Time to Write

Write it right: sneaky headphones, brainchildren, and massive regiments

An interesting term in USA Today: "non-evasive headphones"...the article was talking about cranial stimulation, so maybe they meant non-invasive...or they keep forgetting where they put their headphones.

Another article talking about an invention said "the brainchild is Dr. (name)"...of course, the brainchild is the result of somebody's thinking power, so it was the doctor who was the brain and the invention that was the brainchild. 

And my favorite, from Bryan Alexander writing in USA Today about the training actor Michael B. Jordan had to go through to play the boxer in Creed: "The already stacked actor had to go through a massive regiment..." Unless the army tried to stop him, it was a massive regimen.

Could writing more slowly increase the quality of what you write?

A study suggests that typing more slowly increases the quality of your writing. Study participants who typed with only one hand produced essays of a higher quality than when they used both hands.

The study is published in the British Journal of Psychology under the sexy title, "Effects of Disfluency in Writing."

The study's authors suggest that slowing done your writing makes it less likely that you'll go with the first word that occurs to you. Instead, you have time to consider alternatives and use the best one.

Some writers have found the same effect when they do their first draft in handwriting. I've found it to be true when I've used long airplane trips for writing something by hand.

Especially if you find it difficult to reconsider your word choice when doing a second draft, slowing down when you write the first one could be useful.

In any event, it's a useful reminder that faster is not always better.