Almost three years ago, I wrote a post explaining why it is better to create than consume.

The reasons are still valid, I think.  There’s a lot to be said for making a pizza by hand instead of purchasing something hot and expensive from your local fast-food pizza joint, as an example.

But I’ve been doing a lot of consuming during the past year.  Far more consuming than creating.  There are benefits to doing this as well as costs.  I’ve consumed a lot of books, television, movies:  a lot for me, at least.  Some of it has been re-reading old favorites, some of which I haven’t read in almost 20 years.  Other has been seeing television shows and movies for the first time:  a lot of Joss Whedon’s television work in addition to other cult-classic or critically acclaimed shows and movies.  I blame – I mean credit – a Netflix subscription for a lot of this catching up.  I have filled up my well with pop culture references and ideas that I can carry forward in some fashion, even if it’s just my own ideas, slightly adjusted.

But my creating has been a private thing for months now.  I’ve been spending more time trying to work on fiction (note to self:  a chain attaching me to a specific chair or desk is something I should probably invest in) than I ever have… with minimal success.  Which in itself is a valuable learning experience.  Blogging, essays, how to articles, etc.:  I’ve pretty much been avoiding them.  But I’m starting to… well, at least take a bit of interest in them.

All this to say:  I’m still here.

Related posts:

1. All the good stories are worth studying

Seriously.  I’m not one to spend a lot of time sharing stuff on the Web, but this xkcd webcomic is one of the coolest things I’ve seen on the Web in years.  It’s…  creative, awesome and and lovely use of discretionary time.

Note:  if you can’t use the bottom part of the image to “click and drag”, here’s the link to this cartoon at xkcd.

Just stop and think about the time, thought and effort into making something with all of this detail. It’s designed for the curious, the explorer and it does a great job of grabbing your attention and make you keep searching for more.

Just remember:  click and drag.

I need to come up with something this creative.

What do you think?

Related posts:

1. The creative creativity of Jonah Lehrer – a cautionary tale

There’s a quote from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which has stuck in my mind lately, although not in the way that Pirsig used it in his famous book.  In this section of the book, we are given a glimpse into the mind of one of the book’s characters:  a man of science who is questioning part of the scientific method:

(Phaedrus) had noticed again and again in his lab work that what might seems to be the hardest part of scientific work, thinking up the hypotheses, was invariably the easiest. The act of formally writing everything down precisely and clearly seemed to suggest them. As he was testing hypothesis number one by experimental method a flood of other hypotheses would come to mind, and as he was testing these, some more came to mind, and as he was testing these, still more came to mind until it became painfully evident that as he continued testing hypotheses and eliminating them or confirming them their number did not decrease. It actually increased as he went along.

At first he found it amusing. He coined a law intended to have the humor of a Parkinson’s law that “The number of rational hypotheses that can explain any given phenomenon is infinite.” It pleased him never to run out of hypotheses. Even when his experimental work seemed dead-end in every conceivable way, he knew that if he just sat down and muddled about it long enough, sure enough, another hypothesis would come along. And it always did.

Later Phaedrus becomes obsessed with the idea of an unlimited number of hypotheses to try to explain the results of experiments.  It drives him a bit mad because even though he could seemingly prove that a hypothesis did explain the results of an experiment, the fact that he can keep generating more hypotheses suggests to him that he would never be able to test all of them since there would be an apparently infinite number of hypotheses to explain what is happening in any situation.

But we’re not going down that particular rabbit hole today.

This passage reminds me of one of my bigger challenges when writing stories:  what next?

I’ve worked on a number of fiction projects over the years and I rarely finish any.  I feel that I’ve learned a lot about plotting, character, story structure, etc. during the past two years but there is something that stymies me at many points in the story:

What next?

My problem isn’t that I don’t have ideas.  My problem, so to speak, is that I have too many at any given point in time.  I look at a point in my story at think, “Wow, I could have a dozen things happen here at this point.”  And then I get lost in trying to determine which is the best path to choose, just like one of those Choose Your Own Adventures books that I read as a kid.

I have too many ideas.

I get stuck this way during the plotting or outlining phase (I’m not much of a pantser these days).  So many choices, so many decisions.  And, if I keep at it like Phaedrus, I can keep figuring out different things to happen next.  And never actually get anywhere.  And possibly lose my marbles (again).

