I’m shaking things up this week with The Artist’s Road’s collection of the best links on creativity and writing I sent on Twitter and Facebook. I’ve come to realize I tweet the same topics I write about. Shocking, I know. So this week I’m including after each link a separate link to a blog post I have written that is similar. Now I’ve cursed you with twice the links with which to waste away a day, or a long weekend at the beach.

CREATIVITY

• “Can Creativity be Taught?” August Turak, Forbes: I think I know how the many creativity coaches who read this blog would respond. I like this passage: “[W]e don’t learn to be creative. We must become creative people.” (Related: The Zen of Teaching Creativity)

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  “How to Manage for Creativity,” Steve Minter, Industry Week: I want to show this post to my teenage children — he destroys the myth surrounding the power of multitasking. (Related: Allowing Time for Creativity)

• “State of Flow,” Melissa Crytzer-Fry, What I Saw: For writers and all creatives, Melissa provides 9 steps for harnessing your creative flow, and frames the post around pictures of the striking place I grew up, the Sonoran Desert. (Related: 5 Steps to Subconscious-Driven Creativity)
• “55 Insights into Creativity, Beliefs and Leadership,” compiled by Deborah Connolly, Creative Leadership Coaching: A collection of inspiring quotes, from an eclectic mix of sources. Imagine hitting a hooka bar and finding reclined on the pillows Muhammad Ali, Pablo Picasso, Sigmund Freud, and Buddha. (Related: Um, none, I’ve never compiled a quote list.)

WRITING

• “Are You a Confident Writer?” Robert Lee Brewer, My Name is Not Bob: Market yourself as a writer with a combination of confidence and humility. Heck, I think that’s how one should approach life. (Related: 7 Steps to Writing Success)

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  “Kathryn Stockett’s ‘The Help’ Turned Down 60 Times Before Becoming a Best Seller,” Kathryn Stockett, MORE: These inspiring posts seem as common online as do those Facebook ads promoting someone who lost 60 pounds, but we know these stories are true. (Related post updated 5/25 with very good news: Celebrating Rejection)

• “A Closer Look: Studying Books You Love,” Ann Meier, guest post on The Other Side of the Story: Ann walks us through her dissection of her prose when she compares it to a favorite novel. (Related: Three Authors Every Writer Should Read)
• “Are MFA Programs Ruining American fiction?” Laura Miller, Salon: The latest look at an ongoing debate in which subjective opinions on each side are presented as objective. Sorry, my own analysis slipped in there. (Related: The Short-Order Writer)

This is the last Tweets of the Week before Memorial Day here in the U.S., but looking at the color scheme I’ve got going above, I feel like the next holiday should be the 4th of July.