I’ll start with a caveat: Be cautious regarding advice on how to cope during a global pandemic. Unless the individual lived through the 1918 Spanish flu, he or she has as much experience with the current situation as you or I. That said, some advice out there is not only misleading but possibly dangerous. I’m …
Category: Inspiration
My Subconscious: This Creative Writer’s Best Friend
I've written before about how our subconscious minds play a critical role in our creative process. That breakthrough insight you received recently in the shower? That was your subconscious, taking advantage of the fact that you were free from distraction (including our everpresent smartphones). For the past quarter-century or so, I've proactively asked my subconscious …
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Giving Yourself Permission to Write
Many of my Twitter peeps are deep into #NaNoWriMo right now, this masochistic movement every November where writers produce a full first draft of a novel in 30 days. I'm exhausted just writing that sentence. While I've been an on-and-off creative writer for nearly three decades now, I've never participated in NaNoWriMo. Part of it …
Using Your Subconscious as a Ghostwriter
As I've discussed my return to creative writing with others, I'm frequently asked if it's hard to get back into the groove. No, I respond, because I have a ghostwriter who does the hard work of plotting, scene construction, character development, and revision. I simply take dictation. The process I'm referring to is tapping into …
Meet 3 Impressive Fiction Writers Inspiring Me to Return to Writing
"Writing a novel is like having a baby," writes National Book Award finalist Kim Addonizio in Bukowski in a Sundress: Confessions from a Writing Life. I have never personally given birth, but I am a father of two. With both pregnancies my wife and I refrained for some time before sharing the news with others. There's that …
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5 Traits of Creativity Geeks
The timing was perfect: Mere days before leading a workshop on creative thinking at the Florida Creativity Weekend, my memoir Committed was named to a list of "40 Books to Unlock Your Creativity and Get You Started on Your Life's Best Work." I arrived in Sarasota, Florida, feeling I belonged. And that was important, because …
Is Creativity Best Fostered Alone, in Pairs, or in Groups?
Collaborative teams spark the most powerful creativity. So Walter Isaacson tells us, repeatedly, in The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. The power of teams was true in any form, whether it was like minds coming together through common interest, such as MIT's legendary Tech Model Railroad Club; government-funded corporate research …
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An Author Interview on Creative Inspiration and the Writing Craft
I'm honored to have been interviewed by memoir author Kathleen Pooler on her excellent website/blog, Memoir Writer's Journey. I guess I got a bit carried away in my answers to her questions, because she's having to break up the interview into two parts. The first--a discussion of creative insights and inspirations, largely--is now live. The …
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Creative Wisdom from COMMITTED Creatives
Long before Committed: A Memoir of the Artist's Road was published, I had been sharing wisdom on the creative process I learned from artists interviewed on my 2010 cross-country road trip here on this blog. Now I've distilled five of them for a guest post on The Loft Literary Center's Writer's Block blog. Those who have read Committed …
When Great Inventors Encourage Future Innovators
I knew when attending the White House ceremony for the latest class of National Medal of Technology and Innovation (NMTI) winners a week before Thanksgiving that I would have to blog on the experience. A logical narrative line to craft would have been the dramatic overlap in creative approaches pursued by NMTI awardees and the varied …
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The Artist's Road 