This problems almost never happens to me when I write non-fiction.  But that’s probably because I’m not creating everything from nothing.

I suspect that this feeling is normal, but I do wonder if other writers ever feel this way, and how they find the right path.  Do you?

No related posts.

Image from amazon.com

I’ve been wanting to write about this subject for awhile but it’s been a challenge to figure out exactly what I want to say about Jonah Lehrer – journalist, author of three books, public speaker and radio personality.  Lehrer’s a young guy (31, I believe) who has built quite a career for himself in media, leading to many comparisons to another celebrated writer, Malcolm Gladwell.  But first, here’s an overview of Lehrer’s situation:

Author Jonah Lehrer recently resigned from his new position with The New Yorker magazine after a series of disturbing revelations about his writing.  You can find details here, but in summary Lehrer’s offenses generally fall into three categories:

1. Self-plagiarism (more of an issue for Lehrer’s editor or publisher than you and I, he has reused some of his writings, almost literally word-for-word, in other paid assignments )
2. Questionable logic or conclusions (see Scott Berkun’s criticism of Lehrer’s criticism of brainstorming)
3. Quotation misuse (fabricating, improperly using or being unable to produce the actual sources of several Bob Dylan quotes in his book Imagine:  How Creativity Works)

None of these three categories are anything to be proud of.  It’s ironic in a way that Lehrer had such a prominent blogging presence and then got caught self-plagiarizing, consider how often many bloggers reuse old material, or at least link to it.

As far as the logic inherent in Lehrer’s writings and his conclusions, I can kind of excuse this because information can be subject to interpretation and, let’s face it, many of us who write are desperately trying to find some meaning in the information we’re trying to massage into a recognizable shape.  I haven’t read Imagine, so I can’t make a judgement about its conclusions.

BUT BUT BUT… quotation or anecdote fabrication, misuse and general trickery around what other people have said…  to me, this is dead wrong.  Lehrer was found to have misrepresented quotations to help make some of the points in his book Imagine, either by inaccurately attributing their meaning to the creative process or by splicing quotations from two separate conversations which didn’t necessarily go together.  In other cases, he cited certain quotations from sources that could not be independently verified.

Which is all to say that it looks like Lehrer used possibly false or unrelated quotations to try to bolster his arguments in his book.  And he didn’t admit to doing so until he was repeatedly questioned by a dedicated and knowledgeable Bob Dylan fan.

I suspect that a number of writers have engaged in these kinds of  shenanigans (can’t think of a better word at the moment) more often than we may think, leaving politics out of the equation.  They count on the fact that most people won’t bother checking source material.  I expected better from Jonah Lehrer – he’s an author that had interesting and thought provoking things to say.  I haven’t read Imagine and I don’t imagine (sorry) that I will because I don’t want to second guess everything I read in the book.

Quotations are powerful but they need to be treated with respect.  I know how tempting it is to see a quotation and attempt to use it to help make a point just because it sounds good or it makes for a good sound bite.  But all writers have to be better than that.  Arguments need to stand on a solid foundation of fact and logic or they are merely opinions.

It’s tempting to quote “common wisdom”, proverbs, and other sayings to help bolster an argument.  Sure, it can work, but for goodness sake get the context and meaning right!

The takeaway for me is an increased resolve to make sure I reference sources accurately and in the correct context and to avoid easy solutions.

As for Jonah Lehrer, he’s still a talented guy who made some serious mistakes.  I doubt he and his family will starve.  I just hope he does things better in the future.  But I won’t read his work the same way again.  Probably a good thing.

What do you think?  Is this too much hand-wringing over accurate quotations?  Or is misuse a problem that needs to be fixed?

No related posts.

I have not spent this long hiatus from Thoughtwresting coming up with new creative problem solving techniques.

I’ve been spending a lot of time absorbing fiction and pop culture, especially dramatic and comedy television.

It’s true, a lot of that time would be considered pure recreation.

But I seem to have been bitten quite fiercely by the story creation bug.  Again.

I don’t know what this means for this blog, but I couldn’t come back and say that the dog ate my homework.

Onward.

No related posts.

