Creative Blog Profiles Archives

Piper Flint Reminds Us One Word Can Change Thoughts and Emotions

[In this series, Creative Blog Profiles, joshpcreative.com takes a peek at what other creative bloggers are producing and profiles them here. They don’t necessarily know it’s happening (although we do the pingback/trackback where we can), so we’re prepared to remove an entry if they get mad. Hopefully they won’t. We just want to find creative stuff to tell you about.]

Rolling through blogs this morning, I parked my eyes at a post about a simple way to help children feel better about themselves. The stop? “Piper Flint – Jolie and Piper’s Writing.” The simple post is only about 70 words, and it has a great idea for a way to inspire kids (and adults!). It’s a colorful block with the words, “I am…” When you are feeling down, you’re supposed to write a word on it that completes the sentence and inspires you and brings a feeling of love. So, if you write “happy,” it would then say, “I am…happy.” Check out the post here.

Aside from the great UX of the post (short, sweet, and self-explanatory), it provides a valuable reminder as we cruise through our creative passions. When we get down on our writing, art, or whatever, and believe that it’s not good enough, the tendency may be to scrap it all and give up. But what if we were able to open a page and write a few words? What if we set up a blank canvas and made just one colorful brush stroke? Would that get the motor running? Would it inspire us to remember why we do what we do? One word. One stroke. One reminder….

You see, Piper Flint’s love block project isn’t just about changing our thoughts from sadness or depression to love. It’s also about changing the emotions with which we surround ourselves. So, if you’re having a thought that you’re not good enough as a(n) [enter creative pursuit here], you are also creating emotions around that thought to color your world. If you can remind yourself that you are [enter positive word here], it might make you think better. If you think better you might feel better. If you feel better you might take positive actions. And from there? Well, anything’s possible.

So, take Piper Flint’s advice. Make an “I am…” block, page, note, or whatever. Put it where you can see it. Better yet, put it near a project you’re struggling to finish. If you think you aren’t good enough, put down a positive word and then get to work on being the best, most creative version of youself you can possibly imagine.

And if nothing else, you have a cool block with some great words on it.

This Beautiful Life Is a Blog That Can Make Your Life More…Well…Beautiful!

Let’s see….

Something positive, something positive. Let’s check the news. Oh, look! This presidential candidate is under scrutiny for make an awful comment. Oh, and surprise! This candidate is now under scrutiny for something they did 20 years ago. Moving on.

Let’s check celebrity news, shall we? Hmmm…. I see this star broke up with this star! Well, it’s about time, right? Oh, and this up-and-coming star is being quoted as a tastemaker even though he said things that are in poor taste. Bleah.

How about world news? Oh, I see people are still fighting. Ah, and it appears things are still melting and people are busy arguing about who or what is making it all melt instead of figuring out how to stop or slow the melting. That’s nice.

Where can a person go for something positive? Well, luckily we here at Josh P. Creative know that folks are out there in the blogosphere trying to make something good out of this crazy ol’ world that seems to serve up a whole lotta stuff to be down about.

I happened across a blog today called “This Beautiful Life” (christinawrites.wordpress.com). The author-in-residence at this positive place is Christina (of course!), and she will tell you on her “About the Blogger” page that she is happy to meet you! And you, by the way, should be happy to meet her. Christina tells us that she started her online journal/blog to, “…journal about what life has to offer and find ways to turn the negativity I come across in life into something positive.” Now, if you can find something wrong with that, then you are either not human, or one of those political candidates we spoke about before.

Her posts cover a wide range of topics, including ways to use a blog to enrich your life, finding keys to happiness (at Disneyland? sure!), and a very creative way to think about your keyboard.

I don’t think Christina is a politician, rich and famous star, or a climatology expert. She’s just a creative person out there on the Internet sharing thoughts about positivity and creativity. And here’s why that matters: negativity sells on the big news sites. Gossip gets all kinds of clicks. Sports and entertainment rule the day. But so often, those stories drag us down into a quagmire of angst, envy, jealousy, rage, and all kinds of other things that we know stink for our wellbeing. But when people blog about the positive and the creative? Well, those sites are worth looking for. And when you find them? Keep reading them.

