Despite the militaristic metaphors found in The War of Art and similar books,...
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Rescuing My “Early Drafts” Project from a Postponement Loop: Step 1 Pull a Rabbit Out of My Hat
In a previous post, I promised to reveal my writing process as I move my idea about “Early Drafts vs. Shitty First Drafts” out of a Postponement Loop into a finished piece. Here’s my messy first step in pulling this rabbit out of my hat. In the past few weeks, I spent several nights exploring […]
Seven Things I Learned Through Process Play: Guest Post by Catherine Brennan
I met Catherine Brennan in one of my Loft classes. Her first reaction to Process (play for the sake of play) was a mix of anxiety and enthusiasm. As she played around with the idea of playing around to support her writing, she found creative play expanded her writing and her life as a writer […]
How to Rescue Your Lost Writing From Postponement Loops
For several years, I’ve had what I think is an excellent theory about why we shouldn’t call our early drafts shitty and what we should call them instead. Every time one of my students mentioned Anne Lamont’s “shitty first drafts,” I’d explain my theory and remember I want to write a blog post about it. […]
Your Best Writing Lies Beyond Certainty
Creativity is born in uncertainty. It’s a grand Easter egg hunt – the more you search, the more possibilities you explore, the better your chances of finding the best solution. Your challenge is that even if you may be consciously willing to keep looking, your brain isn’t. Too Efficient For Our Own Good Sometimes Because […]
Embrace Uncertainty and Reject Writing Resistance
If you ever put off writing because you didn’t know how to start, you know how intimidating the unknown is. We think we’re supposed to know what we’re going to write before we write it. It’s not the uncertainty that stops us; it’s our fear of uncertainty. There’s this myth that knowledge is power. That […]
Standing In Your Truth: Guest Post by Donna Alward
When Donna Alward contacted me about giving a presentation to the Romance Writers of America Professional Author’s Network about writer’s burnout and the brain, she mentioned her own experience with burnout. She shares her courageous acknowledgement and insights in this rewrite of a post originally published on her blog. Donna is the author of over […]
500 Days of Not Writing and How to Start Again: Guest Post by Joel D Canfield
When I retired as a creativity coach, I started looking for alternatives. So I am particularly pleased to tell you about a new resource offered by Joel D Canfield. You may remember Joel from previous guest posts, his blog SomedayBox.com or one of his 18 books. Joel created a forum to help writers and artists […]
When Mental Clutter Limits Your Writing, Clearing Your Mind Takes New Meaning
If you feel scattered and find it difficult to focus your attention on your writing, you’re not alone, not weird, not wrong. You’re probably suffering from mental clutter. Your brain is filled with too many things to think about, remember, ponder, take action on. You’re struggling to make sense of a cacophony of demands on […]
Pulling Out of the Writer’s Stress Spiral of Death
My last post explained how chronic stress rewires the brain to make the limbic system more reactive and the cortex less active. The more stress we feel, the more we react from the limbic system, the more we rely on the limbic system, the less creative we can be and more stressed we feel. How […]
Are You Spinning In a Stress Spiral of Death?
Okay, that’s a bit dramatic; let’s make that the stress spiral of creative death. What Do Writers Have to Stress About? As writers, we have plenty to stress about: the craft challenges of writing effectively, our fears of rejection, the vulnerability writing requires, accepting the uncertainty that is a necessary part of creativity. As if […]
