Real Words

As a I mentioned in a recent post, I’ve been rediscovering the art of altered books. These are turning out to be an ongoing source of inspiration to me in a number of different ways. These ways include:

• Seeing objects in a new light. I noticed the other day that the junk mail I had sitting in my recyle can was filled with colorful and decorative words that might go well in a page of an altered book. I pulled it out and started clipping. I also noticed that a pile of clothes planned for giveaway could be used as the fabric for book covers.
• Redesigning my creative space. Since I’m starting to save more things to be used in making altered book art, I’ve realized that I’d like to have my various art and writing materials more organized and accessible. This is something I’d always planned on as a kid when I dreamed of having my own art studio. I have the space now to make that a reality so I’m starting to work on it, slowly but surely.
• Writing inspiration. Visual art always helps me bring out themes for writing and that’s been even truer as I’ve explored the idea of putting one theme together on a page in collage form.
• Reading material. I’ve been reading a lot of altered art books lately and reading about art is always a source of new inspiration. Some books on altered art that you may want to pick up yourself include:
  • Mixed Emulsions: Altered Art Techniques for Photographic Imagery
  • Altered Books, Collaborative Journals, and Other Adventures in Bookmaking
  • The Altered Book Scrapbook
  • Altered Books Workshop: 18 Creative Techniques for Self-Expression
  • New Directions in Altered Books
  • Altered Book Collage
  • #5167 Altered Books 101

I’m currently playing around with my first altered book project. I went to the bookstore with a goal of finding a book for less than $5 to use as my starting point. The one I found is a small square book on Greek mythology. I’m playing around with methods of altering it and just kind of playing around with being creative. The book is going to be about the emotions and flaws that make up the heroes of mythology and the heroes of our own daily lives … and that theme turned out to be something that I pulled together in a recent short essay on fathers as heroes.

Question of the Day: What altered book artists can you recommend as a source of inspiration?

[Tags] altered, art, book, creativity, projects, craft, inspiration [/Tags]

I am currently in the process of reading Creativity for Life: Practical Advice on the Artist’s Personality, and Career from America’s Foremost Creativity Coach. The book itself, written by San Francisco based creativity and life coach Eric Maisel, is about the difficulties that an artist faces after choosing to devote a life to a creative career. However, at the beginning of the book, Maisel mentions that there are three different things that we might mean when we talk about an artistic life. Those three things are intertwined for most artists but are worth taking a closer look at on their own: 

1. Artful Living. This describes the act of trying to infuse artistic creativity into everything you do. It’s about being creative in the way that you parent, in the re-using that you do to recycle items around the home, in the meals that you make for yourself and others. It’s about taking each moment of the day and trying to approach it with your own creative vision at its core. (Another great book specifically about this is Living Artfully: Create the Life You Imagine.)
2. Art-Filled Living. This refers to the way that we try to fill our days with art. We visit bookstores and art galleries, we play music in our homes and attend concerts when we can, we watch fashion shows on television in order to be creatively inspired. These are the ways that we bring art into our every day life in order to be able to see the world with a broader creative perspective. This is of utmost important to developing creativity because without constantly refilling our own creative wells, our sources of inspiration may run dry.
3. An Art-Committed Life. This is what the bulk of Maisel’s book is about and it refers to the life that we live once we have chosen to actually make art as a living for what we hope will be the rest of our lives. It is about art as a way of life and not just a part of life.

We may find that all three artistic ways of living apply to us. We may find that only one is really a part of our lives on a regular basis. And we may find that although we have one of these in life, we aren’t embodying the other as much as we would like. (For example, you may bring a lot of art into your life but not approach life as creatively as you would like so you have an art-filled life but not an artful one.) By examining these different methods of filling our lives with art, we can make wiser choices in how artfully we want to spend our days.

Question of the Day: Which of these art lives is most important?

[Tags] art, creativity, inspiration, artful, living, choices [/Tags]

As a writer, I read voraciously. I consume the written word on a daily basis. Although I explore all genres and all types of books, it has become important to me this year to specifically focus on finding and enjoying more books that are specifically about creativity.