Jacques Poitras - photo by Diane Cole via Goose Lane Editions

Today at Thoughtwrestling I’m pleased to feature an interview with Jacques Poitras, Provincial Affairs reporter with CBC Radio (New Brunswick) and the author of three non-fiction books. Jacques’s most recent book is called Imaginary Line: Life on an Unfinished Border.  His book describes the history of the Canada/US border between the province of New Brunswick and the state of Maine, profiling different locations on both sides of the border.  It’s a great read and it’s particularly interesting to someone like me who has spent almost all of his life within a fifteen minute drive of that border.

I had the pleasure of meeting Jacques after a book reading event a couple of months ago.  I thought it would be interesting to share some of the background behind his book, and his writing in general, and so I was quite happy that he agreed to participate in an E-Mail interview.  And here it is for your enjoyment!

1. How did you come to write Imaginary Line? What got you started on the project?

I saw some common themes running through the various stories I’ve done as a reporter about the border. These have ranged from cultural links on the Upper St. John between Franco-Americans and francophone New Brunswickers, to cross-border shopping patterns, to road, rail and electrical connections, and to communities trying to maintain their ties despite post 9/11 security measures. Taken together, they’re all stories about people and communities trying to stay connected despite the administrative barrier that might otherwise divide them. It seemed like a powerful message for our times.

From that point, it was just a question of deciding how to put it all together into a book. The history of the border has been told already in several scholarly works; I wanted a journalistic project where I could link key moments in history and present-day events. That’s why I decided to frame the book not chronologically, but geographically, as a journey along the border.

2. Imaginary Line is your third book. Does the book writing process get any easier with each new project?

It does not get easier or harder. I’ve always tried to treat each chapter is the equivalent of a long newspaper or magazine feature, with (ideally, most of the time) a single story to tell. And I’d written many of those before I did my first book. So the task itself does not evolve.

The difficulty depends on the content, not on how long I’ve been at this. A chapter with a very clear narrative direction (for example, the Forest City story in Imaginary Line) is easier to write than a chapter that combines a number of different elements (such as the chapter I wrote dealing with cross-border shopping and business).

What has become easier is the organization of the project. I’ve said often that organization is half the battle: compiling notes, interviews and other materials, keeping track of them all, colour-coding or marking or labelling them so you can pull them together to create chapter outlines: I now have a pretty decent system for doing this. With my first book, I only realized after I’d started that I was going to need such a system. I’m very methodical now, because I know a bit of extra organizational effort at the outset will make for speedier writing later on, because I won’t need to keep stopping and breaking my rhythm to track something down.

Book cover photo via Goose Lane Editions

3. As a journalist, you have to write on demand. Do you find that same discipline helps you when you’re writing longer pieces (i.e. books like Imaginary Line)?

It does. For a reporter with daily deadlines, bad writing is still better than no writing. So when you’re blocked for some reason, it’s usually worth it to try to splatter something on the “page” (i.e. the screen) rather than stare at it for hours. It may be ugly, but it’s there, and you can always make it better later. Of course, this is my personal approach. Everyone’s different.

I’ve also learned to write very fast. On a good day I can write 2,000 words, and sometimes even more. It’s not always that good. But it’s a start.

With Imaginary Line, I transcribed 90 per cent of all my interviews, something I don’t do for shorter-term, daily journalism. This helped during days when I had writer’s block, because, with my outline in hand, I could cut and paste chunks of interview transcripts into the chapter file. This gave some shape to the narratives within those chapters, which in many cases are driven by lengthy quotations. Often, as the story took shape, I would find myself inserting descriptive paragraphs or transition sentences, and pretty soon the writing juices would be flowing again.

4. Do you ever write by hand or have you converted exclusively to word processing?

I can’t write fast enough by hand, so I don’t. When I’m deep into the writing phase of the project, but in the midst of doing something else — cooking, running an errand — I occasionally write down phrases or sentences that occur to me. So when I return to the computer, I have a pocket stuffed with several scraps of paper, all with scrawled lines on them. Often these are the opening or closing sentences of chapters, or key transitions. Those are important, too, because once I have them, I can write in that direction, with those sentences in mind: how do I point this story I’m telling to that conclusion?

