Pain is Tuition for Compassion, Fear is Tuition for Bravery A Sufi adage tells us, “Pain is the tuition for compassion.” Until you’ve experienced deep pain yourself, you are incapable of the compassion that calls forth the best parts of human beings and allows us to connect heart to heart, deep below the surface of … More Learn to Be Brave, Not Blocked
Every once in a while, I meet former students and we chat about their writing. A few months back, one woman told me she’ll always remember what I said in class years ago. “What was that?” I’m always curious about what bit of wisdom or nonsense filtered through my mind, came out of my mouth, … More Maybe You Don’t have Writer’s Block: Maybe Writing Is Just Hard
Process is a best-seller! The new craze of adults coloring with crayons and markers offers the added bonus of reducing resistance and releasing creativity. Coloring, my favorite way to do Process, was the topic of a New York Times article announcing that millions of adults around the world are getting out their crayons to color … More Bust Writer’s Block with the Adult Coloring Craze
You might encouraged and happy to know there are long stretches of working on a big writing project when all is calm, all is bright. … More New Book Update: Novel Revision Is in the Ballpark
What do you think? Did I and my fellow presenters nail our TEDx Talks? Find all ten presentations on TEDx Mahtomedi’s website and let me know which are your favorites. My mission was to explain why letting your mind wander free-range without agenda or distractions is essential to creativity, how the proliferation of ever-present electronic … More Why Not Let Your Mind Wander? TEDx Talk
The old saying “Ready, set, go!” is the wrong order for writers who want to track their way out of resistance and into satisfaction and success. You need to Set (your intentions), Ready (the resources) and Go (track yourself). Set Your Intentions! They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but the … More Set, Ready, Go! More Tricks of Tracking Your Writing
Years ago, I took a risk with students in my Writing Habit class. I gave them a simple table to track what they do for Process, Product Time and Self-care (the three habits that are the bedrock of this class and my own writing practice). Here’s the risky part: I also gave them a sheet … More Writing Students Score Success with Stars (and Other Tricks to Track Your Writing)
Do you track what you do for your writing projects? If you do, that’s great! But it’s even more important to track what you don’t do! You need to track your writing progress even on the days you don’t show up. Especially on the days you don’t show up. If you track only the days … More You Don’t Have to Write Everyday, But You Do Have to Track Everyday
“Part of what helps me stick with my writing is the chance to reset my commitments every week when I check-in with my writing buddies. If I fall off the wagon (in other words if I don’t do everything I committed to doing), I get back much sooner. It’s easier to get back into the … More Auto-Correct Writer’s Block with Weekly Check-ins
In my last post, I observed that being at a writer’s conference “…in the presence of other people who are passionate about writing and committed to their craft is exciting, energizing, inspiring and thought-provoking. It is also fraught with opportunities for your Saboteur to crash the party.” (For the most complete info about the Saboteur, … More After the Writer’s Conference #AWP2015: The Beast Beneath the Good Stuff
Bane of Your Resistance 