Because hey–a positive message and a reminder that a trip to Disney is good for the soul never hurt anybody.

Winston Scrooge Gets Us Thinking about the Reality of Writer’s Block

I happened upon a very interesting blog post today at Winston Scrooge. The post is about writers block. In a very clever twist, Winston Scrooge props writer’s block up in a chair and makes him/her a character to which Scrooge can speak. The result? A somewhat uncomfortable, but very honest, tour of the writer’s mind. The underlying foil? Fear. Read it and see what you think of the post. Does it resonate with you? Make you laugh? Cry? Hit really close to home? Engage the dialogue and see where it takes you.

If you read joshpcreative.com, you know I like talking about writer’s block. One of the things that intrigues me is the idea that people who so love to create can find themselves so stymied in their attempts to create.

That’s no small thing.

Writer’s block (and writing itself?) is, in a sense, a sort of self-imposed tortue. Anybody who has ever put finger to keyboard or pen to paper to create a character…a story…a world…knows that at some point or another the doubt creeps in. The fear creeps in. The block is thrown. Yet, we willingly advance. We reluctantly stop. We willingly advance again. Over and over. We push ahead until the story is finished because it isn’t just a hobby, but a way of life. Creation runs in our blood, and we don’t live unless we wordsmith and bust down the wall that can block our way. Writers risk and endure writer’s block because it is a necessary evil on the way to a completion. On the way to truly living.

How do you handle writer’s block? What do you do when writer’s block sits in the chair across from you or stands next to you and leans over your keyboard? How do you make it to “The End” when writer’s block begins?

Read what Winston Scrooge has to say and let me know.

Josephine Boyce Gives Us Sage Tips for Writing Productivity

[In this series, Creative Blog Profiles, joshpcreative.com takes a peek at what other creative bloggers are producing and profile them here. They don’t necessarily know it’s happening (although we do the pingback/trackback where we can), so we’re prepared to remove an entry if they get mad. Hopefully they won’t. We just want to find creative stuff to tell you about.]

So this morning, the Josh P. Creative fingers were rolling around the ol’ WordPress tags, and we happened across writer Josephine Boyce’s blog. Boyce’s “About” page tells us that her blog concerns “shiny things” (including clothes, food, and writing). She says she’s been trying to get published for years, and so I immediately felt a kinship with the blog! There’s a big community of us out there. We should all get together and have a potluck or something. I’ll bring egg salad. I have a good egg salad recipe.

Anyway, the post that caught my eye was a 12/14 piece on 12 Steps to Improve your Writing Productivity. There are a few of these floating around on the interwebs, but I like them. I especially like when authors put their own spin on them and make them personal, as Boyce does, instead of just parroting a bland list from some author interview they read somewhere.

Hers is certainly personal and entertaining.

A few of my faves from her list? Number 1–“Just write the first draft.” Yes. I’ve given that advice many times, and am also currently trying to adhere to it as I work on yet another manuscript. Sometimes, writing can be painful. We want to chuck it all out. But remembering that we don’t have to be publishable on the first pass is a good reminder. That piece of advice can go a long way when we get stuck on one particular paragraph to the point where we want to quit altogether!

Another good one? Number 12–“Shut up your inner doubts.” As Boyce reminds us, comparison can be the downfall of creativity. Don’t search the web for overnight success stories about authors who happened to be sitting next to publishing house editors on a plane who immediately demanded a copy of the person’s work in progress. Forget that noise. Focus on your own work and push ahead, because it is worth something. It is unique. It is YOU!

At the end, Boyce gives us a peek into some “Orwell” tips she received from a mentor years ago, including the importance of “short”words, cutting words, and avoiding jargon.

Sage advice.

Listen folks–the writing wilderness is full of scary animals and darkness. Often, we end up shivering in the cold. But if we can light a small fire and get some warmth back into our bones, the night isn’t so scary, and a path to creative freedom may just emerge where we least expect it.

Take a look at Josephine Boyce’s tips and see if you can get a little courage back.

