).I really do WANT to write, but for some reason I keep finding myself watching TV, or playing a game (is it perhaps just the fact that Rome: Total War is so great a game?).
I need a shot in the arm or something. Any suggestions, thoughts, or similar problems?
And that's the secret of writing. Butt in chair. You have to have a schedule. You have to say I'm going to sit down and write between ten and midnight (or whenever) every day. And you sit your butt down and write. When the time's up, you're done for the day. You may have four or five pages, or only one, or just a couple of paragraphs, or a number of false starts. And that's all right, because that's how it is done.
But until you start doing that--until you start putting Butt In Chair--I'll keep on saying that you really DON'T want to write.
As for the laziness thing, I don't know that there are any tips on how to overcome it. All I can say is, turn off the T.V./video game and write. That's all there is to it. You just have to do it.
That applies to pretty much everything in life, by the way. When there's something you want to achieve, when it get's right down to it you just have to do it, and that's all there is to it. Simple, but unfortunately not usually easy.
Do you want to write for personal reasons, to hash out problems and make sense of things? Do you want to write a story you can show friends, maybe something a teacher would grade well? Do you want to publish a short story? Do you want to write a book? Have you written anything that would receive glowing compliments from all participants in this forum? Is the last item possible?
Take a look at your goals and choose something you feel is achievable, and then take a good look at what you've done to further those goals. If you want to publish a short story, for example, have you looked around at the market to see where you might submit it, maybe read a little bit of what's out there to see how you compare and to get some inspiration?
You can sit that butt in a chair all you want, but without a clear idea of what you're trying to do, without a game plan and lots of honesty, not to mention a genuine commitment, you're not going to get very far. It's a personal thing, and only you can figure it out, so start plugging away and see where it takes you.
Their solution was to find a place or time when they wouldn't be distracted. There are other ways... make playing your game a reward. Say to yourself (and be firm) that unless you write **** words today you cannot play. I started doing that and before I knew it I wanted to write more than i wanted to play. So many things are addictive, writing is one of them.
I think also you are disjointed, in that you write so spoardaically which makes it much harder, becasue you have to remind yourself of plot,characters, progress from last time... Very slow.
I also ride my bike (or go work in the shed) instead of replacing writing with some other sedentary pastime.
quote:
I need a shot in the arm or something.
Shoot yourself in the arm: the pain will make everything quite clear...
Kidding.
There are times when I know I'm not ready to write a particular scene because it's incubating in my subconscious. When I can't stand it any longer, I'll write it, and it usually comes out killer, with little need for revision other than to tighten it up.
I am a very procrastinating person by nature, and in order to get anything done at all, I keep up an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of deferred tasks. Whenever I don't feel like working on something, I just work on something I didn't feel like working on earlier.
I have many interests other than writing, such as drawing and computers. I don't beat myself up if I don't write every single day, but I hardly go a day without writing.
[This message has been edited by Magic Beans (edited November 28, 2004).]
Archer, I feel your pain. Balthasar, I have no idea what you're talking about. It's not as simple as you'd write if you wanted to write. Writing is hard. It takes effort, especially if Archer is the type who wants to write well and nor just spawn rubbish.
In the end, though, BIC is the answer. I can only help by adding a couple of things to make BIC easier. First of all, find the same TIME every day to do it. It doesn't matter what time it is, an hour before dawn, right before you go to bed, over lunmch, at 5 in the afternoon....just fine a time at always always always write during that time. Second, find a SPACE where you write. It doesn't matter where that is. Wel, not much, anyway. I recommend a relatively private place especially if you're one of those wandering around here with a spouse or kids. But whatever it is, your study, your bedroom, the park, ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS write there.
The reason I suggesti these things is based on very simple human psychology. If you want to look it up check out behavioral psychology and more specifically, classical (also called Pavlovian) conditioning. By having you do something at the same time and in the same place every day we are creating a set of stimuli that, after a time, will come to mean I MUST WRITE!!! to your brain. At first, it will be difficult. It's going to be a bit like starting a physical exercise program, making yourself do it, just making yourself do it. But soon (and I don't know how long, it will vary based on the person and their commitment, I imagine) it will be your time to write.
So find a good chair at a good time and get your butt in it!
“Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses and avoids.”
"We are what we repeatedly do."
It may not be so much about laziness, but could be more of a burn out thing. You mentioned writing reports for school, well, when I was taking classes a couple of years ago, I hit a subtle burn-out point. I was doing so much school-related writing and news writing (studying to become a journalist) that even when I did think of a cool fiction idea, I couldn't get past that point. Just the thought of sitting down and writing a creative story, made me feel tired and more glued to my seat on the couch.
I tried a lot of things - outlining, sitting with a BIC and pad of paper on the couch, writing openings - but nothing really worked. So what has gotten me writing again? Well, being out of school and away from the mundane writing tasks, for one. When I felt like I had to write, it took away a lot of my drive to write.
If you honestly believe that it is just laziness, then yes, scheduling a time to write may work. Perhaps even finding something that makes you write to a deadline, just to get started. (I'll put in a shameless plug here for Dakota and the Hatrack Re-write Challenge. These have helped me produce one rough story for each the past three months. They may not all be saleable, but at least I'm writing fiction again.)
If, on the other hand, you feel like you already do alot of writing and doing any more just makes you run for the comfort of Rome: Total War, then you may indeed need that break. You just may not be ready to write, even if a big part of you thinks you are.
for me, BIC only works so far, when i'm done, i'm done, whether i hold my butt in the chair yet or not...
so basically, i can only try to put my butt where it belongs, and start writing for a while, once the ideas stop flowing out and start eddying around each other instead, i know it's time to stop until ideas become developed again.
quote:
Do you want to publish a short story? Do you want to write a book?
quote:
Balthasar hit upon the one that is most widely pushed, but writing every day is not for everyone. I think you have to write as much as makes you happy.
quote:
making deadlines has an ill effect on me... a deadline actually reduces my productivity.
Did I sound a bit harsh? Sorry. I'm just trying to be realistic. I'm in this for real. I'm determined to study the craft and do all I can to meet my writing goals. It may not be this year. It may not be until my youngest child is finally out the door and on her way to college. But until it does happen I have to be realistic. I have to prepare myself to be a writer by trade, not a writer by hobby.
Which do you want to be, Archer?
[This message has been edited by djvdakota (edited November 29, 2004).]
Absolutely correct, Dakota. I've heard several pros comment that you should treasure work on your first book, because if it is purchased and the publisher wants more from you, you will be given a deadline for the next book. That deadline is typically much shorter than you would think and it is drop-dead...in other words, you miss it, you get dropped by the publisher. FYI, the deadlines for tie-in writers are the toughest...the fellow writing the novelization for Serendipity (the movie version of Firefly) was given two weeks. Yes, you read that right, two weeks, start to finish. Oy!
