ARCHIVE FOR Writing the Family

In this post, GrubStreet instructor Ben Berman discusses how learning to think flexibly can help us be more creative.

 

 

Flexible thinking refers to our ability to shift or reframe how we are thinking about an idea.

When psychologists measure one’s aptitude for creativity, they often focus on this aspect of thinking. How many uses can you find for a brick? they ask, before grading the responses based on fluency, originality, flexibility and elaboration.

In this post, GrubStreet Instructor Ben Berman thinks about the importance of both praise and scrutiny when participating in writing workshops.

 

 

It was my four-year-old’s first day at her new school and she was clinging to my leg so tightly that I was beginning to lose circulation. Don’t leave me, she kept saying, as though I was abandoning her at an orphanage.

In this post, GrubStreet Instructor Ben Berman models the process of how journaling and free writing can help you figure out the subject beneath your subject.

 

 

It’s two in the morning when your five-year-old wakes you up and tells you that her belly is too full to sleep.

 

Try lying on your left side, you say. But she insists that she is going to be sick.

We often think of gifted writers as people born with natural talent. But in this post, GrubStreet Instructor Ben Berman explores whether being gifted is more a matter of aptitude or attitude.

 

 

There is an exit off the Mass Pike where cars merge from so many lanes at once that driving feels like the physical manifestation of writer’s block.

 

Inspiration is wonderful, but it doesn't go far on its own. In this post, Grub Instructor Ben Berman explores the push-and-pull of inspiration and productivity.

 

Whoever said there’s no such thing as a free ride hasn’t met my five-year-old.

 

Whenever it’s time to walk home from some outing she will start to deflate like a football in New England and will refuse to take another step forward until I hoist her over my head and onto my shoulders so that she can bounce up and down as we walk home, picking leaves off the trees or pretending that she’s …