Important Announcement - #102

Take a close look at the image above. 

Notice that my hands are not on the keyboard writing memoir.

The photo is a stylized me preparing for

for a road trip from Iowa to Utah,

to witness and cheer on my granddaughter at her wedding. 

Plus, it is my way of telling you

that I won't be here next week.

My apologies if you recently began reading.

If that is true, you may go to the website and 

scroll back to 2012 to read weekly posts.

Enjoy yourselves in my absence. Consider the adage that there can be presence in absence.

Dorothea Brande writes: "We customarily expend enough energy in carrying out any simple action to bring about a result three times greater than the one we have in view."*

Brande says this is true for most things we do. Is this true for you? I think I have spent more energy deciding what supplements to pack, what hair products to bring, and worrying about my bangs and if my hair cut makes me look like a poodle than necessary. 

I always love to hear from you!
Thanks for exploring the mystery - Nicky Mendenhall

*Becoming a Writer, Dorothea Brande, with a forward by John Garner. Originally published in 1934.

Image courtesy of Mason Hiatt. Can you guess the location?

Flexible Flexibility: Fumbling Allowed! #101

An idea of Scott Forrester's, I discovered in The Aware Athlete, purports intelligence can be measured by how rapidly one can adapt to new situations. See Post #96. Flexible adapting is smart.

Today we look at another of Scott's ideas: fitness can be measured by how ready we are to move up, down, left, right, forward, and/or backward. Moving around flexibly is fitness. 

Intelligence and fitness both require flexibility. I'm learning in psychoanalysis that LIFE requires flexibility. My memoir will describe my increasing flexibility to life - I hope!

Forrester gives an example of Flexibility that is not as obvious: "The great writer has freed herself  from a love of her words and is able to discard a chapter, even a whole book and rewrite, re-create according to a new vision, one closer to her true intent." 

When eliminating precious words from my manuscript, I copy and save them in a folder labeled, "May Use Sometime." That's as flexible as I can be right now. Oh, I guess I should give myself credit for realizing, with book coach's help, that what I thought was Chapter 3 is actually Chapter 1.

Where are you flexible? Where do you want to be more flexible and what is the first step towards that? I like thinking of being flexible in more than physical ways. Let me know what you think!

Thanks for exploring the mystery - Nicky Mendenhall

CLUE: If you think of back to school time as the start of your new year, decide what your intention will be for this year. Regardless of when your new year begins, take advantage of sales on school supplies! I know a reader that used to buy all the notebooks she needed for the year on sale! I wonder if she still does? 

Image: When I noticed the beautiful reflection on Guardian, I knew I wanted to capture it.