Most good movies, books and stories follow the same pattern, called The Hero's Journey. 

Here's Christopher Vogler's original article which introduced the pattern to the movie world.  It is a must read for writers of fiction and writers of non-fiction who use stories to get their message across.

http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero's_journey.htm#Practical

Vital. 

Just checking whether I can blog from my iPad or not.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I decided, yesterday, to teach the kids the word "Tenacious".

A few years ago Winnie and I read this little book called Mindset
which is about how people can either have a "fixed" or "growth'
mindset. People with a "fixed" mindset think they're good at things
because they're clever and they were mostly praised, as children, for
being clever. People with a "growth" mindset think they're good at
things because they've tried hard to learn; they were mostly praised
hard for trying hard, when they were kids. As adults they tend to be
better at learning whereas the fixed mindset folk give up when they do
something they're not good at, believing they'll never be good at it.
I, for example, gave up learning french when I first moved to Ireland
because I was very bad at it and didn't think I could do it (unlike
the others in the class who seemed to have a "gift").

So, I've decided to praise the kids for being tenacious, for having
the tenacity to keep on trying when things are tricky. I like the
irony (at least, I think it is Irony) when I tell them they are lucky
because they were born with the gift of tenacity, that they're
naturally good at it.

So .. today, I took them for a wee walk along a forestry road which is
up the hill from my parents house and on the way back I asked them if
they remembered the word I taught them the day before. They didn't so
I told them and then I explained, in kid-friendly language, why it was
such an important word and how lucky they both were to be born good at
it. This went on for a couple of minutes, with lots of ah-ha-ing from
them both.

When I finished, I asked, "What do you think of that?"

And Alice, all 6 years old worth of her, said, "I can burp the entire alphabet."

And that was the end of that.

Weirdest thing happened today.
I'm at home in New Zealand with my wife and kids, staying at my parents place. It's xmas day. The phone rang at 8am. My brother. He's getting married today. At my parents place. That's what he told my Mum.

It's now 230pm and in an hour a bunch of folk are turning up for the wedding. The weird thing is that my parents only needed a few hours notice to host it. The shops are all closed and they had everything they need. Flowers have been picked and arranged. Food has been cooked. Clothing prepared. Dad's even had a shave.

I think this might be a New Zealand thing. I got married with 3 weeks' notice due to visa issues.
So a wedding is happening in 90 minutes time and we are all ready to go. I suspect that it would have been much more effort to organise if my brother had given weeks or months' of warning.
We are assuming he's marrying his girlfriend of 15 years. He never said.

I'm downloading a firmware update for my phone when I accidentally hit "Cancel".

A box pops up: "Do you want to finish downloading?"

I clicked Yes, because I'd made a mistake.

And then it finished the downloading.  And I had to start again...

---

I guess Finish meant End, not complete.

I've just figured out how to turn google+ off entirely.  It's well hidden, but possible.   Feel happier with it gone.

I've started using an app called Sparrow to use Gmail on my macbook.  I didn't like it initially but I like it more than the redesigned version of Gmail.

I've had to install a new, um, skin overtop of Google Reader to make it useable after the ugly redesign.

 

Maybe I'm getting grumpy in my old age ... but Google really is annoying me a lot lately.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html?pagewanted=all

This shocked me: A scientific study showed that prisoners were far
more likely to be granted parole if the reviewing judge had just eaten
a nice, healthy snack.

Why? They had more energy and they needed energy (blood glucose) to
make the hard decisions, if they hadn't eaten for a while, they lacked
the energy to make the decision and so they did the equivalent of
making no decision at all - sticking with the status quo. Justice is
fair? Not if your judge is hungry.

It's a long article, but very important for everyone.

The 4 hour work week audiobook is 13.5 hours long.
That seems wrong.
Somehow.

A friend had to use his house insurance recently.  His house got flooded and he and his family have gone through a very tough 9 months.

But the good news is this: I am insured with the same company as he is (Direct Line); I read Direct Line's emergency number to him, from their invoice, when the disaster happened; I saw how much insurance he paid; it was 2/3rds what I pay and his house is 200m away from mine and bigger.

So last week while I was in the midst of my own disaster (acute neck and shoulder pain which put me off work for the last 3 weeks) and received a renewal notice for my house insurance.  

I called the insurance company and asked them why he paid so much less.

Two minutes later they reduced my annual cost by £275.66.

Which, coincidentally, was 64 pence more than I'd just had to pay for a new ergonimic chair.

I'm sitting in that chair right now and it's the first time I've been able to type comfortably in a month.

http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Garage-ebook/dp/B0061UC83A/ref=zg_bs_154821011_4

I can't wait.  

It's currently free on Kindle.  It ships on the 8th of November.