There are many different types of these books. There are lengthy academic books on the creative brain and the creative process. There are tips for being more creative in your daily life. And there are books at every level of the spectrum in between those two ends. They are all valuable for providing writers (and other artists) with new ways of looking at their work – and their lives.

One of the books that I picked up this week is Unleash Your Creativity (52 Brilliant Ideas): Fresh Ideas for Having Fresh Ideas. This is similar in many ways to “writing prompt” books but also provides additional information and ideas that makes it a little bit more than this. Like those books, it offers lessons and suggestions can be done in bite-sized pieces in order to jumpstart your creativity. However, it also provides a description of a certain facet of the artistic life, information on challenges that you might face in this area and tips for taking the “prompt” further if you want to.

For example, Tip #23 is “Play Your Part” which suggests that you do some role-playing to embody the character that you are trying to write about. It describes why this is good, why you might want to do it and what role-playing really means. It gives suggestions for doing this at different levels of subtlety so that it can be incorporated easily into your real life. (Such as reacting differently in a business meeting than you normally would or simply considering how you would react differently if you were another race or gender than you are.) It provides a specific exercise, a related quote, and direction to another part of the book for a related tip that can expand on role-playing. It also provides two challenges that people doing this exercise might face and resolutions to those challenges. And it does all of this in five pages.

The tips are easy to complete and have the potential to jar you into new creative action. The book can be picked up and turned to any page so that you don’t have to do the exercises in any sort of order. Each one links to another one in the book so that you can see your creativity developing and connecting back to itself. It’s the kind of book that you don’t read at one time but read regularly throughout your creative life.

Question of the Day: What other writing prompt or writing exercise books do you recommend?

[Tags] writing, creativity, reading, bevan, prompts, writing exercise [/Tags]

Sunday mornings. What a great time for laying in bed, computer propped up against your lap, browsing through the blog posts and news articles that you didn’t get a chance to read throughout the busy week.

Here are some of the articles on writing, creativity and other things that I’m reading this morning:

• The Best Way to Feed Yourself @ Pureblogging
• Writer’s Spring-Greening @ WOW
• Fiction Writing: How to Capture Your Big Idea @ MenWithPens
• My Blog Client Wish List @ Freelance Writing Jobs
• The 3 Ways to Write a Blog @ ChrisG.com
• What Can John Lennon Teach Us About Creativity @ Brad’s Reader
• Books on Writing @ Six-Figure Freelancer’s Blog
• Are Your Comments Stressing You Out? @ BloggingTips
• Creativity @ Electron Blue
• What on Earth is Wrong with Gravity @ How to Write for the Web
• Don’t Save Your Best Ideas for Later @ Creative Creativity
• Writing and Cleaning the Toilet @ Using Dreams
• Kick Starting Creativity @ Fur in the Paint
• Creative Journaling @ Authentic Artistry
• Thoughts on Creativity @ My Hungry Heart

And here are some of my favorite works that I authored throughout the week:

• Wi-Fly: Voice Communication on Planes @ Dial-a-Phone
• The Poetry of Altered Book Art (here)
• Amsterdam Art Galleries @ Discount Travel
• Bringing Gifts on a First Date @ Dating Weblog
• Infertility and Survival of the Fittest @ Touched by the Stork
• Planning a Honeymoon in Hawaii @ Kathika
• New Testosterone Gel for Menopausal Women @ Wellness Corner

I mentioned before that I had been thrilled to discover the author Armistead Maupin. It’s rare that I find an author who truly captures my interest and makes me want to read every single thing that he’s ever written. As I come towards the end of reading Maupin’s second book in the Tales of the City series, I find that he’s become one of my favorite fiction authors.

Here are some of the reasons that I like this series:

• The characters are believable and lovable, flawed but in a totally perfect way. They are multi-dimensional and interesting and I can see having them as friends (and enemies!)
• The chapters are short but poignant so it’s easy to enjoy reading just a few pages while on public transit and it’s just as easy to get lost in a hundred pages at a time.
• Maupin has an uncanny ability to describe things in a way that makes you think twice. I have literally laughed out loud as I read the description of a character’s reaction.
• Plot twists actually have caught me off guard. I find most books to be predictable because I’ve read so many but this one actually has managed to surprise me more than once.
• There is an interconnectedness between the characters that extends through multiple books in the series.
• It’s set in San Francisco mroe than twenty years ago so many of the city’s details are the same as what I’m used to now but some are different enough to make me feel like I’m learning something about the history of the city as I read.
• It’s fun.