If procrastination and distraction are your issues, try leaving the house to write. Go to the library, or Starbucks, or any other place you can write without access to the television or internet connectivity. Sometimes when all you have is your laptop (or pad and pen) and no options for procrastination, it helps you focus and get the writing done.
because i CAN NOT do deadlines. it's absolutely impossible for me. unless it's a deadline that isn't really a deadline, such as the rewrite challenge, finish a short story in a month isn't that big of a challenge, really
i'll have all three written and gotten as well done as i feel i can get them, before i send out my first manuscript, then it'll be deadlines on editing, not writing, and those i can do. just as long as they don't tell me to scrap any chapters and rewrite them entirely... then i wouldn't be able to handle the deadline...
Anyway:
You want to write a book? You've got to get your f***ing a** on that chair, again and again. And then you've got to shut off all distractions and focus. Work.
Not an ounce harder -- or an ounce easier -- than that. To force yourself to work on a project like this, one where progress is impossible to objectivly measure, where it is possible to feel hopeless lost, you must reach into your soul. Then you must grab motivation and drag it up.
Take that motivation and with it force yourself to do what you must. Do not let yourself overcome yourself. Do not procrastinate with your goals and deadlines EVER. Once will lead to twice.
And when you do, shrug. Ignore it. Then get up and BACK TO WORK. Do not overwork yourself, do not kill yourself through writing. Take breaks if needed. But they have to be reasonable; and above all, when you get back...NO PROCRASTINATING.
Such is the formula for succees... Suffer, bleed, work. Cry if you like. But do it. Get it done. And then, in the end, look back and gasp.
For you will have made something quite great.
You are not absolutely sure you could write a lot of your story, or you wouldn't be asking us what to do about your laziness (and then reading our useless replies, which will not help you overcome laziness). You would be using your time at the computer to write some of your story (and don't tell me that it isn't your computer etc., you have internet access so you could just mail yourself the text).
If you were absolutely sure that you could write a lot of your story, but were doing things other than writing, then you would already know the reason. Getting those things done is more important to you right now than writing your story.
There is no shame in this (unless writing is currently your sole means of supporting a family or stopping a terrible injustice or something like that). I take breaks from writing all the time (though not usually when I know exactly what I'm going to write). There are stories that I really know I could write that I don't really want to write, for instance.
But as I said, this isn't your problem. You're not suffering from laziness, people suffering from simple laziness don't complain about it. You're blocked, and you're telling yourself that it's because your lazy.
There's nothing wrong with being blocked, either. I'm blocked most of the time. All of the time, if you include times when I'm writing one story rather than another because I'm blocked on the other story. And I guess that I'm never so blocked that I can't write anything at all...okay, so I'm not used to complaining about being blocked...or lazy.
Whatever. I'm no good at responding to these sorts of topics. I just wanted to post on this topic.
It's also possible that you are just burned out. I know that after I finished my first novel I was roasted. I didn't write anything for four months. Take a break, relax, but percolate. I find that when I'm not actually writing that's the most important thing I can do. I come up with ideas and work on plots in my head, finding things that would make good inspiration, and then it finally reaches critical mass and I have to start writing or I'll just die.
Habit is also important. With Nano I had to force myself to start writing almost every day, but after somewhere around 400 words I just took off and I would fly through the rest of my quota, often going a good 400 into the next chunk. The last three times that I wrote I ended up writing 4000 words in a single sitting. I think that a warm-up is a very important thing.
Enough of my jibba-jabba.
Jon
quote:
Shoot yourself in the arm: the pain will make everything quite clear...
OK! *BAM!*
quote:
Kidding.
Woops.
I think I'll try setting a quota, instead of a schedual. Quotas fit in easier with a writer's mind, imo, seing as how we don't know when inspiration will hit, but we do know that when it hits, we can write quite a bit...
)I suppose each of us humans have a different way of doing things. You'll have to find one that works for you. But I'm afraid the only way to find that is dedicating some time to write.
(Sorry if anything I said sounds silly)
EDIT: oh, and actually, there is a such thing as pure inspiration writing. i do it all the time with poetry and stories phrased poetically
hmm... that reminds me, i wonder whatever i did with Eagle Man, or something like that, the title slips me right now... anyways, that is an adventure story phrased entirely in a poem! i wrote it, probably one of the last things i wrote before i went dry for a while... i think it was about 10 typed pages long of pure inspiration writing, which i then went back through and cleaned up.
my poem i posted on here when i joined, Month In A Moment, was also pure inspirational writing... the idea came to me in the middle of sacrament meeting of all times!
of course, even poetry is not always done by inspiration for me, i've written my number of poetry that i had to slave over to struggle out even so much as 5 lines written...
so basically i'm saying that inspiration writing is possible, but only for the shortest of short stories and poetry, and even that is rare, and that always my basic ideas come by inspiration
[This message has been edited by dpatridge (edited December 06, 2004).]
One thing I find the more I write is that inspiration most often springs FROM work. I get more story ideas as I write and research. I even get story ideas from artwork I'm doing, or from books I'm reading. And since I'm a learning writer, reading is, in part, work--I'm studying and learning from the writers I read.
Inspiration isn't just an epiphany that comes totally out of the blue. 99.9% of the time you have to be working something out in your mind,the very least, in order for inspiration to come. We have to do our portion of the workload in order for God, or the muse or whatever name you like to give your inspirational voice, to pour those awesome ideas into our heads.
Just my opinion.
Now, the drugs didn't actually inspire the music, but gave the illusion of a higher state of inspiration. But the theory is still the same. When you're inspired, work out your ideas in your head, or a scrap piece of paper, and later work it out and type it down when you rationalize it out, and give it structure.
My English teacher has the idea of writing something the first time without worrying about structure, grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc. and just worry about getting the idea down, then go back and revise it. Kind of the same thing...
Personally, I like Faulkner's idea of inspiration: "I am inspired every day at precisely nine o'clock."
Jon
It's a lot harder to wait for inspiration--that is, to wait around until you're sure that what you want will come out right the first time.
.I guess you can always just say it was inspired. It amazes me how imspired I can become two hours before I need to finish something .
Does it always work? Well, no. Athletes have off days. So do writers. But if you can develop these rituals you'll have more on days than off.
quote:
Not to say that Butt in Chair is not important, but uninspired writing is insipid and boring.
Great Gatsby anyone?
Who knows? I certainly don't, and am not sure that the 'how' of the condition is as important as the 'why'. For me, I think it traces back to a genuine fear of failure...or more specifically, a fear of incompletion. So many times I get deep into a WIP, thinking I'm going strong, only to hit a brick wall. It never fails. I've written parts of more stories than I can count (they practically spill out of my old PC, and threaten the integrity of my notebook). But ask me how many I've finished. Go ahead. The answer is one. Pitiful.
