Mindfulness by Ellen Langer

This book was chosen by the faculty development committee at our college for a discussion group. I have not finished it yet, but will. I recommend it, although I had some issues with some of her research design and ethics! (I'm sure it was done correctly and she just didn't write about that.)

I used this book in my talk to the Calhoun Area Writers' Group last nigh, applying it to fiction writing.  Specifically the three points of mindfulness:

a.   questioning categories, "This is a pen vs. this could be a pen."

b.    shifting contexts and perspectives. This is essential to creating characters. My main character in my most recent novel is an agnostic, cynical male editor of a newspaper. That’s not me, yet I have fun writing him. Sort of like the time I played a witch in MacBeth in 1980.

c.    stepping away from automatic behavior. Automatic behavior is the kiss of death for a writer.  We think of it as clichés, but there’s more. As you are writing, you have an outline or plan, but the plan might need to be jumped off of.  I was writing about a character who is found dead and there is an autopsy, and I decided, what if they found alcohol in her system? And that took the story in a new direction and added depth to a character that might be too one-dimensional.

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