Thanks for visiting my blog!
This site contains the seven issues of my monthly e-mail newsletter, Hands On Creativity. You'll find creative exercises, what was going on 100 years ago in creativity, and some ideas that will get you thinking.
To help those of you who are small business owners, or work for non-profits, or have something that you want to promote, I wrote a book, Hands On Public Relations: The Workbook for You If You Want to Get Publicity But Don't Have a Clue Where to Start.
You can buy it in print or on-line from www.lulu.com/gypsyteacher. Just click here:
You'll also find my most recent blog, A Yank Searches for a House in 'Brum, to find out what My Irish Husband Tony and the cats have been doing since we all moved to Birmingham, UK. Thanks for reading!

Vol. I,
No.7 July 2004


Quote of the Month

“Try? There is no try. There is only do or not do.”
Yoda, Star Wars

In This Issue

1. Take a Risk
2. 100 Years Ago in Creative Thinking
3. Resources for Your Own Creativity
4. “Such Friends”: Gertrude Stein’s Paris Salons: The Painters, the Writers, & the GIs
5. “Hands On Public Relations” Workbook Available
6. “Do It Yourself Creative”: Last Month’s Winners and This Month’s Challenge
7. “Do It Yourself Creative”: Our Final Challenge to You
8. If You Love Us Or Hate Us

1. Take a Risk

One of the most important aspects of creative problem solving is risk taking.

Doing things the same way over and over rarely leads to creative breakthroughs. To come up with big ideas we need to be willing to follow new paths.

However, the most successful entrepreneurs are not the ones who take a wild leap without looking to see where they will land. Successful solutions to problems come from gathering all the relevant information, playing around with the raw material to consider the options, and then coming to a decision that can be carried out. Starving in a basement knowing that you’re right doesn’t solve anybody’s problems.

That’s why it is important to build risks into your daily routine. Take a longer route to work. Watch a different news program. Order something you’ve never tasted from the menu at your favorite restaurant. Dance when there’s no one watching.

All of these may seem to be inconsequential, but they keep your “risk muscle” in shape. When a big opportunity does come along, you’ll be ready to pounce on it. Face it, if you can’t even take an unknown route to work, will you be ready to grab that big job in a new city when it is presented to you?

Different people at different points in their lives, however, have different acceptable levels of risk. For a single mom with few resources, just getting through the day is plenty of risk. But for someone in a mid-life routine, the best approach might be to run to the edge of the canyon, calculating the upside and downside, and then jumping off.

By whatever path, my husband Tony and I have fortunately reached the mid-life-on-the-edge-of-the-canyon phase. We have been presented with a terrific opportunity, and we have decided to make the leap. This September we are moving to Birmingham, England, where I will be a Senior Lecturer in the Marketing Department, College of Business, University of Central England. I have made it clear to my new employers that I intend to take those left thinking business students and tweak their brains around to the right.

And yes, William Butler Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory, the feline family members, will be coming with us. All we’ve told them is that we are going on a great adventure. They assume that tuna will be involved.

This will be the last Hands On Creativity newsletter, but we will be in touch by e-mail. I am starting a new blog, “A Yank in ‘Brum,’” to chronicle this next journey, and the details of how to access it are below.

As Roger von Oech explains in A Kick in the Seat of the Pants, the ancient mariners marked the edges of their maps with dragons to signify unknown territory. “Some explorers took this symbol literally and were afraid to push on to new worlds,” von Oech says. “Other more adventuresome explorers saw the dragons as a sign of opportunity, a door to virgin territory.”

To be creative, we need to identify our own fears, and then “slay a dragon.” I encourage each of you to find whatever level of risk feels right for now, and then push it one more. Take a calculated risk, and always be ready to sail into uncharted territory. One thing you could do is start planning your trip to come visit us in Birmingham!

In the meantime, anyone want to buy some furniture?

Kathleen Dixon Donnelly

2. 100 Years Ago in Creative Thinking

In Ireland, John Millington Synge spends his longest visit at Lady Gregory’s Coole Park, two weeks. He is beginning to make notes for a play that will become The Playboy of the Western World.

In Great Britain Virginia Stephen’s friend takes her to Scotland for a rest. As her husband Leonard Woolf later describes this time in her life, “all that summer she was mad.”

In Spain, Salvador Dali is born in Figueras, Catalonia, Spain.

In America, July 21, Ernest Hemingway turns five and goes trout fishing at Horton Creek, up in Michigan.

3. Resources for Your Own Creativity

Any learning is good for your creativity, but if you feel you’re not up for a full-fledged credit program (with homework!), look into non-credit courses offered conveniently near you. Choose a series that is handy to get to, in time and place, and then pick a topic that you know nothing about. You will be amazed at how you will begin to look at your own interests and problems from a different point of view. That’s the real value of education.

Creatively tapping into an important market, most universities around the country now offer non-credit personal enrichment programs for “retired professionals,” although some have no minimum age for participants. I’ve enjoyed teaching in these programs, because the students are always so interested and interesting.

Florida International University’s Academy for Lifelong Learning holds classes on its Biscayne Bay campus in North Miami. Anyone can sign up for a course, but there is a discount for those who join the Academy. This fall, Dr. Constance Bates from FIU’s College of Business, one of the ALL’s most popular instructors, will be doing a series, “Creating a Path to Happiness,” which will help you nurture your own optimistic creative juices. For more information call (305) 919-5910 or visit their website at www.caps.fiu.edu/academy.

In Coral Gables, the University of Miami’s Institute for Retired Professionals charges a nominal annual fee that entitles you to audit UM’s regular college courses, but also gives you access to their full series on a variety of topics. Courses are taught by professors from local colleges, and are held on weekdays in four-week or six-week cycles. Local field trips and foreign tours are often planned as well. For more information, contact Noreen Frye at (305) 284-5072, or npfrye@yahoo.com.

Broward Community College (BCC)’s Institute for Active Adults 50+ has a full schedule in the fall and spring for a very reasonable cost. Details of their “Summer Fest,” which I will be speaking in this month, are below. For more information on their fall schedule, call (954) 201-7805.

Nova Southeastern University’s Institute for Learning in Retirement (ILR) is based in Davie, and Florida Atlantic University offers courses in Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale. Also, don’t forget the ever-expanding MiamIntelligence series which continues through the summer and into the fall. You can find their schedule at their website, www.miamintelligence.org.