5. How has Twitter changed your work as a journalist and as a writer?

As a reporter, I tweet a lot about New Brunswick politics, and I find that I do reach some people who don’t follow political news on the TV or radio. As an author, Twitter hasn’t had much of an impact. I do have a Twitter account devoted to my book work, @PoitrasBook. I set it up about midway through the writing to try to build interest in the book. I use it mainly to promote book events or link to relevant border stories.

6. What’s the best time of day for you to write (notwithstanding question 3 above)? As a follow-up, do you have a preferred writing location/writing environment?

The best way to answer this is to imagine a perfect writing day, which I’ve had, occasionally, when taking some unpaid leave from the CBC to work on my book. This would be a day free of any other scheduled work or family commitments. On a typical day like this, I am slow to get started: I’m probably in front of the computer by 9, but I would normally spend a good hour reading news online, checking email, and otherwise procrastinating. By 10 I’m ready to start, and normally I’ll work for two to three hours, stopping to eat lunch when I hit a logical point to break, or when I’m having trouble with a particularly stubborn mental block. I’m back at it twenty minutes later and I’m good until 3:30 or 4 in the afternoon, when I start to run out of gas. I’ll often go back at it for a couple of hours at night.

We have a small room in our basement where we have our computer set up, along with bookshelves and the like. We call it “the office” and it’s where I do all my book work. We had a similar room in our previous house. I think it’s good to have a dedicated space free of most distractions.

7. Most creatives (virtually all, really) have had to deal with rejection. How have you had to deal with it as a writer/creative? Any horror stories that you’re willing to share?

I’m loathe to call myself a “creative.” But I understand the premise of the question. I was fortunate that Goose Lane accepted my very first book pitch, which was for The Right Fight. After the success of Beaverbrook, I pitched a couple of books that no one was interested in. I also approached a couple of agents, hoping they’d represent me, but without success. But I can’t complain too much about rejection. I’ve written three books that I’ve wanted to write, and I’m very grateful to be working with Goose Lane.

8. Who are some of your favorite writers?

In non-fiction, I’m a huge fan of Simon Winchester. He blends travel, history and some current affairs in a wonderful way. Similarly, Robert Kaplan also manages to mix journalism and history with some first-person narrative. When I realized that the peculiar challenge of my material for Imaginary Line required me to put myself in the story, I looked to their books for guidance. My all-time favourite political book is Robert Caro’s biographical series on President Lyndon Johnson. And of course George Orwell is where you turn to cleanse your intellectual palate.

9. What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?

I can’t choose just one. My former editor at the Kingston Whig-Standard and the Telegraph-Journal, Neil Reynolds, wrote an essay that made the case for journalism as “literature in a hurry,” a Matthew Arnold phrase. What he meant was that journalism can aim to be something higher than just a quick spewing of words and facts; it can aspire to be well-crafted and full of excitement and character. My first-year political science professor, Conrad Winn, always used to tell those of us who were journalism students that the best thing we could do was read books. And he was right. And George Orwell wrote, “To yield subjectively, not merely to a party machine, but even to a group ideology, is to destroy yourself as a writer.” That’s still the best advice of all.

10. What piece of advice would you give to a new and/or struggling writer?

I would repeat all the advice in the previous answer.

Thanks to Jacques Poitras for agreeing to do this interview!

No related posts.

Image by Robert___T @ Flickr

I was very recently reminded that I have a blog about introversion (although it’s been almost 4 years since I posted there..)

There’s been discussion over the years about whether or not introverted people are more creative than extraverts.  Susan Cain, in her new book Quiet, suggests that solitude may be important to the creative process, which would naturally appeal to introverts or shy people.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of the books Flow and Creativity, suggests that creative people exhibit the traits associated with both introversion and extraversion.

I don’t know who’s right – it may be a meaningless question.  But I came across this quote from Psychology Today which presents an interesting take on the subject:

…to oversimplify, introverts can generate new ideas, make plans, and help quietly, while extraverts can implement those plans, think quickly on their feet, and make use of their great energy.

I don’t think this definition is universally true by any means, but I think it helps to illustrate a common view of extraverts:  they seem to be the ones who have all of the energy and who can act and speak quickly.  Thinking on your feet – or being able to respond quickly to problems or questions – would seem to indicate intelligence, if not creativity.  By contrast, some introverts (like me) might not be good at being creative on demand, especially when we’re faced with subject matter or situations which we aren’t comfortable with.