L.E. Delano Suggests We Don’t Just Tell it Like it Is, but WHO it Is

I was perusing the “writing” tag at wordpress.com today, and was lucky enough to find an entry by L.E. Delano at http://ledelano.com/ called, “They Always Say ‘Write What You Know'” that was fresh off the press. It was a post that reminded me of some advice my mom gave me when I first started writing. See, I was wringing my hands wondering if I had anything new to say, and she said, “Josh, just write what you know. Write about your experiences.”

And I did.

And I still do. And I’ve found that those experiences include people. People that find their way, in fragments, into my work.

See, L.E. Delano tells a touching story about her family. Delano has a son on the Autism spectrum, and she has a daughter that she says, “struggles with the balance of an often embarrassing brother that she loves and protects fiercely.” This is such a stark and real tension, and it has become the subject of one of Delano’s upcoming books.

Delano wrote not just about what she knows, but WHO. And that gives others a chance to take a peek inside the world of people–a peek that can provoke strong feeling through familiar intimacy. If authors tell us about the folks they know, in a real and heartfelt way, then the reader gets a chance to make the same acquaintaince, even if they don’t know the characters personally.

Today, while you’re out there in the world interacting, think about this: don’t look at people for what they are, but for who they are. Try an exercise. Walk down the street, through a mall, or into a restaurant, and try to look upon each person with absolutely no judgment. Do not think about the money they make, the clothes they wear, or the cigarettes they smoke. Simple gaze, witness, and move on.

Sound easy?

It’s not.

If you’re a writer, try the same thing with your characters. Develop them, write them, and then…well…sympathize with them. Without judgment.

Really try to get to know people for who they are. After all, the best way to find out about someone is to get to know their true story. If they sense judgment on your part, you’ll get nothing but judgment, and silence, in return.

Ponder that today as you think about not only who you know, but who you’ll meet or write.

Wynonainaday Will Make You Love Autumn and Avoid Galleries

Today, we’re featuring a blog with an interesting mix of beauty and on-point madness: Wynonainaday. I happened upon this blog while searching the “writing” tag at WordPress.com.

I was delighted (yes, I used the word “delighted”–wanna make somethin’ of it?) to find a beautiful poem entitled “Letter to Autumn” which got me thinking about my days growing up in the East/Midwest. I remembered the sound of neighbors raking crisp leaves in the evening and the smell through the neighborhood as they burned. Great memory. Haven’t thought about that in a while.

This was followed by an entry called, “The Daily Fail: Volume 4” in which Wynona (I’m assuming this is her name…is that a bad assumption? I don’t know… I’ll just keep assuming) discusses a recent foray into an art gallery that EXACTLY DESCRIBES why I don’t like browsing in art galleries. I mean, it’s so on point, it’s almost creepy.

Read it. You’ll agree with it.

Wynanainaday’s tagline is that she is “trying to commit to something other than a Netflix subscription.” I’d say the blog is a great start. If you’re looking for something that has a good mix of fun and artistry, go check it out.

And read that gallery story. You’ll become a window shopper for the rest of your life.

SmoothingIt.com Asks: Do You Look Back before You Look Ahead?

[In this series, Creative Blog Profiles, we take a peek at what other creative bloggers are writing about and profile them here. They don’t necessarily know it’s happening (although we do the pingback/trackback where we can), so we’re prepared to remove an entry if they get mad. Hopefully they won’t. We just want to find creative stuff to tell you about.]

Today, I ran across a blog post at SmoothingIt.com by someone who is, quite literally, out there in the blogging wilderness! His name is “Duncan,” and he is a woodsman and writer. He says his site is for folks to get information on outdoor living. Sounds good to me! And the pics on his site make me yearn for my days camping with my friends. The cool breeze. The sound of leaves. Ah, memories.

Anyway, Duncan put up an interesting post about his writing process. He says he doesn’s like to go back and read over drafts until he’s finished with the first run. I personally have a hard time doing that, but it seems to work for Duncan (although, he says he had to break his own rule recently!).

What do you think? You can let us know or head over to Duncan’s site and let him know. Come to think of it, just head over there anyway and look around.

His editing style is certainly something interesting to think about as you write. Thanks Duncan, for getting us thinking (and writing!) today!