I have yet to figure out where this anti-completion complex hails from, but know that it is a serious threat to my hopes and dreams. I've been able to examine 'why' I think my extended writers' block has stuck with me for all these years. In a way, this has helped. Now that I know why, I have been able to think past the barrier. The other night I cranked out a bit of work that actually sounded decent, and there was no trace of the usual masonry in my path at the time. True, this story will probably follow the others into grave obscurity, though I hope it is a sign that there is hope for me.
Perhaps such an abstract, overly simplistic, and seemingly ridiculous method would work for you. Then again, since this is all coming from an extremely tired mind at 12:42 AM (U.S. Eastern Time), it probably has no practical value whatsoever. Still, theoretical or not, there may be a grain of wisdom or two in the sands of blather above. I wish you luck, and want you to know that you are most definitely not alone. Unfortunately.
Inkwell
------------------
"The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp."
-Anonymous
On the topic of starting too many projects. I would go back and read some of those aborted starts. I've only actually done it once (I am always more excited about some new idea and it doesn't bother me that I jump around a lot), but it worked pretty well. If you read the whole story up to the point where you stopped it makes more sense, you see the whole thing and it's often obvious what needs to happen next. Of course that's if you actually want to finish anything. If you just love writing who actually cares?
The one time I did do this I finished the novel within a week of picking it up again (granted it didn't end up being a novel it was only like 27k, but still, you get the point).
Jon
Romeo and Juliet? Ugh. I can't stand Shakespeare. Don't give me any crap about not understanding it, or how I think it's boring because I don't appreciate classics. The simple truth is this: Shakespeare wasn't that great. He's the most overrated playwright in the history of theater.
That being said, Romeo and Juliet isn't his best work. My favorite of his is Othello, with Hamlet coming in second.
Shakespeare is a much better poet than a playwright.
so there.
We could get into a discussion about it, but that's something for a different thread.
Jon
After all, by the very same standard he's the most underrated playwright in the history of theater, isn't he? So insofar as those statements are true it really only means that everyone's heard of Shakespeare and formed an opinion of his work, often a very ill informed one.
As for it being a discussion for another thread, I would submit that a puke fight over whether Shakespeare was over or under-rated doesn't belong on this forum at all.
But Shakespeare isn't underrated at all. He is always overrated. Even kids who don't like shakespeare consider him a great playwright, because they don't read plays at all, and just assume he is great.
)R&J: Good, but not a favourite. Better as a performance piece, not as enjoyable as literature.
Hamlet: Great no matter how you slice it (my personal favourite).
History Plays: Factually flawed and full of artistic license -- but interesting both to read and see.
Comedies: Not all that comedic; light, fluffy reading. Worth looking at on occasion, but not my favourites. Possible exceptions: Much ado about Nothing and The Winter's Tale.
Sonnets: Boring and uninteresting, unless you like reading or studying sonnets (aside from the occasional witty couplet, I don't).
Shakespeare is a bit of an anomaly in literature, the theatre and history. Circumstances existed which elevated his works to a special place in the developement of English literature and the arts.
[This message has been edited by Robyn_Hood (edited December 13, 2004).]
Every person in the world that is literate in the English language but has not read Shakespeare is, in point of fact, underrating him, just as every person that is literate in Middle English but hasn't read Chaucer is underrating him. On the other hand, there are plenty of people that don't speak English who think that Shakespeare is more than he is.
But Arabic speakers do not seem to be among them, since when you tranliterate "Shakespeare" into Arabic, it becomes a rather less than impressive name.
And anyway, what makes your opinion better than mine? I think shakspeare is overrated. His plays were not that good.
And you're a perfect example of what I'm saying. What makes him so great? He's telling stories that anyone can see in real life, and doing it in a slightly poetic language. Those people who say that Shakespeare couldn't have written what he did are even worse! They belong in the same group of people who think aliens built the pyramids (the Pyramids, however, being a greater collection of artwork than Speare's plays, IMO).
[This message has been edited by ArCHeR (edited December 13, 2004).]
I think he's pretty good, but that's about as far as I'm going to go before getting into a debate I don't feel like participating in right now. You can say he's not, and that's fine with me.
Jon
If the standard is something a little less absurd, like maybe "displaying skill sufficient to have significant and lasting influence on the nature of a language or the stories told therein," then I'm afraid you have a tough row to hoe denying Shakespeare his place.
The opinions of the casual reader have little bearing on the greatness of the author. Thank God. If they did, J.K. Rowling would be the greatest author of all time.
Greatness is determined by the collective recognition of the well-read. I mean well-read in the stodgy, elitist, having-read-all-of-the-classics-from Eupridides-through-Spinoza, just-as-likely-to-study-a-text-as-to-just-read-it sort of way that I defined it in my earlier post. Because, to be quite honest, its only those well-read few (and I'm certainly not among them) who are sufficiently educated to be entitled to an opinion on the subject of greatness.
[This message has been edited by J (edited December 14, 2004).]
But in an objective sense of polling those that have chosen to read his works and seeing how many of them have seen fit to read his works over and over as opposed to just once...yeah, Shakespeare is up there.
So when you ask what makes my opinion better than yours, you proceeded to answer your own question by saying, "I think shakspeare is overrated. His plays were not that good." There you have it. The fact that the above statement is your opinion is what makes my opinion better.
Just because some things are opinions doesn't mean that none of them are better or worse than any other. It's like saying that because child sacrifice and singing hymns are both forms of worship neither is any better or worse than the other. A does not imply 好.
I have concluded that you are either:
A. A snob
or
B. Unable to clearly state your point.
You're opinion is NOT better than mine. That's why it's an opinion. A college art professor can tell me that a dot is beautiful art. That doesn't make it beautiful art, no matter what his cred. is.
I must remind you that I do not dislike Shakespeare. I just happen to think there are better playwrights. Give me Arthur Miller any day.
Please?
quote:
He's telling stories that anyone can see in real life, and doing it in a slightly poetic language.
Really? Wow! How unnatural, that you can see so much in your real life. Your neighbourhood must be a battle field. And if a Midsummer Night's Dream is real life then we are in trouble.
That aside, I think you should try reading some more of Shakespeare's work before offering so much antagonism. Some I am indifferent to, but others apeal to me. The reason? There are such a wide variety of different types of stories written by Shakespeare. That is why so many writers have taken inspiration from some of his story lines and transformed them into their own stories.
And disagreeing with someone's opinion doesn't really count as denigration of character. You were disagreeing with him yourself, Jer.