By the introvert can be extremely creative and develop deep, comprehensive ideas.  They just might not be able to do it quickly.

Ultimately I think the Psychology Today quote captures the essence of Csikszentmihalyi’s concept:  delivering creative work requires multiple skills.  There is a time and place for quiet brilliance as well as a need for energy and hustle among other people to make things happen.

Related posts:

1. The creative creativity of Jonah Lehrer – a cautionary tale

I’m very pleased to feature this Q & A interview with Riel Nason, whose debut novel The Town That Drowned was published in 2011. Riel is a fellow New Brunswicker and someone I had met during my university days.

After getting part of the way through her novel, which I’m really enjoying, I decided to reach out to her so we could all benefit from her experiences. So, here we go, ten questions with Riel Nason!

1. Was The Town That Drowned the first novel that you’ve ever written?

The Town That Drowned is my debut novel, but I have written short stories and non-fiction.

2. Did your writing process for The Town That Drowned following a linear path, i.e. did you literally start at the beginning and flow through to the end or did you write sections out of chronological sequence?

The Town That Drowned was pretty much completely written in chronological order. It is the only way I could fathom getting the story right. I am writing my second novel now and it is the same process for me – beginning to end. That said, I do sometimes write a few little funny anecdotes or musings out of order when a good idea strikes me (to be dropped into the narrative later).

3. Writing teacher Don Murray once suggested that the writing process could be divided up along the following lines: about 85% of your time spent prewriting (planning, gathering information, etc.), about 1 – 5% spent on writing the first draft and then 10 – 14% of your time spent revising and editing. Does this split make sense to you?

I can’t say that is my experience at all. I do jot notes and ideas ahead of time and have a rough plan for some scenes that I know have to happen eventually, but the list of ideas keeps building along simultaneously with writing the first draft. I write longhand in notebooks. I have one notebook that is the written draft and another notebook that I’m always adding future ideas to. I record anything from a funny single sentence, to an idea for a scene, to questions about the characters’ motivations that I think will need to be answered.

4. I recall that you were a dancer at one point. Does physical activity play any role in your creative process?

I would say the only thing related to this is that I walk for exercise, and usually by the end of my walk I have to rush into the house and write a bunch of new ideas down.

5. When was the first time that you were published? How did that compare to getting your novel published?

My first publication was a non-fiction article on estate auctions in an American decorating/collecting magazine. It was definitely cool at the time and gave me the confidence to continue writing. As to comparing that to getting the novel published, it really isn’t in the same hemisphere. That article was my first try writing or submitting anything, and it was quickly accepted by a nice quality magazine with a big circulation. It seemed easy to be successful at the time. The novel was far, far from easy. It came after a lot of hard work, doubts, ups and downs, waiting, rejection, etc. Finally holding the finished novel in my hand, and especially now, hearing from so many readers the story has connected with, is a total thrill.

6. What’s the best time of day for you to write? As a follow-up, do you have a preferred writing location/writing environment?

I like to write early in the morning. I am only good for a couple of hours at a time anyway. As soon as my son goes to school and my daughter goes to preschool I try to start. That is now though. For The Town That Drowned it was totally different. My son was just three and my daughter was seven months when I started writing the novel, and I was at home with them. I would wait each day until my husband came home from work, eat supper, and then disappear for two hours to write. As to location, I just sit on the couch in our master bedroom. A large section of our house, including our bedroom, is a turret with windows in a semi-circle, so the light is amazing. I sit surrounded by windows.

7. Most creatives (virtually all, really) have had to deal with rejection. How have you had to deal with it as a writer/creative? Any horror stories that you’re willing to share?

Oh sure, I’ve been rejected. It was actually rejection that motivated me to write The Town That Drowned. Before the novel, I wrote a collection of short stories and was very fortunate to get a wonderful literary agent to represent me. She tried to sell the short story collection, but warned me that short stories were very, very hard to sell to major publishers. And, in the end, the collection didn’t sell. I was disappointed of course, but then I was like, I have to try again. I remember thinking that I had this agent to represent me, and according to any how-to-get-published books I’d read, agents were supposed to be hard to acquire. I had nothing else written at the time though. So I decided, basically, you are doing it or you are not. Try a novel or you will regret it. And I did, and I am so happy and grateful for how it all turned out.