4. “Such Friends”: Gertrude Stein’s Paris Salons: The Painters, the Writers, and the GIs

Gertrude and her brother Leo hosted Picasso, Matisse and other painters in the years before World War I. In the twenties, she and her partner, Alice, welcomed the American ex-patriate writers, including Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sherwood Anderson. With World War II the American GIs came to Paris, and they loved going to 27 rue de Fleurus where Gertrude held court.

As part of the Active Adults 50+ program at BCC, I will be offering a three-day series about all of her salons as part of their first “Summer Fest.” The series is scheduled for July 28th, 29th, and 30th, Wednesday through Friday, from 12:45 to 2:25 pm in Florida Atlantic University’s Fort Lauderdale facility at 1515 Commercial Boulevard

The whole Summer Fest will run from 9:30 am to 5 pm all three days. The other speakers will be Lemuel Molovinsky, Ph.D., who will speak on “The Politics of 20th Century America” in the morning, and Eli Kavon, a scholar of comparative religion, who will discuss “The Evolution of God in the History of America” in the late afternoon. The price is $125 for the three days, including lunch and free parking.

Call (954) 201-7800 or (954) 201-7805 for registration. But Summer Fest is limited to only 100 participants, so call now.

5. “Hands On Public Relations” Workbook Available

Thanks to the glories of cyberspace, our workbook, “Hands On Public Relations: The Workbook for You if You Want to Get Publicity and Don’t Have a Clue Where to Start” is available in print and on-line no matter where we are. This 52-page interactive workbook explains the basics of public relations and contains “hands on” exercises that will walk you through writing a press release, creating a media list, planning your press kit, and any other details you need to start from scratch. If you work your way through the exercises, by the end you’ll have a better idea of what you can do yourself and when you will need to hire a professional PR person.

You can order the workbook by going to www.Lulu.com and putting the title or “Donnelly” in the search engine. The cost to buy it on-line is $14.95 (plus shipping and handling) for the print version, and less than $10 to download it in MS Word format. Payment is by PayPal, credit card or debit card.

While you’re at Lulu, check out the possibilities of publishing yourself for free.

6. “Do It Yourself Creative”: Last Month’s Winners

Last month’s exercise was adapted from one of “Puzzle Master Will Shorts” challenges on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday. Here are the correct answers:

On the West Coast of the United States is Portland, organ

Paris Hilton and Pamela Sue Anderson have become well-known sex cymbals

If you want to catch cod, you have to castanet.

When traveling, you always want to pack a tuba toothpaste.

Hurry up if you want to catch a big mouth bassoon.

(NB: Everyone who entered picked “bass,” so I counted that. “Hurry up,” “soon,” get it?)

Sen. Lieberman better watch his step or the Democrats will banjo.

Some people think, in Iraq, we’d better guitar men out soon.

Before his death, if you had a question about one of his books, you could give Dr. Sousaphone.

The first one in with all the right answers was my favorite clarinet player, Jim Wilson of Pittsburgh, PA, ably assisted by his lovely wife Sharon. They win an autographed copy of my epic tome, Dixon Donnelly @ Sea.

However, second place goes to our friend Pat Gray, of both Coasts, who was mostly right but thought the Democrats would “drum” Lieberman out. Good try, but “banjo” is so much funnier. She has chosen a copy of my rare first ever publication, Confessions of a Late Bloomer, Or, Wear Enough Eye Make-Up and No One Will Notice Your Hips, by my former business partner, P. R. Mecking.

7. “Do It Yourself Creative”: Our Final Challenge to You

Because we won’t be around next month to give you the correct answers, our last exercise is one with only right answers. It’s a technique from Roger von Oech called “forced combinations.”

Open a dictionary or choose any page with a lot of text on it. Pick up a writing implement (pen, pencil, crayon), and close your eyes. Put the point of the writing implement anywhere on the page in front of you, and open your eyes. Whatever word it lands on, write on a separate piece of paper.

Repeat the process above so you have two “randomly” selected words.

Now come up with a sentence—I usually ask students to write a headline for a story or an advertisement—combining those two words. Be creative—it doesn’t have to make sense. But it will force you to make a connection between two previously unconnected concepts, the essence of creative thinking.

Want to push it one more level? Pick a third word and connect all three. Anyone can connect two points, but “triangulating” is a bit harder.

If you are stuck on a problem, substitute a brief phrase describing your problem for the first word. Force a solution by connecting it with something at random. For example: “New job” connected to “sea slug” might lead you to your dream of a being an around the world sailor.

Whatever sentence you come up with may not be the right answer, but its pure serendipity can lead you to the right answer by opening up other possibilities.

It’s a process. Work with it.

8. If You Love Us Or Hate Us

It doesn’t matter, because this is the last issue!

However, if you do love us, you can continue to follow our adventures on our new weekly blog, “A Yank in ‘Brum,’” which you can access at www.gypsyteacher.blogspot.com. The best parts of the Hands On Creativity newsletter will still be archived at www.handsoncreativity.blogspot.com in reverse chronological order. If you want to figure out the answers to the “Do It Yourself Creative” exercises on your own, start with the earliest and work forward.

And after you have read through all seven issues, you won’t need me to help you anymore, you can be creative on your own!

Vol. I, No. 6 June 2004


Quote of the Month

“Seashell ebb music wayriver she flows”
--James Joyce

In This Issue

1. Happy “Bloomsday”!
2. 100 Years Ago in Creative Thinking
3. Resources for Your Own Creativity
4. We’ll Bring You Presents from Ireland!
5. “Do It Yourself Creative”: Last Month’s Winners and This Month’s Puns

1. Happy “Bloomsday”!

100 years ago this month (June 16th, to be exact), James Joyce had his first date with the woman who was to become his wife, Nora Barnacle. He chose to immortalize that day in his epic, Ulysses, which covers every detail of one day in the life of Leopold Bloom, a Jew living in Dublin, in only 783 pages.

Although I lived in Ireland for just short of a year, I have never been there for the annual “Bloomsday” celebrations. I’m going to make it this year.

On my first trip to Ireland, back in 1990, seeing the street in Galway where Nora grew up gave me a lump in my stomach. It felt just like the neighborhood where my mom had grown up in Pittsburgh. If I showed you photos of the two, you might not see the similarity, but the “feel” was palpable. Small row houses, all the same, but with each door painted a different color.

