A handful of creative works — paintings, musical works, writings, etc. — survive long after the creative has passed. Will your work fall in to that camp? To be quite blunt, I have not produced any creative work of that magnitude. But it's been on my mind since I heard the great composer and film …
Month: March 2011
A Gift to My Muse
When was the last time you gave your creative muse a solid week of your time? I don't believe I ever had before last week. But there I was, spending 7 hours a day at The Writer's Center in Maryland, participating in what the instructor labeled a "writing staycation." As in a "staycation," we went …
Creativity Tweets of the Week — 3/25/11
The links below on creativity, inspiration and writing that I tweeted this week take us around the world. Our international stops include England, Sweden, Italy and Australia, and our U.S. destinations are Vermont, California, Idaho, Texas and Nebraska. That is where our nine bloggers reside, but here at The Artist's Road they are part of …
The Sword and the Pen
"The incubation process of thought sometimes takes awhile to ferment... I'm always at work, 24-7, in my head." That nugget of wisdom, shared with me by Vermont illustrator Adam Glazer on my cross-country U.S. road trip, should strike a chord with many creatives. (A short video interview with him is below.) But while creatives all …
The Short-Order Writer
Can a grill cook become a master chef? Can a short-order writer aspire to more as well? I spent a summer in college working as a short-order cook, which taught me how to operate in auto-pilot. There's no time for reflection when you face a row of clipped order tickets from cranky waitresses knowing their …
Creativity Tweets of the Week – 03/18/11
For the sixth straight day today, the sun was an hour late for its sunrise. Congress can say that our clocks should leap forward, but my biological clock remains confused by the fact that it has gone from bright to dark at the hour I wake up. Despite my grumpiness at the sun and at …
The Birth of a Novel
Today we're featuring a guest post from Ann Simon, who like me is a writer in Northern Virginia. Below she shares with us her story of turning the quiet hours of an ex-pat experience into a novel, Jaguar Sees: The Lacquer Box. Every now and then, life bestows a free and beautiful gift. It arrives …
What Will You Write?
"What will you write?" A simple question, inviting a simple answer. It was a question I heard dozens of times during the last few months of 2010, after friends and colleagues learned of my decision to step down from my full-time job and become a full-time freelance writer. My answer was never simple. It was, …
Creativity Tweets of the Week – 03/11/11
As I write this on Thursday afternoon, dark, rain-filled clouds are telling me to take a nap. Instead I'm taking eight of the best tweets I sent this week on creativity and writing and sharing them with you. I accept payment in cash or bacon. CREATIVITY "The Creative Personality: Ten paradoxical traits of the creative …
How To Annoy Friends and Alienate People
ALERT: This is not just another post about "How to Use Twitter." A few months before I joined Twitter I attended a panel discussion on social media. A self-described Twitter expert was filling in us novices on this magical pixie dust technology. He talked about how to schedule tweets and use tweet-management software. Yet he …
The Artist's Road 