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 Post subject: Book about body language
PostPosted: Fri Apr 01, 2011 9:22 pm 
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As some of you who have been here for a longer time might remember, I once started planning to write a book about our way of interacting with horses. However, I didn't get very far. I think the main reason for this is that it felt rather demotivating for me to write something that I did not consider to be very useful: at every chapter that I started making notes for, one of my first thoughts after writing down the first words was: "And if you want a more thorough discussion of this, just go to the AND forum, because there you will get all the info you might ever wish for, and not just from a single perspective but from a variety of wonderful horse people." :funny:

So in the end I stopped writing, because the only thing I felt this book could add to our forum was that it explained things in lower quality to people who were too lazy to read English. :green:

I wonder, however, if writing a more specific book about the thing that fascinates me most will run into the same problems. Some days ago I started searching for topics that were relevant in terms of body language, because I wanted to add some links to the terribly neglected body language sticky. And I can't find them. There's a note here and there, but no systematic overview and no thorough discusssion of more than just some singulary aspects, in contrast to those you can find it in threads dealing with hot topics like leadership, collection or foodrewards.

So my questions are those: Do you think I should write this book? Do you think I have enough to offer that could make it interesting for anyone to read it? Do you think a book is an appropriate (or at least possible) format for this at all? It could be offered together with a DVD or something, which might make some things more clear. I have no financial interest in this, so I am totally okay with publishing it here in the forum. I just wonder if it's worth the effort. So... is there anyone interested or does anyone know people who might be interested? :smile:


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PostPosted: Fri Apr 01, 2011 10:04 pm 
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I think all such efforts are worth it...because in teaching (in what ever way that teaching occurs) we each refine our own knowledge. I was once told that if I wanted to get better at training dogs, then the best thing to do is to teach others to train dogs. I didn't go that route, but in the little horse-teaching I have done, it serves to make me wiser. Either I learn how to explain something better, or I in turn learn something new, or both.

Then there is that old saying..."If it feels good, do it". (PS for dogs, it's "If it smells good, roll in it" :funny: ).

I think it is beneficial in more ways than one.

:yes: :f: :applause:

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PostPosted: Fri Apr 01, 2011 10:58 pm 
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Thank you, Karen. :kiss:

This was part of what I was asking myself when I was wondering whether it was worth all the effort. I know that teaching things makes you understand them so much better, but I don't think that I take my own personal development seriously enough to spend days and months writing, just to come out of it a bit more advanced. So if this will be the main consequence of writing it, I think I'll rather let it be. It was just an idea, probably not one of my better ones. :smile:


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PostPosted: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:05 pm 
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Well, also think of it as a consolidation...and that WOULD be beneficial, even for those who read avidly on AND. Just a thought! :kiss:

Oh...had another thought. All the people on AND aren't the only ones interested. It's a wider world out there...not everyone has found us yet. :yes: :f:

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PostPosted: Sat Apr 02, 2011 12:20 am 
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Romy I would definitely be interested in a book. :yes:

I find it so easy to get distracted on the internet...one thing leads to another...that a book is often how I learn best.

I love the forums and websites for searching for answers, and getting wonderful advice, but for me if I'm searching topics in the forums on body language or any topic, an hour later I find myself somewhere completely unrelated, and forget what I was even doing in the first place. It is just so easy to follow the links!

Books are also great for taking out to the pasture. i love to sit and read where I can be with the horses, so my collection of horse books will always keep growing.

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PostPosted: Sat Apr 02, 2011 12:28 am 
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Romy,

Of course. Do it!

Your unique perspective and knowledge should be shared - at least I think it would benefit.

As you write and search you'll also learn more not just from what you find but from how you will organize it and find each facts' meaning in context.

Yes, do it.

Donald, Altea, and Bonnie Cupcake

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 3:25 pm 
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I was wondering Romy, did you start your book? Or is it finally ad acta?

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 3:35 pm 
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I started it and continued writing it for about one or two weeks, and then got busy doing other things and later I simply forgot about it. However, from this summer on I will have some more time again, so maybe I will continue. I am just not sure it would be relevant, because all I have to say is in the forum already. A book would only be a new format but no new information.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 3:59 pm 
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Hmmm. I would definitely be interested :yes:. An open discussion about a certain topic is one thing, a written work - thought through from beginning to end - is another thing entirely. Both have their merits I think. The written work has the advantage of usually higher quality, more conciseness and more structure.

Besides, what was your motivation to start in the first place? That is your legitimisation, if you really need one ;). Usually, a book is written more for the author then the audience. That's very much OK for me.

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 4:11 pm 
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Houyhnhnm wrote:
An open discussion about a certain topic is one thing, a written work - thought through from beginning to end - is another thing entirely. Both have their merits I think. The written work has the advantage of usually higher quality, more conciseness and more structure.


There we are right at the core of what keeps me from writing it: I do not think that I have things to say that are so relevant that they need an extra book. This is not because I am such a modest person, but because the standards I am applying for what I think needs to be published are rather high. If it was up to me, many publications would not have to exist at all. And in my own case it is even worse, because the information is not only purely subjective babbling by a girl from the villages, but it also does exist already, just in a different form - and yes, perhaps in rather low quality, that's definitely possible.

Houyhnhnm wrote:
Besides, what was your motivation to start in the first place? That is your legitimisation, if you really need one ;). Usually, a book is written more for the author then the audience. That's very much OK for me.


My reason was that I wanted to make it easier for others to find the information, and save them time that they would otherwise spend searching for bits of information in the forum. Perhaps that's not a good motivation to start with, but for me it would not be motivating at all to write it for myself.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 7:25 pm 
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make an e-book ;) quite easy and not expensive.
place it on a website and ask a few euro's for those who download it.
so you earn the costs of the website back.


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PostPosted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 7:51 am 
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Romy, I use your bodylanguage videos constantly for my students. I agree with Inge, first make a short E- book and see what happens. (I am sure it will go all over the planet soon).
Afterwards you can and perhaps will decide to come with a more vast printed example :)

In any case, if you would write a book on bodylanguage, you would make my life easier :funny: less to write for me and... you are a master at it. Most I have learned about it, I have learned watching you!

:kiss:

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 6:14 pm 
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When a subject is written about, Romy, the language it's written in (style of language) will reach a certain audience.

If you wish to address more academically minded, or scientific minded folks, you write to that audience. If you wish to reach the other "girls from the villages," you write in their style of understanding.

The trick is to interpret what you know from you science and academic skills and experience so that the girls from the villages can understand it.

That is the art, and I think what you have to say and to share needs hearing by this particular audience of villages folks. I know it does to me, and I'm certainly one of them.

Reconsider. Donald

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:00 pm 
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You are all so sweet, thank you! :kiss:

I will do that and write a short digital version (perhaps not an e-book, but at least a PDF file that everyone can download). However, it will have to wait until this summer, because until mid-June I am too busy to spend any extra time on this. :smile:

Thanks for the encouragement! If it will be helpful for you, that's enough reason for me to do it. :f:


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 05, 2012 9:42 am 
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ooooh it will be helpful!!! Very much so! :cheers:

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