Soon after Joyce and Nora had that first date, he convinced her to come with him to Switzerland where he had accepted a teaching position. I’ve seen pictures of Nora and, let’s just say, she must have had a wonderful personality. They had two children and went to visit Paris in 1920 for only a week, but stayed for years. Paris has that effect on people. Even the Irish.

James and Nora never actually got around to getting married until their children were both grown. They just presented themselves as a married couple and were always accepted that way.

In Paris he continued work on Ulysses but didn’t socialize in the writers’ salons there. He drank a lot, sometimes alone and sometimes with others, breaking into song late at night in the cafes. The cab drivers would bring him home, where Nora would be waiting at the top of the stairs, arms akimbo, like a good Irish wife. “Jimmy,” she’d say, looking down on him lying in a drunken heap, “Your fans think you’re a genius but they should see you now.” To one biographer, she said, “I guess the man's a genius, but what a dirty mind he has, hasn't he?”

When Dorothy Parker visited the city in the twenties, she saw him on the street but he didn’t speak to her. She said, “Perhaps he thought he would drop a pearl.”

Excerpts from Ulysses began appearing in the Little Review in the States around 1920, causing quite a stir. Virginia and Leonard Woolf, operating their Hogarth Press in London, rejected it. Reading it made Virginia feel as though “someone had stolen her pen and scribbled on the privy wall,” according to one biographer.

Sylvia Beach, who founded the bookstore Shakespeare & Co., the intellectual and social center for the Paris expatriate community, approached James Joyce at a party and said, “Mr. Joyce, may I publish your novel Ulysses?” After being rejected by so many who weren’t adventurous enough to take it on, he was intrigued that this little American woman wanted his book.

On December 7th, 1921, Beach had him give a reading of his work-in-progress at her shop. The expatriate artistic community in Paris, having heard the buzz about what Joyce was doing, gladly paid to hear him. However, Gertrude Stein and her partner, Alice B. Toklas, didn’t come; they lived only a few blocks away but were preparing for their annual Christmas party. When Beach did publish Ulysses the following February, Alice promptly walked over to Shakespeare & Co and cancelled Gertrude’s account. They would brook no competitors for Stein’s title as the greatest writer in English.

After publication, Ulysses was promptly banned in Boston, but a friend of Ernest Hemingway’s managed to smuggle a copy into the United States via Canada. It was not distributed legally in the United States until Judge John M. Woolsey’s landmark decision lifting the ban in 1933. Random House published it and Sylvia Beach, who had funded the original publication on her own, with the help of paid subscriptions, never saw any profit or royalties from it

Joyce died in 1941 at the age of 59 of a duodenal ulcer. Nora lived another ten years. Beach’s writer friends helped her keep the bookstore open, but when the Nazis occupied Paris in World War II she was interned with other Americans. She wrote a lovely memoir called Shakespeare & Co. that was published in the mid-fifties.

Reading about the lives of creative people can help our own creative development as well. Find a good biography of an artist—writer, painter, composer, dancer—whose work you admire and take it to the beach with you this summer. If you are interested in any of the writers mentioned here, e-mail me and I’ll recommend a good one for you.

When Tony and I got married two years ago, on St. Patrick’s Day, our friend performing the ceremony announced that we each had written something to read. Tony turned to me and said, “You’re the writer. Go ahead.”

Glancing at my scribbled notes I said that I wouldn’t promise to solve his problems, but to help him solve them. And I wouldn’t promise to love everyone he loved, but to always respect those he loved.

I finished with Molly Bloom’s “Yes!” from the ending of Ulysses, but in my nervousness I misquoted her. So here, for those of you who were at the wedding, and those who weren’t, is the correct version of Molly’s affirmation at the end of “Bloomsday”:

“…and yes I said yes I will Yes.”

Kathleen Dixon Donnelly

2. 100 Years Ago in Creative Thinking

In Dublin, Irish-American attorney John Quinn is visiting his friends William Butler Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory. They all attend a rehearsal of Willie and Augusta’s new play, A Pot of Broth, at their Abbey Theatre, and then go to her hotel room to discuss it late into the night.

In London, June 5, Cambridge economics student John Maynard Keynes turns 21. He is president of the Library Club and a member of the secret society “The Apostles,” along with Leonard Woolf and Virginia Stephen’s brother Thoby.

In Paris, Gertrude and her brother Leo Stein leave the city for a summer in Italy. In Fiesole, they see the first Cezannes owned by an American, Charles Loeser.

Near New York, recent high school graduate Alexander Woollcott is working in the cannery of the New Jersey Phalanx Commune where he grew up.

3. Resources for Your Own Creativity

If James Joyce were alive today, he would be an avid fan of “Puzzlemaster Will Shorts” and his word games. If you are not addicted yet, just listen to National Public Radio (NPR)’s Weekend Edition any Sunday morning at about 8:40 am, hosted by Lorraine Hanson. Shorts is the Puzzle Editor of the New York Times and plays a puzzle on the air with a listener chosen at random among those who sent in the correct answer to the previous week’s challenge. Even if you’re not out of bed at that time, it’s a good way to get your brain awake for the week ahead.

Another good puzzler is included every week during Car Talk, the NPR program hosted by “The Car Guys,” Tom and Ray Magliozzi, on Saturday mornings from 10 to 11 am. The puzzles are not always automotive-related, but they always keep you guessing until you hear the answer the following week. Winners get a $26 certificate to spend at the Shameless Commerce Division of the Car Talk website, which is linked to cars.com.

Both shows post their puzzles on their websites, which are linked to npr.org. In South Florida, you can listen at 90.7 WXEL-FM, or 91.3 WLRN-FM. Worldwide, you can pick up most NPR affiliates in real time on the Internet.

If you’re more interested in working your creative muscle by working your body, try this exercise suggested by Twyla Tharp in her new book, The Creative Habit. You know that exercise routine you do automatically each day? Try doing it in reverse. It ain’t easy. Not only are you forced to think about what you’re doing, you get a whole new perspective from your spot on the floor. If you don’t have a regular exercise routine, get one! The best way to keep your brain going is to get your body moving.

3. We’ll Bring You Presents from Ireland!

As most of you know by now, we are off to Ireland this month to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Abbey Theatre, as well as “Bloomsday.” We’ll be documenting the whole trip in pictures and videotapes. When we get back, we’ll have lots of great new stories about our adventures in Galway and Dublin, including Coole Park, Yeats’ Thor Ballylee, the Aran Islands, two performances at the Abbey, the Literary Pub Crawl, the Writers Museum, and all the Bloomsday festivities.