As ArCH said:
quote:
A college art professor can tell me that a dot is beautiful art. That doesn't make it beautiful art, no matter what his cred. is.
Which is my point exactly. It is the opinion itself, not the person stating it, that makes one opinion better than another.
quote:
Can I request a cessation to the name-calling/denigration of character?
I wasn't calling him a snob. I was saying if he wasn't being clear (or rather, if I wasn't understanding what he was saying), then he was being a snob for thinking his opinion is better. I DID misunderstand him, so he wasn't being a snob.
quote:
Really? Wow! How unnatural, that you can see so much in your real life. Your neighbourhood must be a battle field. And if a Midsummer Night's Dream is real life then we are in trouble.
In his time, most neighborhoods WERE battlefields, and much of what we call fantasy was believed to be true by many. But the circumstances of the stories weren't the stories. The stories were from life.
quote:
That aside, I think you should try reading some more of Shakespeare's work before offering so much antagonism.
What in the world makes you think I haven't? I clearly stated before that my favorite of his plays was Othello. Why would I say that if I never read it.
I have read Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, performed in Julius Ceasar (I was the sooth sayer), and I have seen many of the movies (movies for the most part losing none of the essence of shakespeare, seeing as how he wrote scripts. In fact, most of the movies used his scripts) including Lawrence Olivier as Othello, Mel Gibson as Hamlet, and DiCaprio as Romeo (I don't think they changed a single word of dialogue. Replace guns with swords and cars with horses, and voila- Shakespeare).
By the way, I've taken a drama class every year of school from k-12. I know Shakespeare.
The fact that you think that anyone who doesn't like Shakespeare never read him is further proving my point. "What? He doesn't think Shakespeare is the best playwright ever? He must be an idiot!"
quote:
That is why so many writers have taken inspiration from some of his story lines and transformed them into their own stories.
Perhaps a lot of those people borrowed from Shakespeare as Emminem borrowed from Stockhousen?
quote:
Well, I've been called a snob before, and "Unable to clearly state your point" isn't really a name, is it?
No, it isn't. I wonder why you would point that out. (here's a tip: re-read that post)
quote:
Which is my point exactly. It is the opinion itself, not the person stating it, that makes one opinion better than another.
But, you see, opinions can't be better than other opinions. That's the thing. They're subjective. You can't say "his taste in art is better than his taste in art." You CAN say, "he has little information and experience to back up his opinion."
But that doesn't really apply to this case much, now does it?
[This message has been edited by ArCHeR (edited December 14, 2004).]
Now, if you read clearly you will see that I have only offered fact and not opinion. I shall keep my opinions to myself as to suggest that he is the greatest playwright would mean that I would have to read every play written, neh?
I am not sure how influenced Eminem is by Stockhousen, but I am sure that many writers have been influenced by Shakespeare. I shall let the man by judged by his peers, and not by an amateur dramatist.
quote:
If you think that Shakespeare lived in a war zone or that he believed in fairies then you are sadly mistaken. Read through your history books and naybe then you will understand that the reason the British Empire grew so big was that the country was fairly stable for most of that period of time. Shakespeare drew from his own historical sources as well as his imagnination.
I didn't say he was drawing from HIS life, I said he was drawing from LIFE. The stories he wrote happened in life, or at least were believed to have happened, or were at the very least based on some basic human conflict.
You could say that all stories do this. Well, of course! That's my point. He's not doing anything that no one else has done, and in my opinion, he doesn't do it any better than other people.
And by the way, Shakespeare probably did believe in fairies. People still believe in fairies, albiet not like they did then. Remember that people were swept away when two little girls took pictures of cardboard fairies in the early 20th century.
quote:
Now, if you read clearly you will see that I have only offered fact and not opinion. I shall keep my opinions to myself as to suggest that he is the greatest playwright would mean that I would have to read every play written, neh?
Ah, what a cheap way to get around what you've said. You assumed I knew nothing of Shakespeare, and for what reason? The only one I could see was that I wasn't speaking highly of his work.
I think you should try learning some more about what I know before offering so much antagonism.
quote:
I am not sure how influenced Eminem is by Stockhousen, but I am sure that many writers have been influenced by Shakespeare.
My objective in the Emminem comment was to point out that influence is hard to track unless the artist comes right out and says, "I was influence by ____."
Emminem uses many electronic and avant-garde sounds. Wether or not he does it by himself, because he was influenced by Stockhousen, or by someone who was influenced by Stockhousen is something we may never know. The same applies to Shakespeare.
quote:
I shall let the man by judged by his peers, and not by an amateur dramatist
You should stop assuming. I don't think I need to spell out why for you (for no matter what kind of syntax you use, calling me an amateur dramatist in a roundabout way is very much a cheap shot that missed its target).
In one sense of the word, all of Shakespeare's peers are dead. In another, I'm his peer.
Letting his peers judge him is fine, but being a peer of his peers, you logic justifies me in saying that they judge him too kindly. Which is all I was saying anyway.
quote:
This thread had them in a stranglehold of fear and doubt.
Excitement Rating 2.2 (Very Low)
Intensity Rating 2.1 (Very Low)
Nausea Rating 9.54 (Very High)
'Shake spear' is a term for someone with sexual dysfunction.
Don't worry lots of things are overrated. Oreos for instance, they are good, but not that good.
Lots of things are underrated too, like pissing contests.
I think Shakespeare is cool, I was 'Sargeant-at-arms' in MacBeth. I loved it. The Tempest is cool too.
.
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited December 14, 2004).]
If you have a response, please feel free to email me. I'm done reading this post.
[This message has been edited by Jeraliey (edited December 14, 2004).]
quote:
And so you are saying, that reading 4 of Shakespeare's works mean that you are well informed, or that I was wrong in suggesting you have not read enough of his work.
Both. I have read four of his most highly acclaimed work. If that's the best he can do, then he is overrated. I'm not saying I'm an expert on Shakespeare. I'm saying I have an opinion based on his major works.
quote:
I have read Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, performed in Julius Ceasar...
quote:
I have read four of his most highly acclaimed work. If that's the best he can do, then he is overrated. I'm not saying I'm an expert on Shakespeare. I'm saying I have an opinion based on his major works.
Othello was pretty good, but it is difficult to read and even more difficult to perform properly.
R&J is overrated, but it was one of Shakespeare's first and most-popular/profitable plays. I have had to study it twice (high school and college), and while it is a good play and well-written (including a rather inventive sonnet between Romeo and Juliet), it is not among my favourites.
Hamlet is great, like I said before. Of all the Shakespearean plays I have read, studied (yes this is different from just reading), or seen; it is by far the best and has been the most meaningful to me.
