Saturday 26 July 2014

You talkin' to me?

How often have you talked to yourself? Pretty often?  Hardly ever?  Ashamed to admit how often?  According to recent research talking to yourself in the second person is highly motivational.  If you tell yourself "I can do it" it is not half so compelling as saying "you can do it" to yourself out loud or in a whisper or deep in your mind  That might be why President Obama's "yes we can" slogan has faded a little -'cause no one was specifically delegated, now if he'd said - but I don't want to go there.

I read an article on the findings of some research for this on the Forbes magazine website. Apparently some research results were also posted in the European Journal of Social Psychiatry.  I'll be honest, I skimmed through the article in Forbes and I didn't read the other one. The study was not considered complete because it was not known how this approach actually affected the carrying out of tasks. So your guess is as good as mine as to whether this really works. 
My guess for what it's worth is that it will work sometimes and other times not simply because in our deepest depths we know what we can and can't do.  I do not have a head for heights so it's no good me psyching myself up to climb a mountain by repeating "you can do it".  Sure I could do it - if there were 10 hungry grizzly bears on my tail and even then I have my doubts I'd get beyond the first ledge. But I wouldn't need to talk to myself about it, I'd just run and start climbing and that would be adrenalin and the determination to survive which is inbuilt in all of us.

I talk to myself about all sorts of things.  "Now where did I put that?" is a very frequent question.  It's normal and it does help.  I don't think we needed a clinical study to find that out.  Either it works for you or it doesn't.  With so much written on human behaviour, how to understand it and get the best for yourself out of it, you'd think we should be beyond all these new ideas and concepts.  The first work of this kind which I ever read was the Dale CArnegie classic How to Win Friends and Influence People.  I find it fascinating to this day.  Nothing has really changed in human nature since he wrote that book all those years ago.  The basic principles still hold good today.  It's both a sobering and a comforting thought.

So keep talkin' if that's what works for you.  






Friday 18 July 2014

Writing is fun

I feel a bit like a secret agent.  I've just uploaded my third novel to Amazon under yet another pen name, Death in a Lonely Place by P.B. Barry.
The reason I am doing this is because it is a crime novel and my last book Love at a Later Date is a romance, so I don't want to get people confused.

The idea for Death in a Lonely Place came to me nearly ten years ago while touring the Ring of Kerry.  The landscape is so wildly beautiful down there that I wanted to capture some of the feel of it.  I then combinded this idea with a legend about the river Blackwater which is reputed to claim three lives a year (although few people have heard of this).  I simply transferred this myth to a total fictional mountain in Co. Kerry and the idea for Death in a Lonely Place was up and running.  Not quite.  It took a lot of writing, editing and tweaking before I was at all satisfied with it.  It is not a police procedural although I had debated making it into one but I know far too little about the workings of any police force to even try.  I do envy authors who thank all those high ranking individuals with fascinating titles for their assistance. I'm afraid I don't know anyone to ask (said she wistfully) not even a traffic cop.

Someone asked me the other day with raised eyebrows why I write.  She really meant why I waste my time writing but it's a reasonable question since I am neither rich nor famous and never likely to be. The answer is that I have no idea.  These people trample about in my brain and become as real as a wet Monday or whatever, but real anyway as soon as I put down their story on paper.  Sometimes I have to alter their destinies, their characters and adventures but that's the fun of the game.  I love it all.  Of course there are days when my brain refuses to work, when everything I write seems dull and stupid.  But there are those wonderful days when the words flow.  Agatha Christie once wrote in the preface for one of her novels (I think it was Endless Night) that she'd had a lot of fun writing it and wondered if readers could tell this - and she said that a lot of what she wrote was hard work.  What a comfort to know that such a prolific author had her struggles, too.

Be all that as it may, I hope some of my readers will take the time to check out my latest baby, here is the link if you are interested. Death in a Lonely Place

Have a good week everyone.



Friday 4 July 2014

Happy Chocolate Day on Monday

Monday July 7th is designated Chocolate Day so that all lovers of this sweet stuff can celebrate.  Chocolate is the perfect accompaniment to so many things.  If I've had a really busy week I like to kick my shoes off, slouch on the sofa and have a bar of chocolate with a cup of tea.  Or if I need a bit of time to chill out I'll grab a book, cup of tea and bar of chocolate. 

Or that's what I have been doing in the past.  But since I am determined to lose weight and live a more healthy life, I have restricted my chocolate intake to very special occasions.  I don't even find this difficult, which never ceases to amaze me as I used to be such a guzzler.  We all have depths of strength and self control we never dreamed of, I guess.  Anyway, nowadays when I do buy a bar of that delicious stuff I find that I enjoy it far more than when I ate it more often.  It's a real special treat, a ritual almost.  First of all I enjoy selecting what flavour bar I'm going to buy.  Currently I like mint flavour, so that's what I'll go for.  The week before last I was into nuts and raisins.  Yummy.  Then I give myself plenty of time to anticipate eating it before I finally sit down to enjoy it.  You know what?  No matter how I savour the process, I find it all goes much too quickly.

What makes us want treats in our diet?  The other day when I walking out to the beach I watched some crows circling the refuse bins.  One enterprising fellow pulled out a tinfoil container, plonked it on the pavement, held it down with one claw and pecked the food scraps with obvious relish.  Other crows were fighting over bits of bread or hamburgers or indeed anything of the human food variety that had been discarded.  There is more than enough suitable and dare I say healthy food available to these birds and yet they flock to the bins every evening to see what tasty morsels they can find.
 Point to ponder: what chance do we humans have when the birds like junk food more than what they should be eating?