Our plan is to upload a video journal to www.Lulu.com, if the technology gods will smile on us. While we’re there, I may post updates at the site where previous newsletter are housed, www.handsoncreativity.blogspot.com. You’ll be so jealous, you’ll want to sign up right away to come with us next year!

There has been a lot of interest in an “Algonquin Round Table Weekend in New York City” for this October. If you think you’d like to join us then, let me know now and you’ll be on the list for future updates.
5. “Do It Yourself Creative”: Last Month’s Winners and This Month’s Puns

James Joyce would have also loved last month’s exercise, which I took from Roger von Oech’s Whack on the Side of the Head. The assignment was to come up with names for John Roe’s new baby.

First in was new reader Cecilia Jerome of Michigan:

John Macken Roe (Jr.? Dad's a John, after all!)
Zee Roe
Kai Roe
Rho Roe

Then came entries from Pat Gray, the original leader of the Florida Center for the Book’s Writer’s Critique Group at the Broward County Library:

Fileout Rowby Roe
More Roe
Aboatu Roe
El Tor Roe

Next, one of my old college roommates, Melanie Bond of Arlington, VA, submitted:

Hedge Roe
Bor Roe (future banker)
Wheel Bar Roe
Your Boat Roe (listed as Roe, Your Boat)
Prettymaidsallin A. Roe
Tenone Roe (Roetenone - a poison) [Ed. Note: She was a bio major, so we have to believe her on that one.]
Hoe That Roe

Elaine Andrews, an artist and member of the Institute for Retired Professionals at the University of Miami, came up with some of those and these new ones:

Salmon Roe
Shad (or Chad) Roe
Sor Roe
Front Roe
Back Roe
Saville Roe
James Mon Roe
Bur Roe
Corn Roe

Thanks for all the entries. Now on to this month’s contest.

This month’s exercise is adapted from one of “Puzzle Master Will Shorts” challenges. Because Joyce was very musical and loved puns, in the following sentences, fill in the blank with the pun of a musical instrument:

On the West Coast of the United States is Portland, ______.

Paris Hilton and Pamela Sue Anderson have become well-known sex _____.

If you want to catch cod, you have to _____.

When traveling, you always want to pack a _____ toothpaste.

Hurry up if you want to catch a big mouth _____.

Sen. Lieberman better watch his step or the Democrats will _____.

Some people think, in Iraq, we’d better _____ men out soon.

Before his death, if you had a question about one of his books, you could give Dr. ______.

First one in with all the right answers will win a copy of that wonderful publication, Dixon Donnelly at Sea, the chronicle of our adventures on Semester at Sea in the Summer of 2002.

Vol. I, No. 5
May 2004

Quote of the Month

"Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes.
Art is knowing which ones to keep."
--Scott Adams
The Dilbert Principle

In This Issue

1. May I?
2. 100 Years Ago in Creative Thinking
3. Resources for Your Own Creativity
4. "Do It Yourself Creative": This Month's Exercise
9. Last Month's Winners

1. May I?

Of course you may! Whatever it is you want to do, give yourself permission. Once you realize you have the freedom to do what you want, you'll probably make a better decision about what you should do.

All the research into creative thinking agrees on at least one thing: It is self-fulfilling prophecy. In other words, if you think you are going to come up with a creative solution, you will. If you don't--you're right! You won't.

So one of the first steps in creative problem solving is to give yourself permission to be creative. This means getting rid of all the "creativity killers" we carry around with us every day.

My favorite creative guru, Roger von Oech, wrote a whole book on how to unlock these "mental locks" that hold us back. His classic, A Whack on the Side of the Head, available in any bookstore or on Amazon.com, contains lots of great ways to give your creative brain permission to get working.

Here's another good exercise to get rid of "creativity killers" I learned a few years ago at the Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI), a conference sponsored by the Creative Education Foundation in Buffalo, New York.

First, write down all of the killer voices you hear in your head. "I don't deserve it." "You could never do that." "We don't have the money." Some of these are extremely personal, but don't worry. You don't have to show this list to anyone.

Second, choose the one phrase that really grates on you the most. Maybe you actually hear someone's voice saying it to you. An insensitive teacher, a nasty sibling, dear old mom. Pay close attention to how it is worded. Make sure you are thinking of the exact wording that really, really bothers you. For example, "I don't agree with you," doesn't have to be a killer. "You're entitled to your own stupid opinion" certainly is.

Now, take your carefully worded "creativity killer" and come up with an opposite phrase. Wait! Don't say the first thing that comes to mind. Work on the wording very carefully to get something positive. Here's a great example that was given at the CPSI conference.

A counselor was doing this same exercise with a group of young women who suffered from eating disorders. An anorexic woman said that her killer phrase was always, "Don't take too much." The counselor had a flash of panic as she realized that the opposite, "Take too much," could cause her patient even more problems. But the young woman said, "I think the opposite should be, 'Be sure you take enough.'" That's a much more positive, balanced, adjusted approach.

So work on your anti-creativity killer. Try it out a few times and refine the phrase until it works for you as a mantra every time your personal inner critic screams too loud. Write the positive thought down and post it. Replace the negative voice with the new, positive one in your head to give yourself permission to come up with new solutions for problems.

Yes, you may.

Kathleen Dixon Donnelly

2. 100 Years Ago in Creative Thinking

In Dublin, the poet William Butler Yeats, flush with cash from his American tour, offers to pay Lady Augusta Gregory back the 500 pounds he owes her, but she refuses.

In London, May 30, the painter Vanessa Stephen, older sister of Virginia (later Woolf), turns 25

In Paris, in May, on their way back from Italy, Virginia and Vanessa Stephen stop off in Paris to visit the artists' salons and the studio of the sculptor Rodin. "We stayed talking of Art, Sculpture, and Music till 11:30…in the common cafe, while we smoked half a dozen cigarettes apiece…a real Bohemian party," Virginia writes in her diary.

In New York, the Clausen Gallery sponsors a small exhibit of "Some Galway Characters" by J B Yeats, the poet's father. Their friend, the Irish-American attorney John Quinn, buys ten pastels and watercolors

What was happening on your birthday 100 years ago? E-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com to find out.

3. Resources for Your Own Creativity

At the beginning of this issue I mentioned the Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI). "The world's oldest, largest and liveliest conference on deliberate creativity" is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year with its annual get-together from June 20th through 25th on beautiful Grand Island in Buffalo, New York.