Julius Caesar really bugs me because it shows how comercial theatre was, even four hundred years ago. Julius is in a grand total of about three scenes. He is not a tragic hero. He has no fatal flaw. And I don't care that he gets stabbed in the back in by his friend. The true hero of the story is Marcus Brutus. He is in the play from start to finish, has a fatal flaw and I care when and how he dies.
Making a judgement on the movie versions you mentioned is perhaps a little flawed. Gibson's Hamlet rearranges whole passages and omits so much it is a disservice to the play, it is barely two hours in length. If you want a much better movie version try the four hour Kenneth Branagh version. DiCaprio's R&J raises the same complaints, and it always strikes me as funny that, had he lived four hundred years ago, DiCaprio probably would have been cast as Juliet.
You, like anyone, are entitled to your opinion. However, if you can look past your emotional response to Shakespeare and consider the deeper impact he has had on literature, theatre and the arts. He invented many words and phrases that we continue to use to this day.
You may think he is somewhat over-rated as a playwrite (over-hyped perhaps), but you cannot, imo, over-rate his contirbutions to history.
[edited because I accidently hit submit before I was finished ranting ]
[This message has been edited by Robyn_Hood (edited December 15, 2004).]
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Julius Caesar really bugs me because it shows how comercial theatre was, even four hundred years ago. Julius is in a grand total of about three scenes. He is not a tragic hero. He has no fatal flaw. And I don't care that he gets stabbed in the back in by his friend. The true hero of the story is Marcus Brutus. He is in the play from start to finish, has a fatal flaw and I care when and how he dies.
Have you ever seen Oscar? Well, he's only in one scene and he gets the title. Writers can be funny sometimes.
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Othello was pretty good, but it is difficult to read and even more difficult to perform properly.
Perform? I dunno. I've only done a small excerpt at the most, and it's not that easy to tell if Olivier is having a hard time with his performances . Read? Not really. I guess middle English isn't that hard for me to read...
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Making a judgement on the movie versions you mentioned is perhaps a little flawed. Gibson's Hamlet rearranges whole passages and omits so much it is a disservice to the play, it is barely two hours in length. If you want a much better movie version try the four hour Kenneth Branagh version. DiCaprio's R&J raises the same complaints
If it ever comes on tv, I'll watch the Branagh version. I don't intend to spend money on Shakespeare, when I can spend on something I actually have a taste for.
BTW, I can't remember. Was Branagh Boromir, or someone else? The only other things I've seen him in (that I can remember) are Wild Wild West and a biblical movie (although I can't remember which one).
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However, if you can look past your emotional response to Shakespeare
Shakespeare was an artist. You're SUPPOSED to look directly at your emotional response when it comes to art. If you mean Shakespeare as a person, I don't know why you think I'd be emotional about a man I've never met, save for a few drawings and paintings of him.
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consider the deeper impact he has had on literature, theatre and the arts.
First off, I'm not talking about his impact on literature. That's one reason I think people overrate him. They mix his contributions with his art.
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You may think he is somewhat over-rated as a playwrite (over-hyped perhaps), but you cannot, imo, over-rate his contirbutions to history.
I never tried, nor intended to. But I would like to remind you that several Germanic cavemen contributed more to the English language than he did. As far as one person goes, I'd say William the Conqueror has him beat.
I think emotional response is overrated.
But if you are looking at emotion, then Shaxspur has clearly influenced a lot of people's emotion, even those who don't like him.
What do you think of Bacon?
What well-known writer do you think is underrated?
I am swapping to EJStone's post.
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited December 15, 2004).]
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BTW, I can't remember. Was Branagh Boromir, or someone else?
No, but apparently he was in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Gilderoy Lockhart).
If you really want a list of all the movies has been in, check out this website.
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I guess middle English isn't that hard for me to read...
I've seen the movie Oscar and thought it was pretty good. I think the perpose of calling the movie Oscar, even though Oscar doesn't show up until the final scene, is to help build a sort of question about who this guy is. He is conspicuously absent. sort of like a comic who asks the same question or makes the same statement several times through his routine but always ends up running off on a tangent unti the very end. Julius Caesar reminds me more of movies like The Last of the Mohicans or The Three Musketeers (you can almost take your pick of the version). These movies use some of the characters and very few (or none) of the plot points from the novel, write their own story, then they stick the "Name that will Sell" on it and market it up the yin yang. Julius Caesar is an admirable play, but it does not meet the criteria for being a Shakespearean tragedy about Julius Caesar. The title's sole intention is to grab people's attention and put butts in seats; in my opinion, it is a bit of a sell-out on Shakespeare's part. But I suppose every artist does what he has to make a living.
(I'm probably not going to respond to this thread anymore, either; and like Hoptoad, will participate in the Shakespeare thread )
* I joined a psych project where I have to write X number of words every day. This is to test the effect of schedules on writing productivity. The point is, if I didn't produce that many words, somebody would know I was slacking off.
* I started writing. Not the project I was scared of; just anything. Then, finally I started the project -- but not the big part of it; just a little prolog. And an opening quote. And the title page. Then, as it started looking like a real novel, I became ready to write it. I estimate I'm 1/10 done now!
Give him a break. He's trying to bring the thread back on topic.
too bad we're not quite finished
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No, but apparently he was in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Gilderoy Lockhart).
Woops. I don't know why I confused Branagh with Sean Bean. They do look similar though... I could have sworn I saw his name in the credits...
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I wasn't refering to the language so much as the content.
I didn't find that hard either. I think you might be looking too deep into Iago. To me he's a very shallow and base character. He's not a dual character, he's a two-faced character, and there is a difference. But that's a discussion for someplace else.
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I haven't had the opportunity to watch the Olivier Othello, and I can't remember anything specific about it.
Good acting, bad makeup.
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I've seen the movie Oscar and thought it was pretty good. I think the perpose of calling the movie Oscar, even though Oscar doesn't show up until the final scene, is to help build a sort of question about who this guy is.
You're missing my point. Just because there is a name in a title, doesn't mean that the name is the main character. I don't think Shakespeare ever intended for Ceasar to be the main character. It's similar to the play about Judas (I can't remember the name now). People got upset at it ending before the ressurection, but they missed the point: the play was about Judas, not Jesus.
But again, that's for another discussion.
Do you concede to my original point, though? You don't have to agree with my opinion, you can just say I have justification for thinking that Shakespeare is overrated as a playwright.
If the discussion doesn't get back to the title subject now, I will close it.
Thank you, wbriggs, for trying to get it back.
I, for one, do not accept this blame. I blame franc li.
Anyway, does anyone think ADD could have anything to do with it?
i have ADD myself :P
it can be a problem if you allow it to be, but it can also be a bonus if you force it to be.
And you must be some sort of freakish metahuman ( ) if you can split your mind...
But thinking about two completely different things simultaneously is impossible.
