Cheryl:
I read a study this week that attempted to determine whether or not men felt that intelligence was an attractive trait in a woman.
First they were asked if they would be attracted to a woman who scored better than them on a test. An overwhelming majority answered yes.
Then they were given a test. Afterward, they met briefly with two women. They were told that one of the women had scored better on the test and one had scored worse. The men then rated each woman on her attractiveness.
As you might have guessed, a huge majority found the woman they perceived as more intelligent as less attractive.
Depressing? Perhaps. But I love experiments like this. I love these peeks into human nature. It adds a sense of reality to our writing. If you have a brilliant, beautiful female protagonist, it’s possibly that many men in her past became irritated with her intelligence rather than enamored by it, even if they claimed they felt differently. And that, of course, leaves room for one of those few men that can truly appreciate a girl with both beauty and brains.
Brenda:
I have a big, 4-drawer standing file cabinet in our spare bedroom-cum-Library-cum-Herb’s office closet. The bottom drawer, currently out and giving us trouble trying to get it back in, is the only empty one. The rest are full of papers. I also have four more 2-drawer file cabinets which are used as the under-pinning, or “legs” if you will, of a huge wooden slab which acts as an extra desk. I think only one of those drawers is empty, or nearly so: we use it for a handful of office supplies like Post-Its, thumb tacks, glue, 3×5 cards, 4×6 cards, etc.
Additionally I have more than a dozen loose-leaf folders, and a variety of paper-sized boxes — ALL of them full of papers: articles I’ve clipped and saved, stories I’ve started and never finished, same for articles and essays, even notes to friends which, somehow, never got delivered. Plus all the NEW paper “stuff” that has accumulated since Herb and I got married 3.5 years ago.
Time to determine what I need and WILL USE, and what can be shredded, recycled, and stored in such a way that we know WHERE something is, PRECISELY when we need it.
What do YOU do with all that paper stuff YOU collect?
Carol:
Planning what could happen in your NaNo book? Just a few days away and then we begin. Join WIFYR on FB. We have a NaNo group.
Gosh, I hope I am able to actually do this!
Throwing Up Words 