The organization was founded in Buffalo in 1954 by Alex F. Osborn (1888-1966), the advertising guru who developed the now widespread technique of brainstorming. His Creative Education Foundation works to "provoke creativity and inspire worldwide imaginative change" through CPSI and the Journal of Creative Behavior.

As a first-timer I found the CPSI-ites to be a great group of creative people to "hang out" (and dance!) with. There are workshops and sessions for various interest groups, from academics to leadership trainers to anyone looking for more creative ways to live their lives. You can get details about the conference and the Institute at http://www.cpsiconference.com. Give yourself permission to go.

Are you stuck for creative ideas about how to find a job? Join the club-or rather, the "Webinar."

Personally, I subscribe to too many e-mail newsletters, but the one I always make time for is Ned Lundquist's free "Job of the Week" which is all the buzz among public relations professionals. To help out-of-work communications professionals, Ned and Janet Long, founder and president of Integrity Search, Inc., a national executive search firm, have recently begun a Webinar called "You Are Not Alone!: Finding a Communications Job in the Current Economy."

Ned says: "If you are an unemployed communicator, you are in excellent company these days. And next to that coveted job offer, this Webinar could be the best opportunity to come your way. Or, if you are thinking ahead to your next opportunity, whether out of healthy fear or just plain desire, you will also benefit from this pro-active, strategic approach to managing and protecting your career. It's about positioning yourself for success, networking, planning your job search, as well as what you need to know about cover letters, resumes, interviews and recruiters. Fresh information is posted every Monday."

Due to the unique nature of the audience for this Webinar, it is being offered for only $49.95, just enough to cover hard-dollar expenses. The speakers, Ragan Communications and Shel Holtz Webinars are providing their services pro bono. You can get details and register at http://webinar.holtz.com.

To sign up for Ned's free Job of the Week networking e-mail newsletter for professional communicators, just send a blank e-mail to JOTW-subscribe@topica.com. He's got over 6,000 subscribers now (we at "Hands On Creativity" are so jealous) and is aiming even higher. You'll quickly become addicted.

<4. "Do It Yourself Creative": This Month's Exercise

Give yourself permission to have fun. This one is from von Oech's Whack book mentioned earlier:

Imagine the following announcement appears on your company bulletin board:

"John Roe is now the proud papa of a bouncing 8 lb. 3 oz. baby boy!
Mama and baby are doing fine."

Someone adds beneath: "Name the Baby Contest" and the most creative employees chip in:

Skid Roe
Velk Roe
Zor Roe
Henry David Thor Roe
Edward Armour Roe
A Tennisp Roe
Marymaryquitecontraryhowdoesyourgarden G. Roe

What new ones can you come up with? Send them along and we'll print the best ones in the next issue.

Vol. I, No. 4
April 2004


Quote of the Month

“The only one who likes change is a wet baby.”
--Roger von Oech,
A Kick in the Seat of the Pants

In This Issue

1. Rebirth!
2. 100 Years Ago in Creative Thinking
3. Resources for Your Own Creativity
4. “Do It Yourself Creative”: This Month’s Exercise
5. Last Month’s Winners

1. Rebirth!

Spring is a time of rebirth and change—whether you like it or not. Human nature resists change, but all religions and cultures use rituals to throw off winter and bring on the bright hope of spring. Christians celebrate the Resurrection and the Irish celebrate the Easter Rising of 1916. Even in Florida, we use the off-season to clean up and get ready for the next onslaught of tourists (good) and hurricanes (bad). No matter what culture or religion you are from, use this time to create your own change, rather than have it surprise you like an April snowstorm.

One technique we use in creative problem-solving is “Eliminate.” What can you get rid of that is dragging you down? Is there some activity you dread, but feel you “have” to? What would happen if you didn’t? Get rid of something, anything. Go to your closet and take those pants you just hate and give them to Goodwill. If you feel as though you can’t “afford” to get rid of anything, go take a shower. Tell yourself you’re washing away all the crap that has built up.

Eliminating is just the first step, and it’s a negative one. Now you need to “Substitute” with something positive. What can you take on in place of what you got rid of? What do you feel good doing? April is also National Volunteer Month. Whatever skills, talents or passions you have, there is a non-profit organization nearby that could put them to good use. Look in the neighborhood section of your newspaper or check out your town’s website. Can’t find a suitable group to volunteer with? E-mail me. I’ll find one for you.

It’s Spring! Start changing!

Kathleen Dixon Donnelly

2. 100 Years Ago in Creative Thinking

In Dublin, on April 16th, playwright John Millington Synge, one of the directors of the Abbey Theatre with W B Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory, turns 33, with only five more years to live.

In London, James Barrie’s tale of eternal youth, Peter Pan, premieres.

In Paris, painter Georges Braque moves to the Montmartre section of Paris, where his fellow cubist Picasso is already living and painting. They frequently frequent Le Lapin Agile.

In New York, readers of the Evening Mail turn to the “Always in Good Humor” column by FPA (Franklin P. Adams), who becomes known as “The Comma Hunter of Park Row.”

Want to celebrate the creative centennials of 2004?
See details about our June trip to Ireland below.

What was happening on your birthday 100 years ago? E-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com to find out.

3. Resources for Your Own Creativity

One of the assignments I give in my creativity classes is to write a paper on a topic that you have no interest in. For example, think of someone you know who has a job or a hobby that he or she just loves, but you can’t fathom why anyone would be interested in that. Ask them what they find so fascinating.

One woman chose golf—why on earth would her husband spend his time with a little ball and club instead of with her? Another one chose Ninja Turtles. He couldn’t understand why his kids were so intrigued by them.

What does this have to do with your own creativity? It’s easy to operate in a very limited circle of interests and information, to go through our days surrounded by the familiar and comfortable. Academia is particularly guilty of this: Why would an English major want to talk to a Chemistry major? Venturing into other fields exposes you to different points of view, different approaches to solving problems. And you come back with a fresh look at your own area. Remember how different your own neighborhood looked when you returned home from your first big trip?

So this Spring force yourself to enter uncharted territory:

(a) Next time you’re flipping around the TV dial, land on something you have no interest in and watch it for a good 30 minutes. If nothing else, you’ll learn that you really weren’t interested in that.

(b) Read a magazine article on a topic you find particularly dull. I’ll confess one of my own obsessions. I read Time magazine and Atlantic Monthly cover to cover every issue. (I’m up to October. Have they caught Saddam yet?) That includes the Science section, the Sport section, and even the Atlantic’s short stories and poetry, which I would never read otherwise. There’s always a new insight.

