Creativity Tweets of the Week — 4/29/11

Who doesn’t love their weekly dose of inspiring links on creativity and writing that The Artist’s Road tweeted during the week @on_creativity? But did you know the tweets offer insights into your blogger’s week? This week your faithful blogger found his schedule get away from him (yes, that passive wording frames your blogger as a victim and not the culprit). No coincidence that several of today’s links have to do with time management. Oh, and bacon and monkeys.

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CREATIVITY

• “201 Ways to Arouse Your Creativity,” Katie Tallo, guest post on Write to Done: That headline sounds like I’m supposed to seduce my muse. I was hooked on the first one, however, “Talk to a monkey.” How can you not love monkeys? Even the word itself is fun.
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  I hope you had a visit this year from The Easter Monkey.

  “How to Steal Back Time to Create What Matters,” Dan Goodwin, A Big Creative Yes: Dan makes a return to Creativity Tweets of the Week with an interesting mind shift — don’t think of your creative time as stolen, think of non-creative activities as stealing time from your creativity.

• “16 Great Tips That Will Add More Hours to Your Day,” Abhijeet Mukherjee, Dumb Little Man: A good follow-up to the post above.
• “How to Cultivate Dolce far Niente,” Courtney Carver, BeMoreWithLess: She’s referring here to the Italian expression for “the sweetness of doing nothing.” We all need to slow down and enjoy those peaceful moments. One of her recommendations is “Make dinner with your lover.” For me, if bacon is involved, I sometimes feel I’m making love with my dinner.
• “6 Techniques to Ignite Your Creativity and Passion,” Ronald Alezander, PhD, The Huffington Post: Tap into creativity through “open-minded consciousness.” No, I’m not going to explain that, I don’t have  PhD. I’ll leave that to Dr. Alexander.
• “Want Creativity From Your Team? Leave Out the Details,” Tamara Kleinberg, Imaginibbles: I’ve learned this lesson the hard way as an executive when I’ve commissioned work from graphic artists — the more “guidance” you give a creative, the less creativity you get in return.

WRITING

• “Topical Round-Up: How to Win Readers,” Janalyn Voigt: What? I can’t find reades just by writing beautiful prose and putting it out into the universe? Shucks. Fortunately Janalyn has some recommendations.
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  I will make time this week to Rock the Red for my Washington Capitals. (Taken at a January 2011 thrashing of the Atlanta Thrashers)

  “Transforming Negative Energy Into Positive Ambition,” Carolyn Arnold, A Writer’s Journey: Writing involves rejection. Lots of it. Here are some tips to make the most out of that reality.

• “Culprits that Block Writers from Reaching a Pro Level,” Ray Rhamey, Writer Unboxed: We can spot the flaws in the writing of others, so why can’t we see the flaws that keep an agent or editor from reading past the first few lines of our own prose?
• “Description 101: Is Your Description Helping Your Story or Holding You Back,” Janice Hardy, The Other Side of the Story: Description is an area of my creative writing that could use a lot of improvement. I will say, however, that if my writing often lacks olfactory description, it’s because I have a ridiculously poor sense of smell. There. I said it.

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The latest Creativity Tweets of the Week is done, and The Artist’s Road now owns the rest of his day. Hmm. A nap sounds good.

Art for Everyone?

Today we’re featuring a guest post from Carrie Ellen Brummer, an artist, teacher, learner, and dreamer who is writing a compelling book about… well, I’ll let her share the story.

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When I finished my presentation for my visual arts honors’ thesis, I cried my eyes out.  I was standing in front of all my professors and the 40 plus people who attended, with tears running down my cheeks.

Untitled by Bethany Edwards

“Don’t worry, this usually happens…   Nice shoes.”  My sculpture prof and his wife knowingly patted me on the back and wandered off to look at a peer’s paper installation.

Speaking about my art in front of that group is the most intimidated I have ever felt.  Art can be scary, even for artists!  Why?  The art world promotes and celebrates an elitist attitude that discourages most people from engaging with it.

I HATE IT.