Anyone who likes general fiction, chick lit, and character-driven works will probably find this series to be enjoyable, especially if those people happen to live in San Francisco!

 [Tags] maupin, tales of the city, san francisco, book, writing, reading, recommendation [/Tags]

(Writers, remember to check out the links to available jobs in the post below this one.) 

I generally spend some of Sunday morning trying to catch up on reading blog posts and news articles that I missed during the week. Most of these are related to writing, blogging, Web 2.0 technologies and general creativity. Here are some of the things I’ve found today that I think are worth checking out:

• Why You Should Use an Editorial Calendar @ Freelance Writing Jobs
• Is There a Book in Your Blog? @ Pureblogging
• John Grisham Has No Illusions About Writing @ CNN
• Writing and Sbumitting @ Anniegirl1138
• Wordy Equals Weak @ Good Karma
• Think Orange! Creativity and the Sacral Chakra
• Bucking the Trends @ Women on Writing
• Creativity as a Means of Communication @ Damian Daily
• 10 Reasons why Bloggers Hate Blogging @ Geeks are Sexy
• Perfect Imperfection @ The Wishful Writer
• Day Camp Inspires Creativity @ The Iowa Press-Citizen

My favorite articles that I authored this week were:

• 5 WordPress Plugins that Can Dramatically Change your Site
• Frequency of Freelance Applications
• Top 10 Smallest Mobile Phones in the World
• Visiting the Jefferson Memorial

In the spirit of link love as well as in the general interest of pointing other writers to the stuff that I think is worth reading, here are some of the things that I found interesting on the web this week:

• 16 Blog Posts that Improved, Expanded and Inspired my Writing
• First Experience with GetAFreelancer
• Remember the First Time You Saw Your Byline?
• 40 Celebrity Book Authors
• Writing 2.0
• The SMART Framework for Goal Setting
• Creativity & The Road
• Writing and Breathing
• Top 10 Blog Writing Tips
• How to Grow Your Ideas with a Project Incubator

And here are some places that you can find some of my best work on the web this week:

• BlogStorming: Generating Ideas for Blog Posts (@ Pureblogging)
• 8 Ways to Green Your Writing (here on this blog)
• 8 Uses for Olive Oil That Have Nothing To Do With Food (@ HubPages)
• Family Restaurants in Orlando
• Your Neighborhood Impacts Your Health Screening
• Carrying Your Best Friend’s Baby
• Romantic Places to Visit in Hawaii (also in Italy and Paris)

I am one of those people who reads more than one book at a time. The benefit to this (besides that I don’t get bored with what I’m reading) is that the books often link together in my mind to provide me with ideas that are bigger than what is presented within just one book. That’s been the case this week as I’ve read two books about creativity and one about simplifying life.

These are the three books I’m reading right now and what other writers might get out of reading them:

1. Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: A Woman’s Guide to Unblocking Creativity by Susan O’Doherty. This is a self-help type of book for the creative person who is feeling blocked. Although I don’t feel that at this current time, I think it’s always beneficial to work through writing exercises in these types of books. This one takes the approach of asking you to do one exercise per chapter (things like figuring out what people negatively impacted your creative process at a young age). It provides the stories of multiple women to assist you in understanding how others might work through this. This book is intended for women and is best for those women who are helped my a psychological, therapeutic, self-help approach to tackling their creative problems.
2. The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life by  John Daido Loori. At the other end of the spectrum is a book on creativity that takes a zen approach to art. In fact, the bulk of the book seems to be about teaching you how to practice zen meditation and to bring yourself to a place of stillness. The underlying foundation here is the belief that if you can be still, you can hear your artist’s heart and really bring yourself to the core of your artistic self. This book is good for people who are interested in a spiritual approach to creativity.
3. The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz. This book isn’t about creativity per se. What it’s about is understanding how the availability of so many choices can effectively immobilize us in our lives. In a way, this ties in to the zen book. It’s got a theme of appreciating choice but also letting some of the decision-making go. It’s about living a simpler life so that you have the time and energy for other things, things like art. It’s the kind of book that helps me as a writer to remember what’s important to my creativity and what is just fluff on the edges.

