DAYDREAMERS: SMARTER THAN YOU THINK

Daydreaming is an occupational hazard for writers. In fact, for most of us, it’s a prerequisite for the job. The ability to let your mind go, to wander where it will and collect those plot bunnies and character profiles, is a necessary skill when the task you’re given is to create something out of nothing.

But that talent is not always appreciated. I always did well in school, but I succeeded despite a tendency to stare out the window, lost in my own world. (Teachers prefer that you pay attention to them for some reason.) I’ve also been known to slip in and out of a group conversation, requiring my companions to snatch me back to Earth. Fortunately, I have tolerant friends.

But now comes scientific proof that daydreaming is a sign not of attention deficit (though that can be the case, too) but of intelligence and creativity. A study from the Georgia Institute of Technology suggests that a "[p]eople with efficient brains may have too much brain capacity to stop their minds from wandering," according to Eric Schumacher, the Georgia Tech associate psychology professor who co-authored the study with Ph.D. candidate Christine Godwin.

Schumacher and his colleagues studied the brain patterns of 100 people as they lay in an MRI focusing on a single point for five minutes. They then compared this data with information gathered from tests that measured intellectual ability and creativity and questionnaires about how much the subjects’ minds wandered in daily life. Subjects who reported more daydreaming scored higher on intellectual ability and creativity. Their brain patterns also showed more efficiency in the MRI test. (Parts of their brains worked together more smoothly to focus on the fixed point.)

Schumacher says the results show higher efficiency means the brain may be free to wander when performing easy tasks. That is, the smarter you are, the more likely you are to daydream.

"Our findings remind me of the absent-minded professor—someone who's brilliant, but off in his or her own world, sometimes oblivious to their own surroundings," said Schumacher. "Or school children who are too intellectually advanced for their classes. While it may take five minutes for their friends to learn something new, they figure it out in a minute, then check out and start daydreaming."

Of course, Schumacher and his colleagues admit further research is needed to determine when daydreaming may be helpful and when it may be harmful. (My attention-deficit daughter, for example, is highly intelligent, but school was very difficult for her. Too much daydreaming is not a good thing.)

In the meantime, I’ll continue to use my daydreaming skills to come up with wild ideas for my next novels. Just be aware you may have to drag me back to the conversation from somewhere in outer space.

Cheers, Donna

*Information for this post provided by “Daydreaming is Good: It Means You’re Smart,” Science News, October 24. 2017  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171024112803.htm

The Secret Project Reveal!

Warning: By continuing to read you are sworn not to laugh under pain of 50 lashes with a holowhip!


This may be the weirdest post I've ever done. You've been warned! So. Various of my friends and followers have had to put up with some teasing from me over the last few months. I've made numerous mentions of the secret project on social media. I've bewildered people with references of being unable to work on it due to bad weather, to insufficient or malfunctioning kit, and my certainty that there'll be a certain amount of WTF response to the final revelation. Well, I'm laying a fair bet none of you guessed what it was. And now you can quit wondering (if you were that interested).

Here's the big reveal. Let me introduce you to Keir...

Or at least a representation of him as closely as I could do it in the form of a self customized doll. What do you think?

And are you thinking "why?!" Okay, here's the story...

A long time ago on a social media site called Facebook, I was talking conventions. What to take, where to go, how to set up. A fellow author by the name of KM Tolan posted a picture of his centrepiece - a magnificent steam locomotive model to tie in with his steampunk novel Tracks.
I loved it! And I thought it was a fabulous idea - a display piece to tie in with a book that wasn't just the book. Something to help catch the eye and maybe prompt a discussion. But what could I do? There are spaceships in my stories, but while I did make Airfix kit craft and my own design spaceships out of cardboard, something like Gethyon's Spirit Drifter or the hawk-shaped Metraxian ships is a bit beyond my skills.

Then it hit me. I'm a huge fan of the Tonner dolls (extremely high spec designer dolls often modelled after characters or celebrities. I came across them while looking for pins about R from Warm Bodies on Pinterest). They're beautifully detailed and totally out of my price range.

Want!!!

I do have a couple of Dark Crystal character dolls (a birthday present from hubs), and an original Star Trek themed Barbie and Ken. I'd also seen a collection of Barbie or Pippa dolls that someone had made up to look like the Firefly crew. Could I do something like that and recreate my book characters?

Checking out a couple of doll customizing sites told me commissioning one was way out of my budget. But a Google search took me to several blogs about customizing vinyl dolls like Barbie. Problem - the character I really wanted to do was Keir, and unfortunately Ken didn't fit the requirements. Too smiley, too blond, and too plastic.

It was a complete accident that I stumbled across a doll called Invisi-Billy, part of the Monster High collection. He had the right face, the right hair, wasn't smiling, and was even already a shade of blue. You wouldn't believe the trouble I had actually getting hold of one having set my sights on it though. >_<

Anyway, after much time, experimentation and research, Invisi-Billy became as close to my image of Keir as is possible under the circumstances. I'm rather proud of him and pleased with the result. The project had its frustrations and expenses, but overall I've enjoyed putting my creative skills to new use.

