Creativity
The drive to be creative.
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Creative Cross-Pollination
Recently, in an online chat group, a friend of mine posted this quote: “My work is not merely about making and achieving a final product to wear or hang. They are my journey, my feelings, and my stories.” — Reiza Wahid I think that could apply to any of our creative efforts. It’s not just the destination. It’s the journey, the learning, the transformation. My friend went on to say, “It’s hard to explain that my diaries and origami give me such joy when there’s not much productive to show at the end. Transformation is the key – transformation of us and who we are.” …
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Daydreaming as an Art Form
“Idle minds are the devil’s research-and-development department.” — Robert Stacy McCain Daydreaming, a definition: noun The activity of thinking about pleasant things that you would like to do or have happen to you, instead of thinking about what is happening now. Daydreaming appears to be the brain’s default setting when no other external task is occupying its attention. For years, those of us who spent hours inside our own heads were considered time-wasters, dreamers who couldn’t live in the “real world”, unsuited for the practical requirements of daily living. We were called Procrastinators and we were taught to wake up and smell the coffee, stop dithering, get back to work and all the other sensible, pragmatic advice that goes along…
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One Artist’s Journey
I like to call myself a recovering artist. I like this description because it has a certain curiosity-piquing je ne sais quoi and it references my lifelong addiction to art and creativity. It also raises the question of why anyone would voluntarily quit the enchanting life of an artist. Spoiler alert — doing shows all the time becomes increasingly physically demanding for an ageing painter. All those classy exhibitions certainly look glamorous on the outside, but behind the scenes, there’s a whole lot of grunt-work, and I was fed up with grunting. There’s a classic artist’s joke — Q. What’s the difference between an artist and a puppy? …
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Declutter your Memoir
Recently, I had to mop up a flood in my basement, which forced me to move a lot of stuff I’d been storing, keeping and generally shoving out of sight and out of mind, some of it for decades. You know the kind of thing…”Oh, that’s useful. I’ll keep it until the other one, the one I’m using right now, breaks or wears out or runs out of power/ink/paper” (or whatever is necessary to keep it running). Or, “That belonged to my grandparents. It’s worth something. Maybe Antiques Roadshow will pay me a lot of money for it.” Or, “I just can’t throw out…
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I’m Old, Dammit! Not Dead!
A few months ago, I received an email from a subscriber and it got me thinking… This lovely lady said something that’s been tickling away at the back of my mind for some time, and I thought I’d take this opportunity to explore it a bit. Here’s what she said: “Beverley, I love your website. It feels warm and soothing, like slipping into a warm bath. Ahhhhhhh… “It’s so nice to feel appreciated as a senior. As I scrolled through your blog posts I said to myself, ‘when seniors feel isolated, this is a good place to visit because it honors our life experience.'” “Honours our life…
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Creativity, Productivity, Thoughts, Opinions and Philosophical Discussions, Training, Lessons, Writers and Writing
Are you a terrible writer?
Have you ever suddenly decided halfway through a writing project that it’s all crap? That everything you’ve done up to this point is garbage and you’ll never be a “real” writer? Do you habitually reach a point in your drafts when you convince yourself that it’s not good enough, it’ll never be good enough, and you should throw it out and start over, but you desperately try to stick with it, even though you have an overpowering urge to delete your work and start again with a different style or P.o.V. or…anything? Welcome to the world of the frustrated writer. Anyone who’s any good at all…
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Appreciation and the Joy of Covid
When things go right, feeling and showing appreciation — that’s easy. But when things go wrong — not so much. Road Trip The weekend before last, I took my first trip out of my small home town since the beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020. It was downright scary, leaving the nest. Over the past year and a half, the only places I’ve been were my home, the grocery store, the drug store and the dog park, oh, and twice to the vaccination clinic. Advantages of Lockdown While it’s been difficult, not seeing people for days on end, I appreciate the time…
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The Evils of Comparison
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” ― Oscar Wilde The saints are the sinners who keep on trying. — Robert Louis Stevenson Do you think you’re a crappy writer? Why do you think that? Did someone tell you that your writing sucks? Where did this belief originate? Whose voice do you hear in your head? Was it a teacher in the third grade or the fifth or the tenth, telling you that you’re not good enough to be a writer? I call bullshit! You’re not being fair to yourself — You’d never ask a child to paint like Rembrandt, dance like Nureyev, or sing like Pavarotti,…
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Creative Writing, Organization and Research, Point of View and Character Development, Productivity, Prompts, Theme, Purpose and Outcome, Thoughts, Opinions and Philosophical Discussions, Training, Lessons
Questions and Answers
How NOT To Write Your Memoir Most people, when they start to write their memoirs, think they have to stick strictly to the facts, that their story has to be a list of the things they did, in the order that they did them. This simply isn’t true. It leads to the belief that they have to write their entire history — an autobiography, which, for most people is messy, disconnected and hard to follow. This means that they end up with a list of dry, dull facts, like some kind of desiccated checklist that may reflect the events of their lives, but doesn’t say much about…
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Snippets
I’m sitting in my recliner, teaching a creative writing class on Zoom, tea cooling beside me, about to show the class how to use short stories in autobiographies. I’m using the “Homework for Life” exercise from Matt Dicks’ book, “Storyworthy”. This is an exercise I’ve adapted to fit my short story workshop series and it works like a kind of free-writing or stream-of-consciousness process similar to Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages. I’ve called this exercise “Snippets” and it’s a ten- or fifteen-minute activity in which students go back over their day and try to find a moment or incident that for some reason sticks out for them. It also works…