It's not that I think that I can't do it that stops me from doing it. It's just that humans can't do it.
I know I'm not able to. But I suspect I may suffer from ADD too...
ADD is fiction...and horrbily overprescribed.
It should stand for Another Drug Dependent...
I've found that drinking alot helps me with writer's block...well it doesn't help me write anything, but I'm drunk enough that it doesn't really bother me :-)
Merry Christmas!
Only reason I wasn't diagnosed with it is I was born in 1970 and in the early 80's doctors did more than prescribe pills when it came to behavioral issues.
You are awfully hostile, someone should give you a hug...preferably a really brutal one.
100 years ago you would have been known as brilliant, creative, intelligent, with active minds yearning to absorb and process as much of your world as possible.
Perhaps you did not learn to discipline your minds when you were very young. So, instead, someone along the line told you there was something wrong with you and handed you a bottle of pills.
I don't know. But it seems that there are a lot of people with compelling evidence that there are WAY too many people being diagnosed and medicated for ADD, yet EVERY ADD sufferer claims that HIS/HER affliction is genuine.
I'm not saying that every ADD sufferer is deluded. What I am saying is that you guys seem to be trying to give Archer an excuse for something that the exercise of simple discipline will fix--no matter what your state of (reasonably healthy) mind.
Fortunately it seems that Archer realizes this, too.
there are plenty of people who do not have it and it is overdiagnosed though, unfortunately
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Only reason I wasn't diagnosed with it is I was born in 1970 and in the early 80's doctors did more than prescribe pills when it came to behavioral issues.
You know, sometimes just pills works. It worked for me. I went from an F to an A in one subject in one grading period after they started me on ritalin. I have an actual case of ADD. I don't have a short attention span.
That what a lot of doctors mistake as ADD, and you pretty much have to have it to know the difference. I'm not easily distracted, I just lose focus. I'll sometimes have to read a sentence several times before I actually focus on what it's saying. I'll just be reading the words and not the sentence. I'll be thinking about something the previous sentence made me think of, or I'll just be thinking about nothing at all.
People with ADD can also have too much focus. When it comes to things like knots, or peeling off glue from fingers, etc. we don't stop until it's done.
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100 years ago you would have been known as brilliant, creative, intelligent, with active minds yearning to absorb and process as much of your world as possible.
I doubt that. There is a big difference between ADD and ecclectic tastes.
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Perhaps you did not learn to discipline your minds when you were very young.
Most children don't do that anyway. It's not a lack of discipline that causes ADD, discipline is a tool used to overcome it.
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I don't know. But it seems that there are a lot of people with compelling evidence that there are WAY too many people being diagnosed and medicated for ADD, yet EVERY ADD sufferer claims that HIS/HER affliction is genuine.
Well of course they do. It gives them an excuse.
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Fortunately it seems that Archer realizes this, too.
Yes, but I was just wondering if having trouble even while trying to write is something competent writers go through when it isn't writer's block (I know where I wanna go).
quote:There are people who have had split-brain operations, where the two hemispheres of the brain are surgically separated. They can quite clearly think of two things at once (although they may not be able to tell this themselves). The point is that each half of the brain (at a minimum) is capable of thinking about something on its own. Now, when the two halves are connected (as in most people), it's quite likely that they would interfere with one another and make it very difficult to think about two things at once. But to say that it's "impossible" is too much for me to accept without evidence.
But humans cannot focus on more than one thing at a time.
I believe you. After all, you can't argue with results.
Sometimes I think that's why I really could never play the keyboard, I would listen to the melody and zone out on rhytm, then zone of on melody by concentrating on rhythm alone. At times I'm just zoned out in a world of my own...
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Yes, but I was just wondering if having trouble even while trying to write is something competent writers go through when it isn't writer's block (I know where I wanna go).
The answer, for me anyway, is an absolute YES.
And all the symptoms of ADD that you describe, I had them too. Perhaps to a lesser degree. Still do at times. My mind worked differently than other kids' minds--that doesn't mean it was 'broken'. It simply meant it was different, and no one out there seemed to know how to focus it, so I had to do it myself. I still struggle with it sometimes--just kinda faze out while I'm reading something. Frustrating.
And I still believe that most ADD sufferers may simply be brilliant minds who would be better off being trained to channel their creativity, rather than simply drugged into a "normal" state of brain activity. That has nothing to do with 'eclectic tastes'. It has to do with a pattern of brain function that few understand, therefore it must be abnormal, therefore it must be subdued. And since our schools are not trained or equipped to teach any but the 'most normal' bulk of the population, children like you and me just get dragged along for the ride.
And as far as children not being disciplined--First, I never said lack of discipline CAUSED ADD. I, essentially, agreed with you, that teaching children to discipline themselves early in life could help to overcome it without resorting to the easy way out--the 'drug habit' I believe that self-discipline is like reading--if you miss the golden window of childhood to learn it, it becomes more and more difficult to learn it as you age. That's why people who spend time in prison or jail rarely ever NOT return; Second, I suppose lack of discipline is one of the greatest troubles of our society today. In Old Testament times a person was considered capable of making and being responsible for adult decisions at the age of EIGHT. During the Revolutionary War there was at least one military leader who was younger than 16. 150 years ago it was not uncommon for 13 year olds to be financially responsible for their families. Today the adults lack self-discipline to the point that instead of working hard to overcome problems like ADD and depression and a myriad other afflictions, they simply medicate and forget. Is it any wonder illicit drug use is so rampant? So what has happened in the last few generations? We've let our children be children because we have been blessed with abundance. But along with that penchant to remove burdens from them, we've also removed from them the value of responsibility, the satisfaction of self-control, the joy of the rewards of hard work.
I could go on and on. But this thread isn't about ADD. It's about writing.
No matter who you are or how you approach it, writing is hard work. Sure it starts out fun. You find a great deal of satisfaction in finishing a story, and you love those words of praise you get from family and friends. But when those moments of pleasure are over and all you have left is you and the computer and nothing seems to be coming and you're frustrated and burned out...
The difference between someone who wants to make a life of writing, and someone who wants to write for the fun of it, is the discipline to work even when you don't want to. To write even though everything you seem to write is complete drivel. To keep plodding on and on and on and on and on even though you'd really rather be doing something else. To keep your butt in the chair for as long as it takes to get the job done--because that's what writing is for the career writer, a JOB.
And what keeps you writing? Those fairly infrequent moments when your fingers are flying over the keyboard and the words are flowing out of you like magic. The letter in the mail that says "We'd like to buy your story." The dream of having your name on the cover of a book.
If you'd rather not deal with the struggle, then chalk yourself up as a hobby writer. And that's OK. That's a perfectly valid choice. It might just be that career writing isn't the thing you want RIGHT NOW. I think every writer has to reach a certain point of ripening in order to give it their whole heart--for some that's age 20, for others it's 60.