The arts are a celebration of our cultural heritage, historical and social evolution, and ultimately the human spirit.  No other species creates, with awareness, like we do.  Yet, we live in a world where art is hidden away and set in intimidating environments, leaving the general populous scratching their heads.

We deserve more.

ARTspeak is an e-book born out of my frustration with the current art world.  It is for the art curious, the art insecure and anyone who supports the arts.  My goal with the book is to offer insight into the artistic process and teach strategies for interpreting and reading art.  In ARTspeak I share:

1. The basic tool set of an artist.
2. Examples of how to use the tools for reading and understanding art.
3. Questions to ask when looking at an artwork.
4. Further resources for art appreciation.

Abstract Cityscape by Sruthi Kainady

Art is a language just like any other and if you don’t have training or practice in a language, how can you engage with the culture?!?  Is it not interesting that as we develop into a more visual society with advertisements, movies and graphic novels in our everyday, we lack the tools to engage with those visuals?  Do you want to be a passive observer, taking in those images, or do you want to have a voice and active role in digesting the images around you?  We all have a reason for our opinions… it is time that we begin to understand why.

Sneak preview of the book’s introduction:

In my introductory art course at Colgate University, I had a professor who started with a dialogue asking us to define art.  He presented slides of all kinds of images and we were to guess whether the image presented showcased something already labeled “Art” or if it was “just” a photograph.  We went through slide after slide and people were shouting out yes, no, with some dialogue and argument in between.  At one point, we came to this image of a bike.  The tires, rather than the normal circular shape we all know, was hexagonal (not sure about the number of sides really).  It was toward the end of the class and we were all beginning to wear out.  A student laughed out loud and said, “Well, that is definitely not art.”

The professor paused, looked at all of us with a bemused smirk, and replied, “That is one of my pieces.”

I don’t want anyone else to feel the way that student did.  I felt my stomach sink into the floor on that day. I hope ARTspeak can be one way for people to build their confidence to speak about and engage with the arts.

Can’t wait for ARTspeak to be released at the end of July 2011?  Want some basics of art interpretation?  Read my post, “Discussing Art: A Beginner’s Guide.”

If you think ARTspeak could be of interest to you please keep up to date with Artist Think, my blog that supports art education, creative inspiration and artistic goal-setting.  I will publish the book via the blog. Subscribers will get the book two weeks sooner than the general populace as a thank you for supporting the arts and Artist Think!  ARTspeak will be free to the public so please spread the word and share it with others.  We all deserve more from our arts, will you be a part of it?

A special thank you goes out to Patrick Ross of The Artist’s Road for this opportunity to guest post.  It is an honor to participate in a blog that celebrates the arts!

photo by Stephanie Boutin

Carrie Ellen Brummer has been an arts instructor for more than 6 years, and currently teaches IB Visual Arts in Dubai, where she leads workshops on incorporating the arts into regular classroom curricula.  She has won teaching grants in both the United States and Dubai for different artist projects, one of which promotes consumption awareness. She blogs at Artist Think and tweets at @ArtistThink. The striking visual art on this post was provided by Carrie and reprinted with the artists’ permission.

What Defines an Artist? Self-Taught vs. Trained

What defines an artist? Is it the production of a creative work? Is it the result of training in the craft? These questions were on my mind over a holiday break as I toured the American Visionary Art Museum at Baltimore, Maryland’s Inner Harbor.

All of the works displayed in the museum are from self-taught artists, including Wayne Kusy, who built a replica of the Lusitania from 193,000 toothpicks and five pounds of glue (a video of him and his work is here). Here’s the museum’s take on its mission:

All of us at AVAM enjoy and respect the learning that comes from academic study or through apprenticeship to a trained artist. We dedicate AVAM exclusively, however, as a place devoted to the other path of mastery – the intuitive path of learning to listen to the small, soft voice within.

I am a self-taught creative writer, who never took a single creative writing course in my life. I simply read and wrote, both in stolen moments from my professional career and family. This summer I’m beginning an MFA in Writing, so at the age of 43 I’m just beginning to follow the formal training path.

