Brain Games

One of the things I love to do when I have time is solve puzzles. I love them all--logic, crossword, acrostic, sudoku, jigsaw--almost everything except word search. Those I find stupid. So when one of my students (Hi, Connor) gave me a puzzle to do the first or second week of school, I was thrilled. I hadn't seen it before, so I was determined to solve it. No, I didn't google it (because that's what my husband did and found it at once), but I looked at it, and when I had a few moments here and there, I tried to solve it. So about five or six weeks later, I was lying in bed, about to fall asleep when suddenly I went, "Ah ha." I didn't even have the puzzle in front of me, but the answer clicked into place. Sure enough, the next morning when I went to check the puzzle to see if my answer made sense, I had solved it. What amazed me was how the subconscious mind will continue to work on a problem even when you don't think it's working. This happens a lot in plotting. In fact, I just solved a plot problem the other day using the same method.

So I thought I'd share the puzzle with you.

Determine the next number in this sequence:
1
11
21
1211
111221
312211
13112221
1113213211
31131211131221
13211311123113112211
???

Keep reading,
--Gabi

Books I'm reading now:

Must Love Dragons by Stephanie Rowe
Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
Love Me, Love Me Hot by Stephanie Rowe