Whatever your choice is, you're welcome at Hatrack. Whatever your choice it's always a good idea to continue to develop your skills and talents. That's why we're all here.
The reason I mention it here is because of the ADD discussion. (Yeah, I know, maybe it is off-topic, but maybe not. I think it has potential, so I haven't discouraged it.)
One of the things several of the writers mentioned in their descriptions of their own experiences was that while something awful was happening, they noticed "part" of themselves watching and taking notes for possible use in future writings, while another part was horrified at that callous observer, and while (of course) another part was actually experiencing the whole awful thing.
One of them even commented that when she noticed this multi-part breakup of her psyche, she knew that she was becoming a writer.
Now I don't claim that you have to be able to do this in order to become a writer, but I submit that if this isn't exactly what was described above as letting half the brain work on a story while the other half wanders off, it is a reasonable facsimile.
I don't have ADD (so far as I know), but I do claim the ability to split myself into several different aspects that all react to a situation in their own way. And I know I'm not the only person out there who can do this.
So I have no difficulty at all in believing that others can do similar things.
One problem I've encountered is that I tend to use all my attention for things that normal people don't think deserve attention. "It isn't that I'm unable to hear you, it's that I find you less interesting than what I'm doing right now." I like to read with all my attention devoted to the text, max out the processors and look at the pretty colors in 32 bit native resolution But if what I'm doing isn't very interesting to me, I can divide some of my attention and use it for other things. So if I'm reading the instructions for how to program a VCR or something like that, I can spare plenty of attention to play cards and talk to everyone at the same time. But if I'm reading something for pleasure, then I don't have anything left over for anything else.
I don't know. Which is why I have pretty much ignored this tangent till now. But I suspect if anyone is thinking of getting a story idea out of it, it might be more profitable to reverse the terms here, making it so that being easily distracted was a sign that you didn't have enough attention to split it in multiple directions. After all, the ability to carry on normal social interaction without losing track of a boring or mundane but necessary task is supposed to be normal, and kids who don't or can't do it are the ones labled as ADD.
It's just a suggestion, though. PD claimed that he used consciously dividing his attention to overcome ADD, and he probably knows more about it than I do. For the record, women need to be able to pay enough attention to keep a child out of harm's way (and this requires a lot of attention) without being totally preoccupied. That might have something to do with why they show a more pronounced ability in that direction. But all humans need to have the ability to continue doing something important at the needed level while splitting off enough attention to do something unrelated. Which is why we call ADD a disorder rather than considering it normal.
ArCHeR, I asked you and Survivor to pretend that each other didn't exist because the discussion you were having with each other was threatening to turn into a flame war.
There are other people here who can respond to what Survivor said about ADD. You do not need to do it. So, yes. I am asking you to not respond at this time.
If you can show that you can discuss things here at Hatrack without threatening flame wars, then I may rescind my request.
It's your own fault, though, because I was officially not very interested in this subject until you said it could be interesting
I think that my niece was diagnosed with ADD eventually, I always thought she had more of a mild case of social attachment disorder or something like that because of her father (who erronously believed that he would still be alive after we had decided that he shouldn't be). I think that one problem is that ADD is a collection of symptoms that are usually caused by emotional problems related to important relationships. One key point of the diagnostic criteria is that the symptoms are present in two different situations...meaning that it is not considered necessary that someone display ADD symptoms at all times, it can be entirely situational as long as there is more than one situation which causes it. On the other hand, there are non-situational causes, some of which respond to medication.
But I think it is a problem when kids get medicated for situational cases. For one thing, the medication doen't address the situational causes. For another, it can be harmful. Plus it's mean to label people.
If yo would have waited for it to descend into a flame war, I can tell you right now that it wouldn't have. We were practically done debating by the time you said it anyway.
And now, I can't make any response to anything he says? I can't even say, "That's a very good point Survivor. I agree with you fully." All I want to do is clear up a mistake he made about a disease I have. I want to make a correction in another thread to something he said.
We're both adults, and I think he can be civil, even if you percieve some great rivalry building up.
Thanks for the warning.
Tell you what, if two different people post here that they would like me to allow you and Survivor to go back to responding to each other, I will.
All those two people need to say is, "Yes, please."
Anyone willing to post that?
(hey, you never specified )
I also had/have ADD as a child. You'd have to ask my wife whether I still do, though.
And I believe you can grow out of it. I also believe discipline helps, self and parental.
I believe it can be managed without meds, as well, and I'm about to find out for a fact whether that is true or not, because one of my three and half year old twin daughters has ADD. Oh yeah she does...
She's dancing around my chair right now.
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Yes, I did. I said "two different people" and I meant two people different from you or Survivor or me.
Ah, but you could have meant two people who weren't the same person
Anyway, on with why I whined so much...
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I mean, if anything, wouldn't people with ADD lack the ability to pay attention to more than one thing at a time? Isn't that the essential meaning of being easily distracted and having a deficit of attention?
It's not a deficit of attention, it's an attention deficit. We lack the ability to stay focused, or just the opposite, we focus too much on something we don't need to. The best example would be knots. If you give me a knot, I won't move on until that sucker is untied.
But no one can pay attention to more that one thing at a time. That's my point. People can switch between more than one thing very quickly, but our consiousness only has room to focus on one thing at a time.
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I mean, in a practical sense, no matter how much attention you can pay to just one thing, if you can't divide your attention enough to deal with other things that happen, it isn't like the extra attention does any good.
ADD is a short-term thing. It's not like we're unable to manage math homework and English homework in one night. It just takes us a while to focus on what that one math question is saying. We divide our attention too much. We look at a question that says, "What did Shakespeare mean by..." and we would think about how odd that "e" is at the end of "Shakespeare" and then think about the spear and so on until we realize we have a question to read. Or we'll just keep reading the same sentence over and over again. It goes something like this in our heads:
"'The inability to distinguish what you originally experienced from what you heard or were told about an event later is called:' Wait, what? 'The inability to distinguish what you originally experienced from what you heard or were told about an event later is called:'-'The inability to distinguish what you originally experienced from what you heard or were told about an event later is called:'Snap out of it. 'The inability to distinguish what you originally experienced from what you heard or were told about an event later is called: A. Semantic memory B. Priming C. Explicit Memory or D. Source Amnesia.' Ok yeah, let's see, it's not A or C. I don't remember what B is, and D is self explanatory. D."