On my road-trip across the United States interviewing creatives of all stripes, I met lots of artists who were self-taught, and many who had extensive formal training.

Cape May, New Jersey, painter Victor Grasso went to work painting murals for Atlantic City casinos at the age of 18 and never looked back. His original paintings are now in high demand, but he has never taken a painting class. He has, however, on his own studied the great works and artists. He goes to galleries and stares closely at paintings, getting yelled at by security guards, but as he puts it, “I have to see how these people put the paint down.”

Orchestral composer James Aikman of Ann Arbor, Michigan, learned under master musicians from a young age. “I had an amazing upbringing in terms of being exposed to classical music,” he told me. He later researched his mentors back through their mentors, and realized his artistic lineage dates back to Liszt, then Beethoven, then Bach. “I hope to add my own stamp to the repertoire,” he said. He’s well on his way, as his original compositions have been performed globally by leading orchestras.

What do these two artists have in common, other than artistic and commercial success? It turns out they both were raised in artistic households.

Aikman’s mother was a master pianist who would play sonatas for her son before he went off to bed. Grasso’s mother was a painter, his grandfather a carver and sculptor, and his great-grandfather a painter. For each of them, the idea of creating artistic works was second nature to them.

Are you a self-taught creative or the product of formal training? What are your thoughts on these two paths to creativity?

Creativity Tweets of the Week — 4/22/11

Many readers of The Artist’s Road enjoy curling up with a comfy blanket every Friday night to enjoy my weekly links on creativity and writing. But while they’re clicking away this Friday night I’ll be in rocking out in Baltimore to a band that is a writer’s delight — Rush. Take the lyrics to “Freewill,” for example. They contain the following word constructions — “celestial voice,” “victim of venomous fate,” “phantom fears,” and “Heaven’s unearthly estate.” Neil Peart is a philosopher and a poet.

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CREATIVITY

The Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina, which I visited on my cross-country road trip. George Washington Vanderbilt's unearthly estate.

“7 Ways to Cultivate Your Creativity,” Ingrid Wickelgren, Scientific American: Click on this if you have some time to spare; it should probably be called “7 Fun Games to Force You to Think Outside the Box.”

“Dumping Mr. Perfect,” Cynthia Morris, Original Impulse: Ah, perfectionism, a demon all creatives must face down. On a side note, my wife has many nicknames for me, but Mr. Perfect isn’t one of them.

“The 5% Creativity Challenge,” Josh Linkner: Can you spare 5% of your time as a gift to your muse?

“Top 10 Ways to Get Your Creative Juices Flowing,” Whitson Gordon, lifehacker: A lot of us must have our creative juices frozen, because it seems I tweet this type of post every week. But it’s worth a read. I like the last one, “Know when to take time off.” How about right now?

Another road trip stop, Elvis Presley's more modest-sized unearthly estate, Graceland.

“Kids, Creative Blocks, and Adult Creativity,” Mike Brown, Brainzooming: Do you carry a set of Crayola crayons with you at all times? Mike says you should. I used to, but that box of 64 felt uncomfortable in my pocket whenever I sat down.

“51 Reasons Why You Are a Creative,” Todd Schnick, Intrepid: Let’s face it, at least one of these applies to you, right? I have a 52nd reason I’m a creative — I can think of at least 147 ways to eat bacon.

WRITING

“When Writer’s Block is a Creativity Block,” Lisa Rivero, Writing Life: This is a post that easily could have gone into the category above. I like her use of a Cynthia Morris quote: “Creative people need to be ‘too much.’”

“5 Crippling Beliefs That Keep Writers Penniless and Mired in Mediocrity,” Jonathan Morrow, copyblogger:  This post spoke to me as someone who has earned a living as a writer but has rarely had the luxury to wax poetic. It’s a bit long, but its wisdom will wake you up.

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Remember, as Neil Peart might say, any link you choose to click will cause you to rejoice; if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

The Power of Play: Escape From the Tyranny of Technique

Today we’re featuring a guest post from the multi-talented InterPlay leader Kate Arms-Roberts, who will share insights on creativity and on what the heck InterPlay is.