(c) Attend an event you have no interest in. I’ll give you a push: The MiamIntelligence lecture series offers wonderful programs on a variety of topics three or four nights a week in various venues around Miami-Dade. Admission is $10, the wine and snacks start at 7 pm, and the hour-long presentation begins at 7:30 pm. I guarantee that even if you aren't entranced by the subject matter, you'll be surprised by how interesting the talk and the people who attend can be. You can find their upcoming schedule at www.miamintelligence.com, or call them at (305) 773-8408.

The creative entrepreneur behind this non-profit endeavor, Adrian Lechter, says that they are “helping in Miami's rebirth as a metropolis.” Make them part of your Spring rebirth.

4. Do It Yourself Creative: This Month’s Exercise

It’s time for rebirth and change! Quit whining and put your creative muscle to work:

Change East to West

Change Lion to Bear

Change Heat to Cold

Change Hate to Love

How? That’s up to you. Whoever e-mails me the most creative answers, as decided by my husband Tony Dixon and me, will win a copy of Dixon Donnelly @ Sea, my account of our experiences with Study Abroad programs, including Semester @ Sea, during the summer of 2002.

5. Last Month’s Winners

Who knew there were so many Brits and Irish reading my newsletter? The only two winning entries to our quiz to give the “American” equivalent of ten British/Irish words, have the unfair advantage of being Irish: Bridget Haggerty of the Irish Culture and Customs newsletter and our frequent entrant, Patrick O’Dea of the Irish-American Ceili Club in Hollywood, FL. Bridget chose Dixon Donnelly @ Sea as her prize, and Patrick opted for the “Hands On Public Relations Workbook.” (You want your own copy? Click here:



We’re giving Melanie Bond of Arlington, VA, an honorable mention because she only missed one even though she has a purely American background. She wins a free pint at our favorite pub in Florida.

Thanks to all who entered. We’ll keep having contests as long as we have books to give away!

Vol. I, No. 3 March 2004


Quote of the Month

“In Dublin [my situation] is hopeless insolvency.
Here [in America] it is hopeful insolvency’”
—letter from J B Yeats to his son,
the poet W B Yeats, in 1909

In This Issue

1. Irish vs. Irish-American
2. 100 Years Ago in Creative Thinking
3. “Do It Yourself Creative”: This Month’s Quiz
4. Last month’s winners

1. Irish vs. Irish-American

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! This is the favorite month around our house. I married my Irish husband Tony two years ago on St. Patrick’s Day (he’ll NEVER forget his anniversary), and one of us has a birthday.

To Americans, the Irish don’t seem to be that different. They look like us; they almost talk like us. But different cultures always mean cultural differences. Americans are straightforward, mean-what-you-say-say-what-you-mean-people. The Irish take a more round about way to get to a point. They rarely travel in a straight line. Maybe it’s the roads.

“What do you do?” we Americans ask when we meet someone. Most other cultures don’t identify themselves by their occupations. The Irish identify themselves by their families. When they meet you for the first time, they ask if you are from the Donnellys of Donegal or the Donnellys of Dublin.

Most Americans who visit Ireland come back with tales of how friendly the people are, and how much they love us. And they do. “We asked this man in the town for directions, and he got in the car and went with us!” Americans say. The Irishman then tells his mates, “I got a lift off another one of them American tourists.”

Culture is what we have learned about our environment, starting the moment we are born. Each culture has a different way of solving the problems of every day life: food, clothing, shelter, time, family, education, relationships, art. Culture is so much a part of us, we don’t notice that we have it until we experience someone else’s. Like goldfish, we don’t know we’re in water until we are on dry land.

Even within the United States we have very different cultures: Pittsburgh vs. Miami?! Don’t get me started!

What cultural differences have you noticed when you’ve traveled outside your own fishbowl? Send them along in an e-mail and we’ll include some of them in the next issue.

In the meantime, Happy St. Patrick’s Day and “Slainte” (Gaelic for good health).

Kathleen Dixon Donnelly
(of the Dixons of Finglas and the Donnellys of Pittsburgh)

2. 100 Years Ago in Creative Thinking

In Dublin, W B Yeats and Lady Gregory’s theatre premieres John Millington Synge’s Riders to the Sea, still considered one of the most perfect one-act plays in the English language.

In London, writer Lytton Strachey turns 24; his very strange uncle William dies and leaves him his "unworn and prettily colored underclothes."

In Paris, on the suggestion of their friend art critic Bernard Berenson, Leo and Gertrude Stein pay their first visit to Vollard’s art gallery and buy their first Cezanne.

In New York, Emmanuel Radnitzky, later known as Man Ray, is studying draftsmanship and architecture in high school.

What was happening on your birthday 100 years ago? E-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com to find out.

3. Do It Yourself Creative: This Month’s Brain Teaser

Aha! You didn’t know there would be a quiz.

It has been said that America and the British Isles are separated by a common language. To round out our theme of cultural differences, see how many Irish-British terms below you can translate into American. Hint: I used one of them in this newsletter.

Bonnet
Ride
Lift
Knock you up
Chips
Garden
Knickers
Tights
A pint
A punt

Whoever e-mails me the most correct answers first will win a copy of that collectors’ item, Confessions of a Late Bloomer Or Wear Enough Eye Make Up and No One Will Notice Your Hips by P R Mecking (who is a Quinn-Quigley), and me (a Higgins-Gallagher-Dixon-Donnelly).

4. Last Month’s Winners

We had some great entries in the contest to communicate “love.” My Valentine Tony and I sorted through them and have decreed the winner of the bottle of cheap champagne to be Laura Rush from my ALL class at FIU. She submitted this haiku she wrote for her daughter:

a daughter’s slumber
rare perfume in winter’s chill
mother’s elixir

Isn’t that great? But they were all so good, we’re giving two Honorable Mentions:

Mary Lou Green Irish of Pittsburgh who submitted: “Love is accepting each other for the nitwits we are sometimes.”

Douglas Love of Maryland who submitted his own name: “As in Turandot, “love” is my name. My family started nine months after the Vikings raided an English coastal village, which explains why I have a great tolerance for cold. Otherwise, I don't understand Love.”

They have received copies of Confessions of a Late Bloomer, or Love?: Your Complete Guide to Romance by Nancy Krulik.

The “Do It Yourself Creative” exercises kept you guessing too, but a couple of you cracked them.

