rewrite, for rewriting and revising are how one's mind comes to inhabit the material fully.
TED SOLOTAROFF
An Adjunct Reference or Replacement for DSM
by John LaMuth
http://dxsummit.org/archives/1628
WILLIAM STRUNK, JR. and E.B. WHITE:
Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.
STEPHEN KING
Never look at a reference book while doing a first draft. You want to write a story? Fine. Put away your dictionary, your encyclopedias, your World Almanac, and your thesaurus. Better yet, throw your thesaurus into the wastebasket. The only things creepier than a thesaurus are those little paperbacks college students too lazy to read the assigned novels buy around exam time. Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. You think you might have misspelled a word? O.K., so here is your choice: either look it up in the dictionary, thereby making sure you have it right - and breaking your train of thought and the writer's trance in the bargain - or just spell it phonetically and correct it later. Why not? Did you think it was going to go somewhere? And if you need to know the largest city in Brazil and you find you don't have it in your head, why not write in Miami, or Cleveland? You can check it ... but later. When you sit down to write, write. Don't do anything else except go to the bathroom, and only do that if it absolutely cannot be put off.
JOHN McPHEE
You begin with a subject, gather material, and work your way to structure from there. You pile up volumes of notes and then figure out what you are going to do with them, not the other way around.
KURT VONNEGUT
Our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time.
PAULA KAPLAN
Are the only good ex-patients those who stuff deep inside themselves the ways the system hurt them?
URSULA K. LE GUIN
If you have to find devices to coax yourself to stay focused on writing, perhaps you should not be writing what you're writing. And if this lack of motivation is a constant problem, perhaps writing is not your forte. I mean, what is the problem? If writing bores you, that is pretty fatal. If that is not the case, but you find that it is hard going and it just doesn't flow, well, what did you expect? It is work; art is work.
Mark Twain once said, "The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter -- it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."
NEIL GAIMAN
The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you're allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it's definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.
Lucy Johnstone (@ClinpsychLucy):
#MHchat My translation of 'borderline' dx: 'I don't like you, don't understand you and don't know what to do with you.'
Contempt is the weapon of the weak and a defense against one's own despised and unwanted feelings. -Alice Miller, psychologist and author (1923-2010)
Amanda Marcotte @AmandaMarcotte:
It's fascinating to me how much the right seems to believe that "religious freedom" means "freedom to control others".
It Takes Great Courage
Writers spend all their time preoccupied with just the things that their fellow men and women spend their time trying to avoid thinking about. ... It takes great courage to look where you have to look, which is in yourself, in your experience, in your relationship with fellow beings, your relationship to the earth, to the spirit or to the first cause—to look at them and make something of them.
HARRY CREWS
E.L. DOCTOROW
What we call fiction is the ancient way of knowing, the total discourse that antedates all the special vocabularies.... Fiction is democratic, it reasserts the authority of the single mind to make and remake the world.
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