Advice for Writers
By Deborah Herman
If you have decided to pursue writing as a career instead of as a longing or a dream, you might find yourself focusing on the goal instead of the process. When you have a great book idea, you may envision yourself on a book-signing tour or as a guest on a talk show before you've written a single word. It's human nature to look into your own future, but too much projection can get in the way of what the writing experience is all about. The process of writing is like a wondrous journey that can help you cross a bridge to the treasures hidden within your own soul. It is a way for you to link with God and the collective storehouse of all wisdom and truth, as it has existed since the beginning of time.
Author Interviews
By New World Library
Through her years teaching writing at UCLA Extension, Barbara Abercrombie has heard repeatedly that writing is painful, scary, even dangerous. In this Q&A, Barbara discusses what dangerous writing means, why it's important, and how Writing Dangerously is different from other books on creative writing. She notes, "It's important to write our stories, no matter how hard it might be. No one can tell your story the way you can. And each story is unique and precious and needs to be told."
Writing Spotlight
Cheryl Pallant is the author of Writing and the Body in Motion: Awakening Voice through Somatic Practice and other books in nonfiction, memoir, and poetry. An award-winning writer who focuses on writing, embodiment, consciousness, and dance, she is also a somatic and writing coach, energy healer, dancer, and teacher. She inspires writers and creatives through her popular Writing From the Body workshops and offers insights through a Q&A and wisdom in this engaging series based on Writing and the Body in Motion: Moving Into Writing and Sensate Awareness, Resonant Writing as Somatic Path, and Synergetic Awareness in Somatic Writing.
Advice for Writers
By Jeff Herman
Established literary agencies are inundated with unsolicited query letters (both hardcopy and digital), proposals, pieces of manuscripts, and entire manuscripts. This stream of relentless intake easily runs from 50 to 150 uninvited submissions per week, depending on how visible the agency in question is to the world of writers at large. These numbers do not account for the many works that the agency has requested or was expecting from existing clients. Frankly, many successful agents are simply not hungry for more than what they already have and make efforts to be as invisible and unavailable as possible.
DaVinci's Genius Habits
By Linda Dessau
Davinci's Dimostrazione is about learning from our mistakes. It's about being willing to be right in the moment of an experience, and to challenge long-standing beliefs and opinions in favour of what you're actually experiencing. You know you're truly living in the present moment when you're lost in what you're doing, when time passes without you noticing, when you're in a trance-like state of concentration or when you're completely immersed in concentration on your task.
Guided Imagery
By Molly Childers & Chris Dunmire
Your work, your every idea, is significant, for only you can bring your unique perspective to life. This guided meditation will free your inner muse through a Milkyway Marbles Meditation and sowing seeds in the Garden of your heart.
Art of the Song
By Eric Maisel, PhD
Several years ago I received word that I'd come in second in a prestigious national novel-writing competition. Coming in second in a national novel-writing competition is like coming in second in major league sports. You're a loser. Isn't that the way our culture thinks? Isn't that the way we ourselves think? Of course, we can reframe the matter and say "I came so far" or "I came this close." Still, when all is said and done, people who do not come in first feel like losers.
The Nine Modern Day Muses
By Jill Badonsky, MEd
Albert is the Modern Day Muse of Innovation and Imagination. His powers range from encouraging us to break the rules to embodying a different persona in order to experience a more creative perspective. These tools can dull writing into irresistible prose, a relationship suffering from routine into one rich with novelty, or an unexciting business plan to one thriving in distinction. When I plan workshops, it is this Muse's creative concepts I call upon the most because they easily lend themselves to quick applications for creative success.
Creativity & Inspiration
By Tom Evans
Most people never give their thoughts a second thought. This is a shame as what you think and how you are thinking fundamentally affects the world around you. Just imagine if your day could be full of brilliant ideas and inspirations that made you healthier, wealthier and wiser. For most people, life just gets in the way of even contemplating that this could happen. Our thoughts are consumed by getting the kids to school, 'imagining' a confrontation with someone at work or worrying about how to make ends meet. This series will take you through a process of how to change the way you think so your mind works to your advantage and you are not a slave to your thoughts.