You think I'm crazy, right? Well, maybe. But I think this was worth the time and effort. For one thing, how many authors never get more than an idea of the character in their head and a book cover? It's allowed me to be creative in another way that isn't writing, and it's given me a talking point for conventions.  And while I've never been the kind to play with dolls (mine were all spaceship captains or sword wielding goddesses or horse-riding explorers - stuff being a princess unless she was a star princess battling an intergalactic warfleet, lol), I will definitely being doing at least one more of these. After all, what would Keir be without Quin? ;)

Feel like trying it for yourself? I'll be posting the process over the summer holidays at my own blog. Sorry, I know that's a long way off but it'll take several weeks to go through it all, and makes good cover for a time when I have my monsters home! In the meantime, I'd love to know what character you'd like as a doll (psst, it doesn't have to be one of mine, although I'm curious if you'd pick one of those too).

Ping Pong

Huge congrats to Laurie and Donna on their publishing debuts! Check out their books by clicking on the images in the right hand side bar, or you can see my 5* review for Laurie's debut novellette on Goodreads HERE. Donna posted about her launch day HERE, and Laurie's post is HERE. Sharon, Laurie and Donna also did a collective discussion on the rise of SFR at SF Signal HERE. And yesterday I posted at the SFR Brigade blog about morality as I envisage it in my far future universe in my scifi romance adventure Tethered as part of the lead up to its print release on the 24th March.

Science, Buddhism, Victorians...and the Genesis of Great Ideas

Over the last couple of years, a number of psychologists have published books based on the findings of recent neurological studies on meditation. This research shows, beyond a doubt, that meditation benefits the brain.

Meditation, or mindfulness, as the practice is often referred to, helps manage anxiety, stress, and depression. It also helps with motivation, focus, and relationships. I'm pretty sure it can even help your car run better. (I'm poking a little fun, but you could actually make a case for this. If mindfulness helps you focus your intentions and avoid procrastination, so you finally go and get that tuneup...)

Without going into too much detail (because this is really only the introduction for this post), meditation has been shown to gradually change the way your brain works, helping you ground yourself in the moment, and in your positive experiences. For more information about this, search on mindfulness authors (and psychologists) Rick Hanson, Dan Siegel, Marsha Lucas, and Elisha Goldstein. I'm just finishing Hanson's book now, and I love that it goes into physiological detail about how meditation works on the brain -- enough that I feel like I'm getting a crash course in neuropsychology.

And that is really the topic of this (meandering) post. As a fiction writer, and just as a curious human, I am fascinated by the growing connections between science and spirituality. Some of these connections are solid and proven; some are more tenuous. All are fodder for creativity.

Having taken a flying leap onto the mindfulness bandwagon myself (refer back to paragraph 2; notice the list of every stereotypical writer dysfunction), I have been attending meditation classes for the last two months. At the end of a recent class, meditators were told that a researcher was present. He had brought equipment to test whether focused attention could alter actual matter. (Yes, mind over matter!)

This illustrates another connection between science and more speculative ideas. Buddhist philosophy asserts that our mental perception of our existence actually forms our reality, and not the other way around -- in other words, we create our own reality. From a philosophical or psychological perspective, this is actually pretty easy to accept. Our feelings, reactions, judgments, etc., in any given situation, create our experience of that situation. (Mindfulness / meditation focuses on grounding us more in the experience than the emotion, so we suffer less.)

But quantum physics experiments can be construed to support the idea that we create our own reality in a more literal sense. (For a layman's explanation of observer-created reality, try Quantum Enigma, Physics Encounters Consciousness.)

So, back to the meditation experiment. The researcher instructed us to do two meditations: one where we focused on mixing lemon juice with a cup of water, and another where we did the same with baking soda. The researcher tested the pH of the water after each meditation. Before you start getting excited, the instruments showed no change in the pH that wasn't attributable to normal environmental factors.

But the experiment itself reminded me of the Victorian era, when seances were being conducted in the fashionable parlors of the well educated. WAIT! Please note: I am NOT comparing meditation, Victorian spiritualism, scientific research, etc. But there was definitely a flavor to this modern-day experience that hearkened back. (You have to admit! We even had a candle.)

I thought about the rise in popularity of steampunk (which often blends Newtonian gadgetry with the supernatural, as in Neverwhere), and how there is this interesting connection between the modern and Victorian eras. Quantum physics has resulted in huge technological advances in our time, just as Newtonian physics did for the Victorians.

Quantum theory has led to really fascinating questions about psi, as well as popular interest in those questions (as evidenced by all the recent film and book plots based on parallel universes and psi abilities, including one of mine!). It seems at least plausible to imagine Newtonian physics gave rise to Victorian spiritualism in a different way -- maybe as a backlash against rationalism, and all the physics-based advances. And spiritualism greatly influenced some of the leading authors and poets of the time (Wilkie Collins, for example).


The show Warehouse 13 actually blends elements of both of these eras together -- both the science-based and the more speculative elements. (To read more about connections between quantum theory and psi, as well as a fascinating history of psi research, try Entangled Minds.)

I love thinking and talking about this stuff, so it's not surprising I've wandered far afield of mindfulness. But hopefully not of my original thesis. Scientific discovery fuels the imagination. Less tangible ideas -- philosophical, spiritual, paranormal -- fuel the imagination. Where these two intersect, the creative potential is...well...potentiated.