annethology
  • Home
    • About Annethology
    • About me >
      • A little more about me
    • About my books
    • Author talks
    • Contact me
    • Forthcoming events
    • World Mental Health Day
    • Privacy
    • Sign up for my newsletter
  • Sugar and Snails
    • Acknowledgements
    • Blog tour, Q&A's and feature articles >
      • Birthday blog tour
      • S&S on tour 2022
    • Early endorsements
    • Events >
      • Launch photos
      • Launch party videos
    • in pictures
    • Media
    • If you've read the book
    • Polari
    • Reading group questions
    • Reviews
    • In the media
  • Underneath
    • Endorsements and reviews
    • Launch party and events
    • Pictures
    • Questions for book groups
    • The stories underneath the novel
  • Matilda Windsor series
    • Matilda Windsor >
      • What readers say
      • For book groups
      • Interviews, articles and features
      • Matty on the move
      • Who were you in 1990?
      • Asylum lit
      • Matilda Windsor media
    • Stolen Summers >
      • Stolen Summers reviews
  • Short stories
    • Somebody’s Daughter
    • Becoming Someone (anthology) >
      • Becoming Someone (video readings)
      • Becoming Someone reviews
      • Becoming Someone online book chat
    • Print and downloads
    • Read it online
    • Quick reads
  • Free ebook
  • Annecdotal
    • Annecdotal blog
    • Annecdotal Press
    • Articles >
      • Print journalism
      • Where psychology meets fiction
    • Fictional therapists
    • Reading and reviews >
      • Reviews A to H
      • Reviews I to M
      • Reviews N to Z
      • Nonfiction
      • Themed quotes
      • Reading around the world
  • Shop
    • Inspired Quill (my publisher)
    • Bookshop.org (affiliate link)
    • Amazon UK
    • Amazon US
    • books2read

About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

TELL ME MORE

Ideas that blow your mind

28/3/2014

8 Comments

 
Picture
It could be something relatively minor, like discovering the show-not-tell rule, or being persuaded that there’s a downside to praise. It could be as colossal as learning that the world is round, but a new idea or insight can be so powerful it knocks us off our feet. We’re thrilled or terrified, or maybe a bit of both, as the old familiar furniture rearranges itself in our brains, altering the essence of our very being.

Naomi Alderman captures it beautifully in her novel The Liars’ Gospel at the point where Iehuda (Judas) is beginning to get to grips with Yehoshuah’s (Jesus) ideology:

Iehuda allowed his mind to follow, across the map of the wide world, across the empires and kingdoms that fought and tried to rule and subdue each other. And he imagined what might happen if these words travelled from mouth to mouth, from mind to mind, from one city to the next to the next, if this simple message – love your enemy – were the accepted creed of all the world. He did not see how it could happen. (p85-86)

He could not stop thinking after that. His mind was rattling like a cart on a rock-strewn road, picking up speed, heading downhill helter-skelter, jerking and bouncing. He wondered if he were going mad.(p86)

Iehuda thought about it. His mind was so clear now, it was as if he had removed the top of his head and the starlit sky was pouring through him, into his heart. (p87)
Picture
Sometimes these new ideas are so shocking we want to retreat from them, to go back to the time when we were secure in our ignorance. We are particularly likely to resist our new knowledge if it’s controversial or likely to be unpopular with the powers that be (including our parents). It’s said that Darwin (Charles, not Emma of This Itch of Writing fame, although there is a connection), a deeply religious man, struggled to accept that what he’d learnt from his voyage on the HMS Beagle didn’t tally with the biblical account of our origins. It’s also been argued – although others have disputed this – that Freud repressed or suppressed the histories of genuine childhood sexual abuse amongst his patients by relabelling them as fantasies.

In the traditional telling of the Oedipus myth, the hero is on a journey towards uncovering the painful truth of his having killed his father and married his mother. However, in an alternative version of the story, which I first came across in a paper by the psychoanalyst John Steiner, it’s all about a cover-up: each of the characters has a vested interest in turning a blind eye to the knowledge of who Oedipus actually is. We can all collude in hiding from inconvenient truths.

In my short story, The Invention of Harmony, I wanted to explore the dizzying sense of a new idea and the paralysing fear it can evoke in someone who lacks the courage or the social support to see it through. I found it challenging to set this story in the past (and blogged about my first attempt at writing historical fiction in the post Stepping tentatively back in time), not only because the daily life of my mediaeval nuns was so different to mine, but because of the everyday knowledge of which they would be unaware. But, of course, that was the whole point of the story: the discovery of and retreat from innovation. Although Sister Perpetua’s revolutionary idea was in relation to choral singing (any excuse – here’s a short clip of singing nuns – you'll see I managed the subject even in my responses to Norah's mind-blowing Liebster award questions), I’m sure the same could happen with any other form of creativity.

