Showing posts with label answers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label answers. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Check Your Mental Acuity

Below are 9 simple questions. They're straight questions, with straight answers. No tricks. See how many you can answer before looking at the answers.

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backwards?

3. Of all the vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every years. What are the only two perennial vegetables?

4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

5. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine. It hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?

6. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters "dw", and they are all common words. Name two of them.

7. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?

8. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

9. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter "S".

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ANSWERS:

1. The one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends -- Boxing.

2. The North American landmark constantly moving backwards -- Niagara Falls. (The rim is worn down about two and a half feet each year because of the millions of gallons of water that rush over it every minute.)

3. The only two vegetables that can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons -- Asparagus and rhubarb.

4. The fruit with its seeds on the outside -- Strawberry.

5. How did the pear get inside the brandy bottle? It grew inside the bottle. The bottles are placed over pear buds when they are small and are wired in place on the tree. The bottle is left in place for the entire growing season. When the pears are ripe, they are snipped off at the stem.

6. Three English words beginning with "dw" -- dwarf, dwell, and dwindle.

7. Fourteen punctuation marks in English grammar -- period, coma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parentheses, braces, and ellipses.

8. The only vegetable or fruit never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh -- lettuce.

9. Six or more things you can wear on your feet beginning with "S" -- shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates, snowshoes, stockings, and stilts.

How well did you do?

Sunday, January 18, 2009

How to Stop Piddling


Every so often I get an email from a reader who's just discovered I teach full time, which means my writing is relegated to evenings and holidays. Seeing what I have out, what's soon to come out, and what's in the works, at some point I get asked, "How are you able to write so much?"

Well, my momma had a word for it. Piddling. It's that time you waste sitting at the desk, staring at the computer monitor, and wondering where to take your story. Many author friends I know tend to go to their email loops. Some blog. Others get on the phone and call up their author friends or family. But most stay online and on the internet looking for something to catch their eye.

Bottom line, it's wasted time.

When I get to those moments where I need to write myself out of corner, or find a bridge from one plot dilemma to the next, I do one of the following. In short, I GET AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD. Take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes, and I can come back refreshed, or with a new idea in mind.
These are a few of my solutions, remember. They might not work for you, but you never know. And it's amazing what gets accomplished in the meantime!

* bag up 5 things from my closet or drawers I no longer can wear, and pop in the trunk to take to Goodwill
* check the calendar - is there someone you need to send a card to?
* empty or reload the dishwasher (add wash the dishes, too)
* put a load in the washer/dryer (add fold a load)
* take out the trash
* start to straighten/clean a room (done in stages, it works!)
* pay a bill
* make a grocery list/to do list
* let the dog out (or give it a bath)
* read the newspaper

Later I'll give a list of things I do WHILE ON THE COMPUTER that doesn't waste my time.