8. Who are some of your favorite writers?

There are so many. I like Lucy Maud Montgomery, David Adams Richards, Susan Juby, Miriam Toews, Dan Chaon, Andrew Pyper, Ami McKay, Sheree Fitch, Vicki Grant, Carla Gunn, Lynn Coady, and John Green. I also like the children’s authors Chris Van Dusen and Nick Bruel.

9. What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?

With the novel, I really learned about the power of editing. I am sure I have probably heard that as advice many times, just to really not worry about wrecking anything you’ve already written and edit away.

10. What piece of advice would you give to a new and/or struggling writer?

Do it. Try it. You don’t know until you try. Just get going.

Thanks to Riel for agreeing to do this interview.  If you’re in the market for a quirky, coming of age book from a different era, you should really check out The Town That Drowned.

No related posts.

Chuck Wendig’s posts are often NSFW (the language, to be sure) and, to be honest, loopy, but they are often full of usable insights.  His latest 25 things post, 25 Things You Should Know About Creativity is now up at his terribleminds blog.

Number 9, the Frankenstein Monster Effect, is a great little gem:

The true power of creativity is gathering unlike things and glomming them together so that they function as one. For a storyteller, individual components needn’t be particularly original. The art is in the arrangement.

Here, here.  Well spoken, Chuck.

This post is worth checking out… but don’t do it in front of the kids.

Related posts:

1. The creative creativity of Jonah Lehrer – a cautionary tale

There’s a lot of content out there about what’s happening around the world and it can make your mind fat. This content – a term that I’m using to describe words, symbols, images, audio and video clips, layout and so on – is a combination of fact and fiction that varies in accuracy depending on the source and their motives.

Some sources want to entertain. Others just want to inform the reader while others are trying to incite action – or, in some cases, discourage action. And, on top of all of that, some of the content is very open and transparent about the goals of its creators while in other cases it’s harder to tell why the content is being produced.

And there’s a huge amount of it out there, growing daily. But you know that.

As an example, today I tried to learn more about Joseph Kony, the Ugandan guerilla group leader accused of kidnapping children in Uganda and turning them into his private army of soldiers and slaves, among other crimes. I also tried to learn more about Kony 2012, the latest project by the Invisible Children movement to try to stop Kony. To be more thorough, I should learn more about:

• the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army), Kony’s guerilla group
• the Ugandan military (which may or may not be a great group of people, but it appears to be the LRA’s primary opponent)
• Uganda itself
• United States foreign policy and its mission in Uganda
• Invisible Children itself
• The founders of Invisible Children, including Ben Keesey, Laren Poole, and Jason Russell
• How well Invisible Children uses the money it gets (there are differing opinions about this that you can find on the Internet, here’s an example)
• And hundreds of other small details

Then there’s the Occupy movement across North America and other parts of the world – seems like a worthy cause in theory, but I honestly don’t know a lot about it. I don’t know what % I’m in, but probably not the 1% that they keep talking about. I think.  It seems like a worthwhile cause…

There’s also the food that we eat. According to one article I read today, a major cause of heart disease is inflammation of artery walls, which is not caused by fatty foods but by eating foods that were once expected to be healthy, like grains.  Apparently the inflammation of the artery walls is what lets the cholesterol gain its foothold in your arteries and eventually ruin your health. Or is it? I don’t know.

But I came across the term “wheat belly” a couple of months ago and I’ve seen a lot of stuff that tells me that wheat, gluten and lots of processed foods are bad for me. Which I kind of knew already but the world periodically finds new ways to tell me that this food is bad for me. Or another food is bad for me, while these three products are good for me. And so on.

But I don’t know for sure unless I have access to accurate, timely information.

Oh, by the way, it’s an election year in the United States. I can understand that you might not know this if you’ve been in a coma for the past five years and only woke up today. But cheer up: plenty of information out there about it! Of course, it might be helpful to know which is both accurate and relevant. That might be tricky.  But there is no shortage of people telling you how to vote.

Meanwhile, I get access to a lot of stuff that I find via Twitter, Google Reader, Facebook and dozens of other sources.  To be honest, most of it is quite trivial.  And there’s the ads, don’t forget the ads. And television programming. And so on.