What do you think? Have you ever had an idea that’s blown your mind? Have you ever turned your back on your own creativity? Look forward to your thoughts, however challenging they might be.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
8 Comments
Charli Mills link
28/3/2014 06:27:45 pm

For me there always seems to be an emotional tie to having something blow my mind. I think that's the litmus of acceptance--how emotionally attached am I to the former? I've often thought that most people will choose collusion over truth if it causes even an ounce of discomfort. Yet, I've also seen friends post "this will blow your mind" topics on Facebook. Yet, they aren't really emotionally-bound mind-blowers, maybe just some crazy fact about an animal. Interesting thoughts and thanks for your response back from yesterday's discussion (which brought me to this article). I enjoyed the singing nuns, too.

Reply
Annecdotist
31/3/2014 01:42:11 am

I agree – I think – it's about emotion. Especially for those ideas that we resist because it's so difficult staying with the discomfort. I suppose even with "good ideas" says the difficulty of adjusting to a world in which this thing is true. But you've got me wondering, Charli, whether there are any ideas that have blown my mind without an emotional response.
When I studied mathematics, I was quite excited by the idea of "imaginary numbers", which is purely an intellectual thing, but excitement is an emotion itself, and it was like a whole new world opened up.
Thanks so much for raising this point stimulating my thinking.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
1/4/2014 05:19:38 am

Hi Anne, I love your words "the dizzying sense of a new idea and the paralysing fear it can evoke in someone who lacks the courage or the social support to see it through". Change can be such a difficult thing to embrace. A horrible truth, even when suspected and feared, can hit one like a sledgehammer and still take a long time to be believed. The feelings of disbelief, resentment and nonacceptance can remain for a long time, resurrecting spontaneously and unbidden, and as powerful as the original experience. I am speaking from personal experience which I won't go into here. One day I may be strong enough to write about it, but I don't think it will be anytime soon. Thank you for sharing your insights.

Reply
Annecdotist
1/4/2014 10:56:08 am

Thank you, Norah. I'm glad this theme worked for you even though it can be quite a painful area. I can certainly connect with what you say about certain truths coming back and shocking us, long after we think it's sorted.
I've just had another short story published today that also connects to this theme (don't know how I could have forgotten about it when I posted this on Friday – I'm not so blasé about my publications) although if you miss it this time I'm sure to blog about it elsewhere http://bluelakereview.weebly.com/telling-the-parents.html

Reply
Norah Colvin link
2/4/2014 06:48:18 am

Love the story Anne. I wish we could get the implants and choose which memories to keep and which to erase. I wonder if that would change who we 'really' are. I wonder, it it did, would it be a bad thing? Something more for me to ponder!

Annecdotist
2/4/2014 09:02:38 am

Couldn't get this to appear AFTER your follow-up comment, Norah, but thanks for the feedback on my story. I think it's stretching credibility a bit but I'm interested in exploring ways of writing about early childhood before memories laid down verbally.
But lots of potential in the idea of exploring targeted memory loss – I wait to see what writing it inspires you

Lisa Reiter link
2/4/2014 08:06:04 am

I think for me, something that 'blows my mind', means there's no turning back from that point of realisation, that point of knowing or understanding or even acceptance - whatever the emotion - My mind is blown if there's a point of no return (to previous thinking) meaning the world is never quite the same again. (Love your level of enquiry, Anne) Lisa

Reply
Annecdotist
2/4/2014 09:04:09 am

The point of no return – I like it! Thanks, Lisa.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Free ebook: click the image to claim yours.
    Picture
    OUT NOW: The poignant prequel to Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home
    Picture
    Find a review
    Picture
    Fictional therapists
    Picture
    Picture
    About Anne Goodwin
    Picture
    My published books
    entertaining fiction about identity, mental health and social justice
    Picture
    My latest novel, published May 2021
    Picture
    My debut novel shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize
    Picture
    Picture
    My second novel published May 2017.
    Picture
    Short stories on the theme of identity published 2018
    Anne Goodwin's books on Goodreads
    Sugar and Snails Sugar and Snails
    reviews: 32
    ratings: 52 (avg rating 4.21)

    Underneath Underneath
    reviews: 24
    ratings: 60 (avg rating 3.17)

    Becoming Someone Becoming Someone
    reviews: 8
    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.56)

    GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4 GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4
    reviews: 4
    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.44)

    The Best of Fiction on the Web The Best of Fiction on the Web
    reviews: 3
    ratings: 3 (avg rating 4.67)

    2022 Reading Challenge

    2022 Reading Challenge
    Anne has read 2 books toward their goal of 100 books.
    hide
    2 of 100 (2%)
    view books
    Picture
    Annecdotal is where real life brushes up against the fictional.  
    Picture
    Annecdotist is the blogging persona of Anne Goodwin: 
    reader, writer,

    slug-slayer, tramper of moors, 
    recovering psychologist, 
    struggling soprano, 
    author of three fiction books.