These are just three books about creativity. I’m always looking for others and would welcome your suggestions here!

Related links: Susan O’Doherty, John Daido Loori, Barry Schwartz

[Tags] creativity, zen, self-help, writing, books, reading, recommendations [/Tags]

One of the things that I do on Sunday mornings (in addition to my weekend blogging work over at Broadband Reports) is catch up on some of the more casual and fun reading that’s available on the web. I try to take some time to look through the Mixx selections that have been submitted to my Writing for Writers group. And I also check some of my favorite writing, social media and technology sites for stories and tips that I missed throughout the week.

Here are some of the articles and posts that I’ve been reading this morning (and that I think other web writers might have an interest in):

• 10 Universities Offering Free Online Writing Courses (thanks to robdiana @ Mixx for the heads up)
• 10 Things that Bloggers Tend to Forget But Shouldn’t @ Daily Blog Tips
• Bad Writing Syndrome Goes Viral @ AdWeek
• Rite, Write, Right, Write (a nice word reminder)
• Writing is a Marathon (about an author)
• Dot-Com Pioneers – Where are they now?
• Through the Eyes of a Child: Digital Storytelling in the Classroom
• Suppressing the Creative Urge @ The Artists Way
• 3 Brainstorming Techniques: Getting it Out Before Writing it Down
• What we Can Learn from Punxsatawney Phil on Groundhog Day
• Benefits of Ezine Articles

Share your links here – What other online material should writers be reading today?

One of the annual projects that I had planned on executing this year was to read all the books by (and all the material I could get my hands on about) author Milan Kundera. Unfortunately, as I started this project, I found that I wasn’t enjoying Kundera’s books as much as I’d thought I would. Although I still love the first Kundera book that I fell in love with (Identity), I quickly saw that his other books didn’t fill me with the kind of inspiration that I was hoping to get out of the project.

I decided I’d probably select another author for the project and was leaning towards Somerset Maugham when I stumbled across Armistead Maupin. Maupin is the author of a series of books called Tales of the City that is set in San Francisco. I love this city that I call home and am always excited when I discover anything that gives me a new look at it. The first book in the series, also titled Tales of the City, mentions many different places and occurrences in San Francisco at the time that the book was written (1978). This gives me a chance to see how the city has changed from the details mentioned there to the way I know the city to be now.

But what really interests me about this author is the style of writing that it displays. Here’s where I’ll reveal a secret about myself: I like chick lit. I don’t read it often. I don’t think it’s necessarily the most inspiring or creative genre out there. And I’m not too girly so a lot of the details of it tend to seem frivolous to me. But on a day when I want fluff to read, chick lit is my genre of choice (followed closely by true crime novels). And what I’m finding here is that Maupin seems to be the original chick lit writer. Years before the genre had a name, this man managed to get to the heart of the wit that’s behind this kind of writing.

Of course, Tales of the City doesn’t stick specifically within the chick lit genre which is probably why I like it so much. It tells the tales of women (and men) in the city from the perspective of an open-minded San Francisco swinging kind of place. And there are some great turns of phrase in the book that make it literary as well as fun. More importantly, to me anyhow, is the fact that the book does a great job of creating a whole series of characters and then intertwining them over time. This is something I don’t do well in my own creative writing and aspire to do better at so it’s exciting to find an example of it that I can pattern some ideas on.

There are seven books in the series as well as a few other books that Maupin has under his belt so this should keep me busy for awhile. That makes me happy since I was hoping to have a reading goal this year. I really do think that getting to know an author’s works from the beginning to the end allows a writer a chance to explore the creative process from the inside out. I’m looking forward to the chance to do that with Maupin!