Picasso spoke of taking a lifetime to learn to paint like a child. There is a developmental pattern common to many creatives. Early in creative development, interest and inspiration combine playfully and exuberant early works are created, without regard to technique. At some point, the budding artist becomes conscious of a desire to improve and some form of technical training begins. Studying the technical elements of craft can transform creation from play into work. Creation becomes serious business.

All my life, creative imaginings have exploded from me – as stories, poems, dances and plays. Somewhere along the line, I learned that art-making can be taught, that there are techniques dancers, writers and actors should master. And, I applied myself to learning the techniques or dropped the art form. There was no middle ground. The joy disappeared. And, the product was less interesting to the audience. I needed to put play back into my creative life.

In my quest, I found InterPlay, a boon to recovering serious creatives everywhere.

InterPlay is a fun way of integrating all the parts of your life, a sanctuary for those who seek to be spontaneous, affectionate, open to truth, playful and real. The foundations of InterPlay are simple improvisational practices using song, story, silence, dance and community and a set of principles that can be applied to any moment in life.

My first exposure to InterPlay was a class called Dance and Social Action. Class started with a brief physical warm-up that involved nothing more challenging than bending from the waist. We were invited to “walk around the room,” then to break up the walking with some stopping. After some walking and stopping, we were invited to run if we liked. Then, the instructor said, “I’m going to put on some music. I invite you to play with walking, stopping, running and each other.” Little did I realize that my life was about to change.

I learned early how to be a good student, how to follow directions. So, I dutifully walked, stopped, and ran. And I observed.

What I saw freaked me out.

There were people in the room spinning, linking arms and twirling, leaping, sitting on the floor, and more. What were they doing? Hadn’t they heard the instructions?

When the music was over, we were invited to “notice what that was like.” What I noticed was my mind screaming, “We were only supposed to walk, stop, and run. What about all those people who weren’t following the directions?” Another student voiced my thoughts and the teacher responded, “How did that make you feel?” I felt jealous and angry and confused. And, subtly, in the presence of this teacher who did not condemn those wild movers, something in me started to melt.

It turned out that the people who were playing wildly were the experienced InterPlayers; it was okay to play with breaking the rules; part of the point of the class was that having fun and playing in our bodies is a powerful form of social action.

And so began my journey with this fabulous tool for engaging with play for play’s sake.

InterPlay forms bring out people’s creativity playfully. Any technique you have can be put to use in the InterPlay forms, but technique is unnecessary. I have witnessed people who never thought they could move discovering a dancer inside themselves, professional dancers celebrating the sheer ability to move their bodies without the confines of choreography, people who struggle to find words improvising achingly moving poetry, and poets who agonize over every syllable of their published words revelling in the freedom of creating a poem that dissolves into memory with the speaking of it. And I have found my own voice.

I am a storyteller. I use written words and performances to create art. The storytelling forms of InterPlay loosen me up. When I struggle to make the words tell my story, Babbling in a Made-up Language releases me from the pressure of precision. When I am running over with ideas, I Could Talk About is a form that gets the ideas out without requiring me to do anything with them; I just have to list them. If my body is stiff or my words are stilted, I can shake things up by telling Big Body Stories that involve movement or dance as well as words.

Improvisational play deepens my connection with the source of my creativity and loosens the stranglehold my internal editor can have over my work. It is fun and my work benefits. I can’t lose as long as I keep playing.

Kate Arms-Roberts is a writer, actor, director, and InterPlay leader. She writes about writing, play, and life at www.katearmsroberts.wordpress.com and tweets about play as @MorePlayful. Her latest venture is www.amoreplayfullife.com, a web-based resource encouraging play in all forms.

Three Authors Every Writer Should Read

I’m afraid I’m not going to give you the answer to that question. I’m asking it of you.

This is a selfish attempt to crowdsource wisdom before I begin a low-residency MFA in Writing at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. I’m suspecting I’m not sufficiently “well read” to take on this challenge.

