The New Year is almost here, and I'm sure we all can't wait to put 2020 behind us. This seems a good time to remind you that if you want to keep reading insights on creativity, writing, and living an art-committed life, you'll want to sign up for the Art-Committed Life newsletter. Published approximately monthly, …
Continue reading Catch Up On The Art-Committed Life Newsletter!
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 …
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 …
Continue reading My Subconscious: This Creative Writer’s Best Friend
So the retreat to the Mojave Desert paid off, and I've now officially completed the first draft of my novel-in-progress. I started outlining the story this summer, and it has evolved significantly from first doodles to 110,000-word draft. As a published author and professional writer, I know the most important step is yet to come: …
Continue reading Three Lessons I Learned While Writing a Novel First Draft
I'm back! It's been a bit more than three years since I last posted to The Artist's Road. I launched the blog in 2010 to chart a path that I had set for myself to return to an art-committed life. Over the next five years I earned an MFA, won a few creative writing awards, …
That's the mission of the creativity workshop I'm conducting on Saturday, March 21st, at the Florida Creativity Weekend in Sarasota, Florida. "Putting Your Whole Brain to Work" will be an 90-minute interactive session with games, storytelling, and of course a whiteboard. Here's the teaser on the conference's website: Does your creative process involve your right and …
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 …
Continue reading Is Creativity Best Fostered Alone, in Pairs, or in Groups?
Looking for a little creativity recharge as 2014 winds to a close? Not looking to have to open that pocketbook one more time this holiday season? Please enjoy this collection of creativity and creative-craft posts I have written for others during my blog tour for Committed: A Memoir of the Artist's Road. Let's learn from creatives: Committed features …
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 …
Using marijuana will almost certainly give you the munchies, but it will likely not give your brain a creative boost. So say researchers in an article in the journal Psychopharmacology as reported by Men's Fitness. I'm not surprised by this. Creative types for millennia have claimed mind-altering substances from cocaine to alcohol served them as muses; more commonly …
Continue reading Want to Think Creatively? Put Down the Joint
The Artist's Road 