I’ve got blogging on the brain, most likely because I’m conducting two different blogging workshops in the next few weeks leading up to the class I’m conducting in April and May. So this week’s list of links on creativity and writing I tweeted this week includes a blogging category, because I was tweeting those as well. So be it.
CREATIVITY
- “How to Be a Complete and Utter Creative Failure,”Dan Goodwin, A Big Creative Yes: It’s the same advice entrepreneurs give: Redefine what failure is, take ownership of falling short of your goals, and learn from it.
- “12 Simple Ways to Unleash More Creative Thinking,” Jeffrey Cufaude, Idea Architects: A common element of many of this is that we should break routine.
- “Brainstorming Addiction: How to Stop Dreaming and Start Doing,” Carla Young, MOMEO Magazine: #1: Shorten your timelines.
- “A Juggler’s Guide to Creating Time for Creativity,” Sue Mitchell, Your Muse is Calling: Are you a creative who does not wrestle with other obligations of life? Congratulations! Feel free to use that time to read every one of my previous blog posts. Enjoy!
WRITING
- “What Advice Would You Give to Someone About to Write a Novel,” Hunger Mountain: Advice from novelists Dorothy Allison, Charles Baxter, Connie May Fowler, Thomas Christopher Greene, Pam Houston, and Dani Shapiro.
- “Three Things That Happen When I Judge for a Contest,” Michelle Davidson Argyle, The Literary Lab: Her first criterion is what you find everywhere, from agents to editors to blog readers: “Judge the beginning.”
- “Prologues: Please Use Responsibly,” Roz Morris, Nail Your Novel: Are you providing value-added information, or an “info-dump for its own sake”?
- “How to Write Memoir? 1. Forget writing prompts and exercises. 2. Stake out your territory,” Marion Roach Smith, She Writes: No offense to those who write and/or use writing prompts, but as someone writing a travel memoir, I can attest that writing prompts are absolutely useless to me. (grumble)
BLOGGING
- “How do you Blog Part III: What Should You Blog About?” Anne R. Allen: One dilemma bloggers face: “There are already, like, a trillion writers out there lecturing the blogosphere about how to write vivid characters, prop up saggy middles and avoid adverbs. A lot of them probably know more than you.”
- “Please Don’t Blog Your Book: 4 Reasons Why,” Jane Friedman: Yes, some bloggers have seen their labor of love turn into a book. Jane explains the pitfalls of attempting that, including reason #2: “Blogs can make for very bad books.”
- “The Ultimate Guide to Guest Blogging,” KISSmetrics: A very lengthy post, but it begins with an excellent point: “Determine your guest blogging goals.”
Here’s a question for you, gentle reader. Which would you prefer from The Artist’s Road on Friday? A Creativity Tweets of the Week? Or a traditional blog post? I’ve done both in recent weeks, and am curious to see which provides more value to my readers. If you have an opinion, feel free to share it below!
The Artist's Road 
Thanks, as always, for linking to Hunger Mountain!-Kris
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You bet, Kris! It was a really valuable post.
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Thanks for the shout-out, Patrick! It’s always such a nice feeling to show up on your Tweets of the Week.
I’ve been enjoying Marion Roach Smith’s memoir series too and agree with her about the prompts once you’re ready to work toward completion. Prompts do have a place in the early stages, though, mostly to get people started and open the memory floodgates (one good memory leads to another). I don’t think they should be dismissed entirely, just used with an understanding of their purpose.
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I hear you on the prompts, and I know many people find them of value. They don’t really do much for me, memoir or not, but I’ve found them useful in a class as a way to experiment with a certain element of writing–scene, dialogue, etc. I think it’s all of those years of deadline journalism; I can start writing whenever I need to, and I don’t really worry if it will be any good or not at first.
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Yes, for an experienced writer, they’re probably just a way of stalling. 🙂
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Thanks a bunch for the shout-out. Really appreciate being included in this great list of links. I really enjoy these round-ups!
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I’m glad you enjoy them, Anne, and happy to include you.
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Great links as always!
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Thanks, Julie, I appreciate it! And I’m grateful for you making time to stop by; I see in your most recent blog post you visit about 1,000 blogs now! (Wow…)
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Thanks for the mention, Patrick!
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Always happy to, Roz!
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What? No one wants to answer? I’m it? I vote for the tweets. The links, even if you tend to forget the poets, are an invaluable resource.
You could consider something similar to what I do now and that is to lean more heavily towards one, but in a week where you have nothing, do the other. It’s difficult sometimes to have to come up with the same thing every week and you have a busy life.
m
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Thank you, Margo! A confession: I’m also testing to see if anyone actually reads the text at the top and bottom of these links round-ups. My suspicion is few do. That’s actually fine with me, but it’s good to know; if I need to communicate something important I’ll know that’s not a place to do it.
I think you’re right about leaning one way or the other. Sometimes this is easier when I’m busy (that was the case this week, I was slammed with freelance work), but sometimes a post is burning my brain, like last Friday, and I have to write it.
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I read stuff at the top of blogs I visit, but rarely at the bottom. Something you wrote must have caught my eye.
What you do is exactly what I do for my Thursday posts: I make announcements, note new sites, share something special, like an Atwood video on writing and tech, a mish mash. But, every now and then I have a topic I want to write on and that happens instead.
I’m glad you are sticking with us despite the busyness.
m
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Oops! I missed your question at the end of the post until Margo pointed it out. I vote for the tweets. And I vote for whatever makes life easier for you. If those two are the same thing, great. If not, heavy emphasis on the ease factor.
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Ah, Sue, but you’re thinking of me here, not you! I will take as a vote for what works for YOU the tweets. But I’m grateful for your thoughtfulness!
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I love your links on Fridays. But it’s okay to change it up once in a while! Keeps your readers on their toes.
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I like this, Kathleen: “But it’s okay to change it up once in a while! Keeps your readers on their toes.” Great advice for any writer in any form, methinks! 🙂
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I enjoy your posts, Patrick, and also appreciate the Friday links. I don’t always catch all your tweets throughout the week, and you always seem to find the good stuff. So my vote is to keep the Friday tweets.
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Thanks, Jessica! I appreciate that feedback.
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I’m with Jessica on this one. Up for keeping the Friday links! I don’t always get to read the tweets, since my work involves moving and traveling to a lot of places where there’s no Internet. Keep up the good work, regardless you take my advice or not.
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Hi Sandra, thanks for the feedback! I understand not catching tweets, I’ve found myself pretty busy the past month and haven’t been able to see nearly as many tweets of the folks I follow as I’d like. This is very helpful.
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I’m a bit late in getting to this, but great collection of info, as always, Patrick. It’ll keep me busy reading for awhile.
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Thanks, Charlotte. The Creativity Tweets of the Week may have a “born-on” date, but there’s no expiration date! 🙂
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