    LATEST POSTS HERE
    I don't post to a schedule, but average  around ten reviews a month (see here for an alphabetical list), 
    some linked to a weekly flash fiction, plus posts on my WIPs and published books.  

    Your comments are welcome any time any where.

    Get new posts direct to your inbox ...

    Enter your email address:

    or click here …

    RSS Feed


    Picture

    Tweets by @Annecdotist
    Picture
    New short story, “My Dirty Weekend”
    Picture
    Let’s keep in touch – subscribe to my newsletter
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Popular posts

    • Compassion: something we all need
    • Do spoilers spoil?
    • How to create a convincing fictional therapist
    • Instructions for a novel
    • Looking at difference, embracing diversity
    • Never let me go: the dilemma of lending books
    • On loving, hating and writers’ block
      On Pop, Pirates and Plagiarism
    • READIN' for HER reviews
    • Relishing the cuts
    • The fast first draft
    • The tragedy of obedience
    • Writers and therapy: a love-hate relationship?

    Categories/Tags

    All
    Animals
    Annecdotist Hosts
    Annecdotist On Tour
    Articles
    Attachment Theory
    Author Interviews
    Becoming Someone
    Being A Writer
    Blogging
    Bodies
    Body
    Bookbirthday
    Books For Writers
    Bookshops
    CB Book Group
    Character
    Childhood
    Christmas
    Classics
    Climate Crisis
    Coming Of Age
    Counsellors Cafe
    Creative Writing Industry
    Creativity
    Cumbria
    Debut Novels
    Disability
    Editing
    Emotion
    Ethics
    Ethis
    Family
    Feedback And Critiques
    Fictional Psychologists & Therapists
    Food
    Friendship
    Futuristic
    Gender
    Genre
    Getting Published
    Giveaways
    Good Enough
    Grammar
    Gratitude
    Group/organisational Dynamics
    Hero’s Journey
    History
    Humour
    Identity
    Illness
    Independent Presses
    Institutions
    International Commemorative Day
    Jane Eyre
    Kidney Disease
    Language
    LGBTQ
    Libraries
    Live Events
    Lyrics For The Loved Ones
    Marketing
    Matilda Windsor
    Memoir
    Memory
    Mental Health
    Microfiction
    Motivation
    Music
    MW Prequel
    Names
    Narrative Voice
    Nature / Gardening
    Networking
    Newcastle
    Nonfiction
    Nottingham
    Novels
    Pandemic
    Peak District
    Perfect Match
    Poetry
    Point Of View
    Politics
    Politics Current Affairs
    Presentation
    Privacy
    Prizes
    Psychoanalytic Theory
    Psychology
    Psycholoists Write
    Psychotherapy
    Race
    Racism
    Rants
    Reading
    Real Vs Imaginary
    Religion
    Repetitive Strain Injury
    Research
    Reviewing
    Romance
    Satire
    Second Novels
    Settings
    Sex
    Shakespeare
    Short Stories General
    Short Stories My Published
    Short Stories Others'
    Siblings
    Snowflake
    Somebody's Daughter
    Stolen Summers
    Storytelling
    Structure
    Sugar And Snails
    Technology
    The
    The Guestlist
    Therapy
    TikTok
    TNTB
    Toiletday
    Tourism
    Toxic Positivity
    Transfiction
    Translation
    Trauma
    Unconscious
    Unconscious, The
    Underneath
    Voice Recognition Software
    War
    WaSBihC
    Weather
    Work
    Writing Process
    Writing Technique

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    Picture
    BLOGGING COMMUNITIES
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from havens.michael34, romana klee, mrsdkrebs, Kyle Taylor, Dream It. Do It., adam & lucy, dluders, Joybot, Hammer51012, jorgempf, Sherif Salama, eyspahn, raniel diaz, E. E. Piphanies, scaredofbabies, Nomadic Lass, paulternate, Tony Fischer Photography, archer10 (Dennis), slightly everything, impbox, jonwick04, country_boy_shane, dok1, Out.of.Focus, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Midwest Region, Elvert Barnes, guillenperez, Richard Perry, jamesnaruke, Juan Carlos Arniz Sanz, El Tuerto, kona99, maveric2003, !anaughty!, Patrick Denker, David Davies, hamilcar_south, idleformat, Dave Goodman, Sharon Mollerus, photosteve101, La Citta Vita, A Girl With Tea, striatic, carlosfpardo, Damork, Elvert Barnes, UNE Photos, jurvetson, quinn.anya, BChristensen93, Joelk75, ashesmonroe, albertogp123, >littleyiye<, mudgalbharat, Swami Stream, Dicemanic, lovelihood, anyjazz65, Tjeerd, albastrica mititica, jimmiehomeschoolmom