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.

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.

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

[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.]

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.