Subject: IS to a child...
   Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 17:35:47 -0700
  From:  mcpherso (John McPherson)
    To: mcole@napanet.net, mjoyner@botree.com, GeoNelson@aol.com, straveca@erols.com,
       Swcgluck@aol.com, RickAshby@aol.com, Kuene@cts.com, jheflin@mail.portup.com,
       Tice@writeme.com, Frank@gerryts.demon.co.uk, e7750010@tsai.es,
       tazz4@ix.netcom.com, win@thebestweb.com
    CC: mcpherso, sunni-snake@utah-inter.net, anakin@dur.mindspring.com


  I had a thought which may be relevant to the ChildWrite Project ...
Larry and I met today to talk about a book that a friend of his is
trying to get published.  This book, on Entropy, Creativity and Chaos,
is written fairly technically and intellectually, replete with 
symbols, chemical-physics equations, big words, etc.  I noticed that
this author has read the major works of intellectuals in the field
(Prigogine, Bertalanffy, Miller, etc.), which is all to the good.
However, the author intends to reach your average person on the street!
Larry has taken this book to some professors, and apparently they can't
quite grasp it themselves (without intensive study).  Then it struck
me: this author seems to be writing as if he were speaking to Prigogine,
Nobel Laureate, himself!  Yes, Prigogine would understand and appreciate
it, but that leaves out nearly the rest of humankind!  I then suggested
to Larry that he suggest to the author writing a second, much shorter,
popular book, writing _as if_ he were speaking to your ordinary person
in the street ... and this should result in a very different style
of writing.  
  In thinking this over some more, I thought of image-streaming.
Usually when I IS, I speak as best I can, perhaps as if describing to
a second John McPherson ... with all the understandings, experience,
training, etc. that he has (I have).  Well, what if I were to consciously
modify my image-streaming so as to describe _as if_ I were speaking to
a child?  Perhaps even visualizing a small child (or whatever age range
I'd like to address) in some shadowy form, and describing my images to
him/her directly ... as if telling him/her a story as it was being
made up?  Just the idea of describing as if to a child would radically
alter my descriptions.  Perhaps some playing around might help the flow
... visualize the child listening to you, and describe him or her and
get a feeling of what he/she is like, what his/her life is like as a
child, what kind of things excite and interest him/her ... perhaps 
"putting on his/her head" while he/she is listening to you telling the
story ... perhaps areas where he/she could jump in and help tell the
story as it's being made ... what kinds of "leading images" make it
almost irresistable for a child to have an idea and begin describing
that idea him/herself ...

John