Autumn Writing Prompts
By Chris Dunmire
Going back to school. Harvest time. Colorful falling leaves. Corn mazes, acorns, pumpkins, scarecrows, Halloween and Thanksgiving. In the Midwest, Autumn is the time of the year when cooler temperatures sweep in over summer's waning heat and the growing season comes to full fruition before winding down to dormancy. Fall officially begins in September and runs through October, November, and into December, when the seasonal change next morphs into winter. Inject some seasonal inspiration into your creative writing with these fall-themed writing prompts, photos, and printable projects and reflect on the meaning of the season to capture the transforming magic in the air for this colorful, transitioning space in the year.
Freeing the Writer Within
By Natalie Goldberg
I have not seen writing lead to happiness in my friends' lives. I'm sorry to say this, I, who just fifteen years ago published a book telling everyone to grab their notebooks and write their asses off. No high like it, I said. I meant it — and it was true. Now I'm past fifty, and I have given everything to writing, the way a Zen master watches her breath and burns through distraction. Was I a fool to do this? Did I choose the wrong path? I once told my great teacher Katagiri Roshi, "If I put the effort into zazen that I put into writing, I'd be sitting where you are." "Yes, yes," he beamed.
Art Perspectives
By Whitney Freya
The principles of design are not the result of a panel of art academics who felt the need to create more rules. The principles of design are the language of our mind's eye, how we visually analyze everything we see. They have been used by artists for centuries to create paintings that successfully communicate their heart's desire, the natural beauty of a landscape, the spirit of a portrait, or the innate element of objects in a still life. Now you are going to learn how to use them. The principles of design are interwoven throughout our lives because we process so much of our world and our life visually.
Inner Voices of Creativity
By Anne Marie Bennett
What does your Inner Creative Child look like? Is he/she getting enough healthy doses of creativity? What kind of voice does your Inner Creative Child use when it's content? How does he/she try to get your attention? What would your week look like if you were committed to satisfying your Inner Creative Child's need for self-expression?
Fostering Creativity
By Abby Connors
Nurturing young children's creativity is a big job, and we can't do it alone. Fortunately, we have cleverly written stories with gorgeous illustrations, recordings of beautiful and exciting music, and all kinds of props and costumes to help us stir children's imaginations. And for me, the most powerful partners in promoting creative thinking are my fabulous, tireless puppet friends.
Juicy Journal & Wild Words
By Molly J. Anderson-Childers
If you're already journaling about your life, you may harbor dreams of writing professionally one day — I know that's where I started! Or maybe you're an experienced writer, interested in going deeper into your work, further along the writer's path. No matter where you are in your journey, a writer's notebook is an invaluable tool, every step of the way. What's the difference between a journal and a writer's notebook? They're as different as apples and zebras!
Creative Projects
By Ernestina Gallina
This engaging series of rock painting tutorials will teach you how to transform smooth river stones into unique works of art. Once you understand the fundamentals of rock painting, you can use your imagination to design your own creations with endless possibilities! Step by step rock painting lessons include: Cute Love Bugs, Basket of Pansies, Messages and Quotes Written in Stone, and Painted Desert Cactus in Flower Planter.
Dreaming the Soul Back Home
By Robert Moss
Of all the guides and mentors that may become available to us in a lifetime, the most important may well be one that we often fail to recognize, either because we lose connection and forget that it exists, or because we mistake it for something else. This is a friend of the soul that will never lie to us and will never judge us. It is no stranger. It is not a deity or spirit outside our own being. It is the Self on a higher level than the ordinary self. It is the face the Greater Self shows us when we are willing to look at it.
Creative Writing Prompts
By Bonnie Neubauer
The touches of slang or lingo added to your dialogue and narrative to make your writing sound more realistic. Here’s a chance to try your hand at some Lingo-istics. Write a thirty-second radio commercial to sell a remedy for writer’s block. Make sure you use lots of writer’s lingo to show that you understand the craft and can relate to the challenges your audience is facing. Write a commercial that would make you want to buy the remedy, too. If you ever find yourself faced with a bit of a block, pull out this commercial and "sell" yourself the remedy.
Premiums and Printables
By Chris Dunmire
Halloween Tricks & Treats for Teachers contains a celebratory assortment of playful projects, ponderable puzzles, and printable pranks to use in the classroom with students during Halloween week to inspire creative thinking, art, and writing. Features: Fake Scare-Rots Seed Packet, How to Draw a Cartoony Pumpkin, The World's Hardest Halloween Word Search Puzzle, Vumpire Teeth word play, Pumpkin Patch Kit, and Pumpkin Poetry Story Book prompt, and more.