But wait, you’re saying. Isn’t this a book review?

Yes, it is. But I wanted to set the stage a bit first.

The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption appears to have one main purpose: to convince you to choose and consume your information in a mindful manner. The key metaphor throughout this book is the information diet as the mind’s version of a healthy food consumption practice. Clay Johnson goes through some of the dangers related to unplanned, random information consumption. He then provides the reader with ideas on how to reduce the “junk food” content that many of us consume, as well as ways to find and partake of “healthier” information: more balanced, less biased, more diverse, more of an emphasis on primary or first-hand sources, etc.

At 150 pages, this is a short book and it’s an easy read. There are some amusing anecdotes amongst the more sobering discussion. You might look at Karl Rove in a slightly different light after reading this book.  At least you’ll believe he has a sense of humor.

Is this a perfect, infallible book? No. It’s not a college level text book. It provides an introduction to various theories and practices. It does cite a number of references. It has 94 footnotes – a few of them are more humorous than factual. When you look at the cover of the book, you’ll see a claim that there is a 65% bias toward experiences (presumably the author’s). It has no index. There’s a couple of terms that Johnson uses throughout the book that I wanted to review in more detail but the lack of an index made that very difficult.

But here’s why I would recommend that you read this book, especially if you’re getting concerned about the value of the information that you are wading through each day. I’m going to circle back to my previous example for a moment.

Yesterday, while I was wasting time reading through Twitter feeds, I came across a couple of people talking about Kony 2012, which I referenced above. One person was stepping up their Twitter presence in an attempt to build awareness about Kony 2012. The other person was skeptical. I really don’t know either person at all but my interest was piqued so I decided to find out more.  It’s just one example of the things that people want you to learn about and tell your friends.

[Side note:  I started using my research using a combination of Wikipedia and Google Search.  Wikipedia doesn't have the greatest reputation for factual information but I've always found it to be a decent starting point for more information.  But you do need to view the content in Wikipedia with a critical eye.  At least they try to do a good job of self-policing in most cases and indicating potential problems with their content.]

Facebook, Twitter and now Google+ are places where people post and link to a lot of things, including causes of all shapes and sizes. Kony 2012 is one example. So is Rep. Ron Paul’s quest for the presidency. So is Komen For The Cure.  So is Armless Widows For Gun Control (well, it would be if it wasn’t a complete fabrication that I just made up.)  And so on.

At a different level, maybe you’re being asked to promote:

• someone’s new novel or business book
• their blog post
• their funny infographic
• the product that their friend’s friend’s friend is trying to sell
• or their annoying cat picture.

Perhaps the content is politically motivated or otherwise trying to support some cause. Whatever it is, it’s really easy to share a link on your Facebook Wall, ReTweet something in Twitter or share it in Google+. Many people do this in blind faith without doing any research about the content behind the link. Maybe it’s being shared out of loyalty or an obligation to help someone out who has helped you out. Some people just like to share stuff.

But here’s the thing: you have a responsibility behind everything you share, link to, or write. You spend a piece of your credibility and social capital whenever you say “Please RT.” Or “MUST READ”. Or “REQUIRED READING”. Or “BREAKING” for that matter. So doesn’t it make sense to know what you’re doing is right, accurate and that you understand the motivations of those involved? That you have the best possible information available to make an informed decision and consciously share good stuff?

And don’t you owe it to yourself to really understand what you are reading and talking about? I’ve read enough so far about Kony 2012 and Invisible Children that, while the movement certainly seems to worthwhile and somewhat effective, it is run by human beings and it does need to be regarded with a critical eye, no matter how altruistic it seems. At the same time, if someone is criticizing something, like a series of critiques I’ve also read about Kony 2012, you should give it some consideration, especially if you, the reader, don’t have first-hand or even second-hand knowledge about the situation.  (Of course, you also need to find out if the critics are full of crap.)

The Information Diet isn’t perfect, but in my opinion it’s a good framework to get started in feeding your brain better information. We need to treat our mental development with as much importance as our physical health (and, of course, they are connected). Conscious information consumption makes sense. You can’t go wrong by reading this book and trying out its ideas.

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