Tag: creativity

Technology Addiction: Five Steps to Unplug from the Digital World and Get Back to Writing

cut out technology and get back to writingAre you addicted? Did it start long ago with your “Crackberry?” You remember, people were running around with a “Blackberry” glued to their face. It was email — 24/7.

We had no idea what was coming.

Now it’s the smartphone — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, email. Everything demands our attention. And, it’s not just our mobile device. You sit typing away at the laptop or desktop and you’re looking for that opportunity to check your email or look at updates on Facebook.

How do you know if you are addicted? Continue reading “Technology Addiction: Five Steps to Unplug from the Digital World and Get Back to Writing”

The Artist Date: Resuscitating Your Writer’s Mojo

get your writing mojo back courtesy of pixabay woman-591576_640After I finished grad school, I took some time off from writing. Okay, I took a number of years off. I was discouraged that I hadn’t gotten a publishing contract right away. I couldn’t even sell a short story. So I gave up and put everything away, and concentrated on raising my kids.

I don’t know how many of you have stepped away from your passion for any length of time. But it started to grate on me. I knew I needed to start writing again, but I felt as if I needed a jump start. So one summer when the kids spent a number of weeks with their father, I committed to working through The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. It’s a twelve-week, self-guided course designed to help stuck creative-types get their mojo back. The original book was published in 1992, and it’s spawned a number of spin-off publications, from workbooks to journals to flash cards. Continue reading “The Artist Date: Resuscitating Your Writer’s Mojo”

The Power of Creativity

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Photo by Melissa Bowersock

I have often felt that creativity is an archetypal upwelling that is so intrinsic to human nature as to make it a universal truth. I believe it is so pervasive and so deep-seated that, like love, it exists and permeates all cultures around the globe without exception. And, because it is so mysterious and unruly and because it produces ideas of such unfathomable complexity and beauty, it is also powerful. It is a force that the ancients could only partially grasp and therefore it was relegated to the nature of god.

A recent article on Scientific American discussed the nature of creativity and really got my neurons firing. I thought it was really interesting to see their round-up of various thinkers and philosophers and their views on what creativity is and where it comes from. Continue reading “The Power of Creativity”

The Changing Face of Writing

One or two fairly recent posts at Indies Unlimited prompted me to look at this particular subject.

“Wow!” is my first reaction as I look around. There is so much software out there to ‘help you organise your writing skills’, as they put it. I really did try to view it all with an open mind.

After all, did I not move on from my original method of production: writing it in long hand (à la Will Shakespeare), reading into a Dictaphone and then transcribing my work using an old manual, clunk-a-clunk typewriter, which was then superseded by the latest electrical variety; and then the ultimate magical world of PC’s came along and voila! The wonders of Word processing and the capacity to process words in any old fashion that takes your fancy… brilliant! But apparently that too is old hat now! Continue reading “The Changing Face of Writing”