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I’ve just ordered a book by face reader (or Face Pattern Recognition Expert) Naomi Tickle that I think will help me professionally as a writer, to make my characters even more believable, full, and complete, and also help me as a person navigating through the world. I think her books are great tools for writers to add more richness, depth, and credibility to our novels (or screenplays or plays for the stage).

Naomi does what the characters on the TV show Lie To Me do–read faces to know when people are lying or telling the truth, to predict their personality, behavior, and innate abilities just from their facial features. And she was actually interviewed for that show as an expert! She can tell from how fine your hair is whether you’re sensitive to noises and emotions, and from the curve of your forehead how creative you are. Her face readings are based on soft science first developed by Edward Jones, a judge, in the 1930s, and have a 92% accuracy level for personality assessment. I find it utterly fascinating!!

Naomi has several books, and I have a feeling I’ll be ordering many of them over time. For now, I chose What Makes People Tick and Why.

If you order a book directly from Naomi’s website, you get a free mini-reading.I did, and I loved what she said; she got so many things about me so accurately that I wouldn’t have thought people could see just from my face. It really impressed me! And it was also validating. (And no, I don’t get anything out of telling you that–I’m just passing along info that I think could help you.)

I’m excited to read her book, and am so looking forward to it! I think Naomi’s book will be an incredible tool as a writer and person.

You can also listen to an interview with Naomi, interviewed by Angela Treat Lyon.

Author Laura Davis (co-author of The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse
) is offering free weekly writing prompts & inspiration, coming to your inbox every Tuesday.

Laura Davis is one of my heroes. And Ellen Bass, her co-writer, is another. When I was a teen being abused and remembering sexual abuse, I carried around The Courage To Heal with my everywhere. I read it so much, it got a bit tattered, and so many pages were marked with post-it notes! Both women continue to write, and I think Laura Davis will have a lot of good to offer.

In December I wrote about being ready to receive – and record – ideas whenever and wherever they come. I also mentioned a few tools I use to capture inspiration when the moment strikes, such as special notebooks, digital recorders (I use an Olympus VN-6200PC), Dragon Dictation (an app on my iPhone that turns my voice into instant text), and the Notes app which looks like a post-it note or yellow legal pad in digital form. Other folks I know use Post-its or index cards and move them around the floor or the wall.  Many use Google Docs – which can be accessed from any where in the world via computer, as everything is stored in ‘the cloud.’

Lately I’ve been experimenting with mind-mapping to further organize and flesh out an idea.  This is an invaluable exercise that involves doing a ‘brain dump’ of everything related to the idea in one area.  Once you have everything down, it becomes much easier to see how the idea might be organized. It literally begins to take shape before your eyes. The traditional way to mind map is to scribble every associated thought, image, word etc. onto a large piece of paper, then draw lines connecting those that are related, and continue reorganizing accordingly. You can also do the same thing on a white or chalk board. If you’ve moved into the digital world, there are a number of mind-mapping software programs worth experimenting with – a few to check out are FreeMind (free), MindJet (paid) and SimpleMind (paid). Most of them provide an app version as well.

Whatever method you choose to use, I highly recommend keeping an ideas file, folder or notebook, in which to consolidate everything. You never know when you’ll use something – whether it’s an idea for an entire book, a compelling character or just a great line – and this way you’ll always know where to find it.