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One problem I've encountered is that I tend to use all my attention for things that normal people don't think deserve attention. "It isn't that I'm unable to hear you, it's that I find you less interesting than what I'm doing right now." I like to read with all my attention devoted to the text, max out the processors and look at the pretty colors in 32 bit native resolution But if what I'm doing isn't very interesting to me, I can divide some of my attention and use it for other things. So if I'm reading the instructions for how to program a VCR or something like that, I can spare plenty of attention to play cards and talk to everyone at the same time. But if I'm reading something for pleasure, then I don't have anything left over for anything else.
Everyone does that. But you're not thinking about it all at the same time, you're thinking about the cards after you get them delt to you, you're thinking about the instructions when you look down to read them, and you're thinking about the conversation the rest of the time.
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kids who don't or can't do it are the ones labled as ADD
Thank God you're not the one diagnosing these people. That's not it, or at least shouldn't be. People with ADD can do that easily. It doesn't affect us ALL the time, and it's subtle enough to where they only time we really notice we're doing it is aftaer the fact (like right before the last time I read the question in the above example).
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That might have something to do with why they show a more pronounced ability in that direction.
It could also have something to do with the hunter/gatherer theory, and as a generalization I think it's a very good theory. Men used to hunt, while women used to gather. Men evolved to be, for the most part, predispositioned to physical activity that would be involved in hunting (again, this is a generaliztion. Please don't yell at me about Williams sisters etc.). Our minds were evolved to focus on one target and how to get that target. We hunted. The modern equivilent would be sports. We hunt the ball, and then when we have the ball, we hunt the goal. When one tribe challenged another for some sort of advantage, they would generally stand in opposing lines, yelling and grunting at the other to try and intimidate the other and demoralize the other tribe before a fight, if not scare it off all together. This is where we get trash talk, war, and team sports.
Women evolved to be able to have children (thus the higher threshold for pain) and to gather edible plants. They are able to see the whole forest and are able to pick out the best from it. They don't have to be quiet while they do it, so they talk more than men. It becomes a social event to go and gather nuts and berries, etc. Women can detect the differences between colors better so they can identify and avoid dangerous plants. The modern equivilent is shopping.
And think about it: isn't shopping just gathering things instead of food? So they have developed this ability to have a conversation, search for things, and protect their children at the same time, whereas men had to focus on one thing silently, while other men helped them to focus on one aspect of the hunt or another. We didn't have to multitask when we hunted, because we were all going after the same goal, and could each specialize in one thing.
It's a very interesting theory and it explains a lot of things...
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Sometimes I think that's why I really could never play the keyboard, I would listen to the melody and zone out on rhytm, then zone of on melody by concentrating on rhythm alone
I know what you mean. Sometimes, I find myself listening to music I otherwise wouldn't listen to without several blows to the head, just because I'm lost in the melody and rhythm. I tend to ignore the lyrics.
How else can I excuse the Backstreet Boys? 
Or Ludacris? 
[This message has been edited by cvgurau (edited January 02, 2005).]
(edited to fix the caps and spelling for ArCHeR's Name)
[This message has been edited by Netstorm2k (edited January 02, 2005).]
I was easily distracted. Still am. Back then I was a bit hyperactive. Hard to believe that now...
[This message has been edited by ChrisOwens (edited January 02, 2005).]
Anyway, I still think that ADD is overdiagnosed and way overmedicated. I think the first thing I would do if I were in charge of how it's diagnosed would be eliminating the situational element, if the behavior was specific to a few situations rather than being pervasive, then I would look for an underlying reason rather than being satisfied with a label like ADD.
Still, there are medical options available for ADD, and they do help some people. So it isn't like a witch-hunt, or at least not so like a witch-hunt.
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Concur with ArCHeR (I think that's the way the caps go..)
Don't worry about it. You can call me Arch if you want
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Eh, I still don't get the distinction between a deficit of attention and an attention deficit. And I think that the situation where you can either stay completely focused on a task to the exclusion of paying attention to your surroundings or you can remain aware of other things to the exclusion of paying attenetion to your current task is basically what would correspond to what I would call a lack of allocable attention.
A deficit of attention wouldn't allow for the extreme focus part of it. We just wouldn't be able to focus on anything for any length of time.
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Anyway, I still think that ADD is overdiagnosed and way overmedicated.
Yes, then no. If it's properly diagnosed it's easy to medicate it. It's not situational, it's random. It can happen when concentration isn't needed, I'm sure. There's just no way to know it.
As for what ADD is and what it isn't, the current diagnostic standards allow it to be "properly" diagnosed in a lot of situations where medication wouldn't be helpful because the symptoms are situational. When I say it is overdiagnosed, I mean that sometimes it is diagnosed by stretching the diagnostic criteria a bit. When I say further that it is overmedicated, I mean that in addition to cases where it has been diagnosed for conditions which do not entirely fit the diagnostic criteria, there are many cases within the diagnostic criteria that will not respond to medication because they are not medical in nature.
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The key thing is only being able to focus on a single thing. If you don't have enough attention available to focus on a task and remain aware of your surroundings, then you lack the normal amount of available attention.
In the words of Inspector Jacques Clouseau: "I knew you'd say that."
We're not unable to focus on more than that one thing. We just don't want to. We allocate all of our attention to it, we don't lose any attention. Think of it like a starship on Star Trek. We don't lose any power, we just divert it all to shields.
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When I say it is overdiagnosed, I mean that sometimes it is diagnosed by stretching the diagnostic criteria a bit. When I say further that it is overmedicated, I mean that in addition to cases where it has been diagnosed for conditions which do not entirely fit the diagnostic criteria
Ah, but that is a diagnostic problem, not a medication one. Those who are properly diagnosed recieve the proper medication. Those improperly diagnosed aren't recieving too much medication, they're recieving the wrong medication (or more properly they're recieving the wrong treatment).
It's really a minute discrepency and it need not be debated beyond that. That's how I think of the problem, and if you think of the problem differently, then that's your opinion. The important thing is that we both agree there is a problem there, and the best solution is better diagnosis of the disorder.
But then, using the starship analogy, I've got plenty to power full shields, weapons, and impulse at the same time. That's the power of having more than the normal amount of attention to spare. It also gives me the fragtacular edge when playing multi-player X-box games
But seriously, I don't think we lack any more "power" than anyone else out there. We just move it around the ship differently than most people...
(Just some help on the two thoughs at once, think of yourself as a dot the size of the head of a pin. You can move to the different parts of your brain. Just because you arent there doesn't mean it isn't happening.)
But I do wonder if it was the medicine that made you do all that, or if the medicine was an excuse your subconscience used to act out supressed violent behavior. Mind you I have no idea what I'm talking about, but it's just a thought. After all, even hypnosis can't make you do anything you wouldn't do drunk...
Edit: Did I really spell hypnosis like that? *shivers*
[This message has been edited by ArCHeR (edited January 09, 2005).]
That medication focuses me pretty well...but it does make typing difficult.