Germy

I'm still trying to write a novel. The outline and overall plot has evolved into a simplified version of what I have previously described on this blog. I still have more than one timeline involved, but I have taken my first scenario, involving the earthquake and subsequent landslide in the Columbia River Gorge and the Native American family caught in it and added a modern day timeline. Gone are the two subsequent sections -- the 'shanghai'd sailor' and the Netanya bombing character. I'm roughly 25% done, concerning word count alone, but feel like I'm missing some key elements that will propel me to the next phase of the story. In the modern day timeline, I have a 29 year old male who is built from elements stemming from my experiences and a few key friends of mine. For the past three weeks I've been working in a hospital in Wisconsin, consulting physicians and some support staff with a new computer set up. I've had plenty of downtime, and I've trie...

Failure is painful. Pain, in general, we avoid. However, like all things we can override our primal drive to avoid pain if we recognize its utility in a cost-benefit ratio analysis. In other words, no pain -- no gain. Recently I was reading about a high-school teacher's experience concerning the differences between students in 1997, 2007 and now, in 2017. She had numerous things to say, but what stuck with me and, what was the primary driving force of her analysis, was that students today are overwhelmingly lacking self-confidence. She tied this to a fear of failure. They are unwilling to try anything challenging or new without a significant amount of one-on-one guidance and encouragement. Of course, in a classroom of more than thirty students it is impossible to give this type of attention. While pondering this perspective I became overwhelmed with situations and dynamics that I have experienced and witnessed. Education, ideally, in my mind is a time where failure is a path to...