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How Does Your Creative Work Benefit Your Kids?
Do you feel guilty working on your creative hobbies because it takes time away from family time? You shouldn’t! It’s important to recognize that while your creative work gives you enjoyment it also sets a great example for your kids. Here are a few benefits I have noticed in my own creative life. You are Modeling an Active Hobby In the age of screen time, sometimes it’s hard to compete with Netflix or video games. When a parent picks up a paint brush or starts carving wood, kids see other options for free time activities. They will see you put your Google News down and fully engage in something just…
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Want to Write Better? Try Painting.
Writing Feeds on Other Types of Creativity I am the type of person who likes to do all kinds of creative activities. Writing is just one of those things. Sometimes you hear that if you dabble in many different types of things, you will never become very good at any of them. Jack of all trades, master of none, right? In some sense, it’s probably true. I know for sure I’m never going to be a concert pianist because I haven’t put in the hours and focus and I never will. Can’t I just get serious about one thing? Sometimes I wonder if I would be better off focusing on…
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Why do I Hate What I Create Sometimes?
Ira Glass on the Gap Between Taste and Skill You started making things because you love pottery or painting or writing so much. When you’re done, you look at what you made and sometimes all you can feel is disappointed. “Why do my pieces suck so bad?” you say as you look at your painting with your head cocked sideways. It takes all that is within you not to delete your fledgling manuscript and just give up. Ira Glass gave some advice about this phenomenon targeted to beginners during an interview. He starts off by describing the feeling of disappointment people starting out feel from time to time. Nobody tells…
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Three Fabulous Books on Creativity
Fire up your spark! When I am looking for fresh creative motivation, I often read or listen to books about creativity to get me fired up about the creative process. I’ve read dozens of dozens of books on the topic, and here are my three favorites: Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon This book is the type of thing you would stuff in your artistic friend’s stocking for Christmas. It’s small and a quick read and it has lots of visuals. When you “steal like an artist,” you start by studying the great masters and incorporating the elements into your own work. The good kind of stealing helps you…
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Book Review: Save the Cat! Writes a Novel
I have been playing around with writing fiction for the first time in a long time. A fantasy story about elves has been playing around in my head for years. I sketched some character descriptions and tried writing few scenes in the past but it’s never gone anywhere. I decided to invest in Save the Cat! Writes a Novel because I have heard it recommended many different times to help in plotting out a novel. I’ve written out short stories before, but nothing recently and I have never written anything that comes close to the length of a novel. What if I’m too much of a beginner to benefit from…
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Make it Portable – Creativity on the Go
I have been trying to write more for years now. I have notebooks, a binder, and a laptop. I write my morning pages in a paper notebook long hand everyday. I write many first drafts in my writing binder. I also use my laptop for second drafts or for typing out first drafts. Writing First Drafts My current writing project is my first attempt at writing a novel. I try to write a little in the morning before work and a little at bedtime. I started out by planning and drafting long hand in my writing binder, but as the story started moving along well, I found it more efficient…
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Seeing in a New Way
In my creative life, I dabble in a lot of things. Recently, I have been spending time working on collage and painting in my art journal. I’ve also been working on creative fiction writing for the first time in a long time. Both of these types of creative work feed off each other and I’ve noticed they change the way I look at life. Visual Arts: Learning how to see As I practice sketching and painting, I have been starting to look at forms and shading in new ways. The deep looking you need to do to draw or paint a figure trains your eyes in a way that carries…
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How Can I Track and Reinforce my Creative Habits?
Tracking Word Count Recently, I have been writing more frequently. I have been finding a lot of joy in tracking my word count as a measure of what I have written. There are a lot of versions of habit trackers out there. I drew one myself by sketching a picture of a tree and chopping it into boxes. I counted by 100 words for each box and I color in how much I have written. My goal was to write 10% more than what I wrote in 2020 and I blew that goal out of the water. There are probably prettier ways or more exact ways to track word count,…
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Daily Creative Habits: Vote for Who You Want to Be
I was listening to Brene Brown’s Dare to Lead podcast interviewing James Clear, author of Atomic Habits. His book talks about habit formation and he suggests we start by envisioning the type of person we want to be. For example, if you want to eat healthier, instead of focusing on the diet plan you want, he would suggest envisioning a healthy person. When you go into a restaurant and look at the menu, the prompt to yourself would be “What would a healthy person order for lunch?” This type of question will help you drill down to the types of daily choices that person would make. Habits are a vote…
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Book Review: Draw Your Day
At the end of the summer, I was on a quest to read a stack of books on creativity and review them. The book Draw Your Day by Samantha Dion Baker was my favorite book so far. I liked the cover art and the idea of drawing everyday objects. Inside the book, she talks about how to begin an art journal and the types of supplies you might need. She also talks about where to look for inspiration. For me, the spark came from her artistic style. She uses permanant pen with watercolor and it was truly a breakthough for me. I used the supply suggestions from her chapter on…