Pat Rose of Coral Gables deciphered the numbers that were in alphabetical order.

Patrick O’Dea of the Hollywood, FL, Irish-American Ceili Club was the first to figure out how you can you re-arrange the letters of NEW DOOR to spell one word: ONE WORD. Gotcha!

Both of our creative winners have received an autographed copy of Dixon Donnelly @ Sea chronicling our experiences with Study Abroad programs in Europe in the Summer of 2002.

Thanks to all who entered!

What problems can we help you solve more creatively?

K. Donnelly Communications
Kathleen Dixon Donnelly, Ph.D. (954) 926-2976 kdonnellycom@aol.com

Vol. I, No. 2 February 2004

Quote of the Month

“Love is a battlefield”
Mike Chapman & Holly Knight

In This Issue

1. “Love is…”
2. 100 Years Ago in Creative Thinking
3. Resources for Your Own Creativity
4. Have You Explored Publishing on Demand (POD)?
5. We Can Still Do Lunch
6. “Do It Yourself Creative”: This Month’s (and Last Month’s) Mind Teaser

1. “Love is…”

Here’s an exercise I sometimes use in my “Hands On Creativity” workshops:

“Communicate to me what ‘love’ is.”

Students dutifully get out their pencils, papers and dictionaries and write out a sentence or definition that only communicates “lack of imagination.” Look at this month’s quote above, from the Pat Benatar song: “Love is a battlefield.” Doesn’t that communicate a concept of ‘love’ that we are all familiar with?

Some students have communicated creatively what love is to them; they bring family photos or song lyrics; one brought her cat to class.

One of my favorite definitions was given by Danny deVito’s character, Louis de Palma, in the TV series, Taxi. Paraphrasing: “I know what love is. Love is the Knicks. For years, you can just sit there watching the Knicks. But now there is Zena. And now you can’t watch the Knicks without Zena sitting with you. They’re still the Knicks. But it’s not the same without Zena. That’s what love is.”

Doesn’t a specific concrete example communicate so much better than lists of abstract concepts?

Try it for Valentine’s Day. Communicate what love is. Send it along and my panel of expert judges—myself and my Valentine, Tony—will pick a winner to be announced in the next issue. The prize will be a bottle of our favorite cheap champagne.

Be creative!

2. 100 Years Ago in Creative Thinking

In Dublin in February, Miss Anne Horniman, an Englishwoman with a crush on the poet William Butler Yeats, buys a building for the theatre company he started with Lady Augusta Gregory. The former morgue on Lower Abbey Street becomes the Abbey Theatre, still putting on high quality performances on the same spot near the River Liffey today.

In London in February, Leslie Stephen, the father of Virginia and Vanessa, dies after a long illness. The two sisters, along with their two Cambridge-educated brothers, soon move out of their stuffy family house and begin life in the Bohemian Bloomsbury section of town, to the shock of their relatives.

In Paris, February 3, American writer Gertrude Stein turns 30. She is living at 27 rue de Fleurus with her brother Leo, who is studying art at the Academie Julian. They begin to buy paintings.

In New York and Pittsburgh, J P Morgan buys out Andrew Carnegie’s company to form US Steel.

What was happening on your birthday 100 years ago? E-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com to find out.

3. Resources for Your Own Creativity

Find yourself alone and down on Valentine’s Day? It’s a great time to read some “love” poems by Dorothy Parker. Besides “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses,” and “I loved them until they loved me,” she also penned

“Unfortunate Coincidence”:

By the time you swear you’re his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying—
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.

The best collection is The Portable Dorothy Parker, with an introduction by Brendan Gill, Penguin Books, 1976. Buy it to curl up in bed with when you’re by yourself.

4. Have You Explored Publishing on Demand (POD)?

Thanks to the Internet, publishing doesn’t have to involve printing thousands of copies at a time. A lot of sites enable you to post your own writings, and even have people pay to download them or order a printed copy. What a world!

Basic “blogging,” just putting up a journal, can be totally free. My 2003 weekly blog is still at www.everywednesday.blogspot.com. This year I’m posting the scripts I’m writing for the WLRN Radio Reading Service, “Friends & Neighborhoods,” at http://kdonnellycom.easyjournal.com. And now I'm putting up my monthly newsletter as this blog.

Some of my blogs are posted as essays that can be downloaded for 25 cents each at www.RedPaper.com. A few “Such Friends” essays and episodes from our Semester at Sea voyage, Dixon Donnelly at Sea, can be downloaded for $1 each at www.Lulu.com. Eventually you will be able to order the complete set in book format.

Check out these sites for posting your own creative writings for free. To find mine, just put “Donnelly” in the search feature at the site.

5. We Can Still Do Lunch

Some testimonials from average Americans who have been smart enough to take me to lunch (or dinner) to pump my brain for ideas:

“I came away with a new perspective on what I was trying to do. And Kathleen didn’t even eat much!”
--N. M., aspiring writer

“Kathleen is absolutely terrific. I have a new start-up business and she was able to provide so much advice and consultation on marketing strategy, presentation of marketing and informational materials, and advertising strategies. She was definitely worth dinner—even the glass of wine!”
--C. O., small business owner

I was coordinating a project for one of the groups I volunteer with, and needed some help getting publicity. After brunch with Kathleen in Hollywood, I got to work and we ended up on the front page. Best brunch I ever had! She was worth lots of brunches.
--M. S., volunteer

I’m still hungry. Just give me a call for a “Hands On Creative” lunch. (954) 926-2976.

6. Do It Yourself Creative: This Month’s Brain Teaser

Did you get last month’s? What order were those numbers in? Those of you who e-mailed me that the order was “random” weren’t really stretching your creativity. Here they are again along with a hint: Write them out in words and see if their order becomes more apparent:

8, 5, 4, 9, 1, 7, 6, 3, 2, 0

Now here’s a new one, from the same Learning Seed video, Why Didn’t I Think of That?, that’s a little bit easier:

Spell out one word using all these letters: NEW DOOR

Be the first to e-mail me the correct answer to either exercise and you will win a copy of that collectors’ item, Confessions of a Late Bloomer Or Wear Enough Eye Make Up and No One Will Notice Your Hips by P R Mecking (and me). Or a print copy of my Radio Reading Service series, Dixon Donnelly at Sea, chronicling our trip on Semester at Sea throughout Europe.

What problems can we help you solve more creatively?

