Mind Games
Oct. 27th, 2004 10:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloSometimes the brain just clams up. I've been asking it to give me a word. It's a word I'm perfectly familiar with. I've been trying to get at it for half an hour or more and I haven't yet come close. I think it has "chron" in it somewhere. It's the word that means sort of you know when you're writing historical fiction and you stick in something modern that couldn't possibly have existed back then. Like in Deadwood last night where our noble but quick-tempered hero spent half a day over the funeral rites for the injun he just killed. Like that would so have happened in the 1870s!
Come on brain!
One technique for dealing with the problem is to walk away whistling, then circle back undercover and pounce. Take the brain off guard. I've been trying that. And it hasn't worked....
...Hey I've got it! I'll tell you what I did. I decided to Google "historical fiction" and hope that I'd find a text containing my word. And before I'd done more than type an "h" and an "i" the brain had surrendered and handed over the goods. It quails before the power of Google. It knew the game was up.
Anachronism!
Come on brain!
One technique for dealing with the problem is to walk away whistling, then circle back undercover and pounce. Take the brain off guard. I've been trying that. And it hasn't worked....
...Hey I've got it! I'll tell you what I did. I decided to Google "historical fiction" and hope that I'd find a text containing my word. And before I'd done more than type an "h" and an "i" the brain had surrendered and handed over the goods. It quails before the power of Google. It knew the game was up.
Anachronism!
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Date: 2004-10-27 11:00 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2004-10-27 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-27 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2004-10-27 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-27 11:41 am (UTC)It's like trying to remember dreams: all you need is one glimpse of something, then you grab.
"Walk away whistling"--yes! Like watching something with peripheral vision.
I'm glad you got the word--Google can fix any problem.
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Date: 2004-10-27 11:56 am (UTC)I love my Google. it has rendered reference books redundant
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Date: 2004-10-27 03:01 pm (UTC)I think the only reason I remember this is because 'ana' means 'cave' or 'hole'in Japanese, and the two meanings somehow reinforce each other.
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Date: 2004-10-27 03:30 pm (UTC)The blankness, when it descends, is like a fog the envelops the word. Nothing seems to help. I thought the word had to contain the syllable "chron", I even had a suspicion it began with the letter "a" but I just couldn't form it in my mind.
Then suddenly- while I was concentrating on typing my command to Google, the fog lifted and there was my word- whole and entire.
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Date: 2004-10-28 12:59 am (UTC)I know--or at least, I should. I used to be a professor of Japanese, specializing in the history of the language. And no, the only relationship is that they both reside in my gray matter.
Then suddenly- while I was concentrating on typing my command to Google, the fog lifted and there was my word- whole and entire.
I like this description of the process. i write for a living now, and I am far too familiar with it!
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Date: 2004-10-27 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-27 06:37 pm (UTC)Do you reckon it's old age?
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Date: 2004-10-27 09:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-27 10:22 pm (UTC)