Starting Your Book with Process Notebook from Rose Press

Since 2006, Creativity Portal has enjoyed sharing author and writing coach Naomi Roses' Writing from the Deeper Self approach with readers.

This organic approach to writing helps people with an inner-directed focus write the books of their hearts in a gentle, listening way to bring forth what's within onto the page, without pushing or forcing anything.

Continuing in this tradition, we're pleased to announce an exclusive offer in partnership with Rose Press to Creativity Portal readers who purchase the print or e-book editions of Naomi Roses' Starting Your Book: A Guide to Navigating the Blank Page by Attending to What's Inside You through our Web site. Read more »

Ring of Truth Writing and Editing

By Ralph Dranow

The foundation of strong writing is the ring of truth, writing that comes from a deep place inside and taps into universal feelings and experiences. Readers from all backgrounds will be able to relate to this kind of writing.

So if you’ve achieved this, it’s a great start, but your writing might still feel incomplete, because it’s not saying most effectively what you would like it to say. Perhaps you’ve worked hard on your piece and reached your limit with it. That’s where good editing can come in. It can take the rough raw material of your writing and polish it into something that feels just right, perhaps even beautiful and moving. Read more »

Flavours of Thought Recipe 12: Handling Guilt

By Tom Evans

Guilt can have the ability to debilitate and trip you up when things are going well. When you begin to savour the simplicity and efficacy of these recipes, life will suddenly become easier for you. People will make comment and they may even become jealous. This could stir guilt up in you.

Many belief systems teach us that life has to be hard. This is a message from false gods of man’s making designed for purposes of control.

So collect your wits when guilt appears. Nobody else can breathe for you, love for you or think for you. If life is going well for you, so long as it is not at the expense of others, there is no need for guilt.

Scuba divers are taught to breathe their own air first before sharing it with others.

This is the revolution required in our thinking. Do not be guilty in breathing and loving your life just before others. Read more »

Not Just a Number

By Peter Clothier

An idea came to me this morning during the half-hour meditation that is my daily practice. I know I’m not supposed to be thinking while I meditate but sometimes — okay, often! always! — the thoughts do come and my mind goes chasing off after them. So it happened this morning. The idea that came turned out to be a delicious one, and I was unable to let it go.

Here’s the thread: For nearly two years now my writing mind has been preoccupied with the book I published early last year, Persist: In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad with Commerce. For a good few months before the publication I was busy assembling this collection of essays that spans some thirty years of observations about art and artists, writers, and others whose lives are devoted to creative work. In the time since publication I have been almost exclusively engaged in doing what any author is obliged to do with the outcome of his work: making it known to the rest of the world. I have been writing about Persist, speaking about Persist, social-networking about Persist. Persisting is after all what the book is about. All of which has been good and proper, and I have enjoyed the trip. But in the past few weeks I have been feeling that old itch to set off in search of something new. Read more »

How to Creatively Transform Tragedy, Loss or Change

By Ronald Alexander

Step One: Letting Go of the Past and Resistance. The art of creative transformation begins with the willingness to be mindful of your hidden resistance to making a change, examining it, and breaking it down so that you can sweep it away like sand on a doorstep. If unwanted change has occurred, you’re likely to become angry or upset, and struggle to regain what’s been lost. You might find yourself closing your eyes to any other avenues available to you, obsessing about the past and trying to reclaim what was once yours. This resistance blocks you from recognizing that what lies ahead for you might actually make you happier than you’ve ever been.

If all signs point to the need for change, it’s important not to deny them and cling to the status quo even as it’s slipping away. Instead explore your own resistance to change and let go of all that’s holding you back, so that you can be in open mind and accept, and even embrace, the impermanent nature of life. Then you can stop feeling like the victim of circumstances and begin to see that you, too, can transform yourself and your life in a positive and exciting way. Read more »