K. Donnelly Communications
Kathleen Dixon Donnelly, Ph.D. (954) 926-2976 kdonnellycom@aol.com

Below is the very first "Hands On Creativity" newsletter. What a collector's item.
You can receive a new issue each month for free just by asking! Contact me at kdonnellycom@aol.com.

Vol. I, No. 1, January 2004

Welcome to the first issue of Hands On Creativity from K. Donnelly Communications

Our goal with this new project is to spark ideas to help you solve your problems more creatively: by a new insight, by examples of creative people, or by getting you to “Do It Yourself.”

K. Donnelly Communications is the marketing communications agency I started back in Pittsburgh over twenty years ago, and I’ve revived it with this new year. This time around I’m focusing on creative people and creative problem-solving, particularly related to marketing.

I will still be doing presentations about my favorite creative people—early twentieth century writers and artists—and you’ll find a list of upcoming dates farther down in the “Such Friends” section.

Hands On Creativity will also include information about ways to exercise your own creative muscle: courses, books, websites, articles. At the end of each issue you’ll find one of my famous mind teasers, “Do It Yourself Creative.”

Because: we’re not here to solve your problems. We’re here to help you solve them.

Have a creative new year!

Kathleen Dixon Donnelly, Ph.D.

Quote of the Month

“YOU COME RIGHT OVER HERE AND
EXPLAIN WHY THEY ARE HAVING ANOTHER YEAR”
--Dorothy Parker
telegram to Robert Benchley, Dec., 1929

In This Issue

1. Better than New Year’s Resolutions—New Year’s Solutions
2. 100 Years Ago in Creative Thinking
3. Resources for Your Own Creativity
4. Make a Date for a “Hands-on Creative” Lunch
5. The End of My First Blog
6. “Do It Yourself Creative”: This Month’s Mind Teaser

1. Better than New Year’s Resolutions: New Year’s Solutions

Your New Year’s resolutions probably included solving a lot of the problems you’re facing at work or at home. But, c’mon. You’re already trying to remember what they were. Or where you put the list. Or why you thought they were important.

So here’s a more practical way to take advantage of that New Year’s energy:

Write down your resolutions on any old piece of paper. Take each one and re-write it as a problem that you have to solve, this time on a pristine piece of paper of your choice, lined, unlined, white, yellow, whatever appeals to you. For example,

Resolution: Lose more weight!
Problem to be solved: I’m too darn fat!

Or

Resolution: Earn more money!
Problem to be solved: We need more cash flow!

Next, get real. Narrow your list down to three or five important ones.

Take your list, pen and paper, and a close friend to the nearest pub. Buy your friend a drink (Cokes are okay) and between the two of you come up with the craziest, goofiest solutions you can for each problem. Be sure to write down every single thing you think of, no matter how nuts. No making fun of anyone. If you have three problems, you should be able to do this in an hour. If you have five, buy another round. But be sure to focus on the problem the way you stated it.

Put your tablet away somewhere and come back to it in about a week. I guarantee that one or two of your off the wall solutions will jump out at you. If they don’t, you weren’t crazy and goofy enough. Go back to the pub. Bring a different friend.

You might not be able to do exactly what you wrote down, but when you look at it the second time, a more practical way to put that solution into practice will come to you.

Get to work!

2. 100 Years Ago in Creative Thinking

In Dublin in Jan. William Butler Yeats returns from his American tour where he sat up late one night telling ghost stories with priests at Notre Dame.

In London, Jan. 25, Virginia Stephen, as yet unpublished and eight years away from marrying Leonard Woolf, turns 22; she begins to smoke a pipe.

In Paris, Picasso is settling in, having just moved there from Spain.

In Oak Park, Illinois, Ernest Hemingway is getting ready to enter kindergarten, already regaling his family with stories in which he is always the hero.

What was happening on your birthday 100 years ago? E-mail me at kdonnellycom@aol.com

3. Resources for Your Own Creativity

Twyla Tharp’s new book The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003) is just great. If you saw her at the Miami Book Fair International I’m sure you were impressed by her energy and enthusiasm like I was. She’s got good hands-on exercises you can do all year to keep the creative juices flowing.

Have you discovered the magazine mental_floss? It takes a really interesting approach to a whole world of information. Most is the stuff you were supposed to learn in college, but you cheated on the test, didn’t you? Here’s your chance to go back and fill in the blanks. There’s great stuff about writers, artists, and any other subject you can think of. Look for it at your local Barnes & Noble, or check out their website, www.mentalfloss.com.

Any creative resources you’d like to pass along?

4. Make a Date for a “Hands-On Creative” Lunch

Stuck? Bored with your own whining? Tired of annoying your co-workers or spouse with your problems?

Take me to lunch! If you’re bringin’, as the Irish would say, I’m singin’.

Bring along ideas you’re embarrassed to try out on anyone else (I won’t laugh—promise), or any of your marketing materials for an objective critique, or just vague hopes and dreams for a more productive future. You pick the place (I’m partial to downtown Hollywood) and I’ll pick the creative techniques that will work for you. And with enough suggestions that you’ll be able to Do It Yourself.

To set a date, just e-mail me back at kdonnellycom@aol.com. I’m hungry.

5. The End of My First Blog

Some of you have been regular readers of my blog, “Every Wednesday: The Journal of a Teacher in Search of a Classroom.” I promised it would appear every week for a year, and it did. They are all still at www.everywednesday.blogspot.com, but I’m not sure how long they will float in cyberspace.

The more interesting ones are now up on www.RedPaper.com, listed by informative titles. Put “Donnelly” in the search feature and the list will come up, but now it will cost you 25 cents each to download them.

This year I am writing and producing a 15-minute series for the WLRN-FM’s Radio Reading Service, “Friends & Neighborhoods,” about people and places around South Florida. These scripts are posted on a new blog, www.kdonnellycom.easyjournal.com. Eventually all of these and more will be accessible on our new website. But we’re still working on that.

6. Do It Yourself Creative: This Month’s Brain Teaser

Try this one. It’s from Why Didn’t I Think of That?, a video from The Learning Seed, and is a good example of finding new patterns.

What order are these numbers in:

8
5
4
9
1
7
6
3
2
0

I’m not tellin’. If it drives you nuts after two days, e-mail me back and I’ll give you hints to help you solve the problem yourself.

What problems can we help you solve more creatively?

K. Donnelly Communications
Kathleen Dixon Donnelly, Ph.D. (954) 926-2976 kdonnellycom@aol.com