College Hall on the Vermont College of Fine Arts campus, courtesy of their Facebook page.

My anxiety didn’t ease when the first two Vermont alums I spoke with after accepting admission told me they had been English Literature professors before starting the MFA program.

Ack!

So I’m looking to do some catch-up reading, and started by tweeting the question over the weekend. It prompted my friend Kate Arms-Roberts to write a post for her own blog on her recommendations, and generated lots of suggestions. Here’s a summary of what I heard:

1. William Shakespeare. The runaway leader by a lot. Not really a surprise.
2. Ernest Hemingway. He’s one of my favorite authors so I was pleased to see his stock high. Love his economy of words while conveying characters and setting brilliantly.
3. Tie: Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. If the measure of literary achievement is number of movies made based on your books, these authors clearly are worthy of making the list. I’ve seen adaptions of their works on screen more than I’ve read them, I must confess.
4. Tie: The Bible and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I hadn’t anticipated the Bible making the list, but it is full of dramatic stories and beautiful poetry. I have only read The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald but I did love it.
5. Nathaniel Hawthorne. My apologies, but I was forced to read The Scarlet Letter in high school, and I didn’t really care for it that much.

Among the others receiving votes were Russians (Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy); Brits (Geoffrey Chaucer and Lewis Carroll); Classical Greeks (Aeschylus and Sophocles); Hemingway contemporaries (F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner); poets (Emily Dickinson, Hermann Hesse, Hart Crane and Langston Hughes); well-known 20th Century writers (Phillip K. Dick, Arthur Miller, John Irving, Larry McMurty, Lee Child and Jodi Picoult); contemporary authors (Gene Wolfe, Mary Sojourner, James Salter, Chris Galvin, Elizabeth Strout, and Brady Udall); and an author in a category all her own, Harper Lee. 

A confession — I hadn’t heard of a few of those writers before conducting this survey, and others I have heard of but have not read. My local bookstore is going to love me this month.

What three authors do you think are must-reads for any writer and why? Are they above? Do you have your own suggestions? I’d love to hear from you!

Creativity Tweets of the Week — 4/15/11

I know you never take for granted each Creativity Tweets of the Week, featuring the week’s best tweets I have sent on creativity and writing. This week I was true to you even while vacationing in Florida with my in-laws. You can rest assured that the Artist’s Road will always be there for you.*

CREATIVITY

• “5 Surprising Causes of Creative Block and How to Overcome Them,” Laura Spencer, Freelance Folder: The true source of your creative block? Sorry to say it’s you.
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  A sign of spring -- baby storks brave the world on a mangrove island in the Peace River in Florida.

  “Why Real Creativity Requires Significant Work, Part 2,” Michael Hyatt, Intentional Leadership: Are you guilty of some of the assumptions about creativity that Michael highlights, including “The creative life is easy and effortless?” I think readers of this blog know that not to be true.

• “What Jazz Taught Me About Creativity, Writing and Life,” Jeff Goins: One good takeaway — the freedom afforded by free-form jazz can actually inhibit creativity, so he has learned to “self-limit” his freedom.
• “Where Was the Potential for Idea Collision Today?” Jeffrey Davis, Three Highlights: On the importance of connecting with others passionate about creativity.
• “Why I Like American Idol (and Why You Should Too),” Dan Perez, Dan Perez Films: I still don’t like the show even after reading this post (although I enjoy seeing it teased on The Soup), but Dan uses the show as a springboard for some important points, including “regardless of where your journey ends, it begins with that first step.”

WRITING

• “Writing Group: If You Don’t Have One, Get One,” Jo Ann Yhard, guest post on Writing Without the Drama: This post spoke to me, because as faithful readers of this blog know I just helped launch a writer’s group myself.
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  The circle of life -- this Peace River occupant hopes one of the baby pelicans is a bit clumsy.

  “4 Ways Gardening is Like Editing,” Kate Arms-Roberts: Her comparisons are insightful, but for me the commonality is that in both cases I’m dealing with manure.

• “The Depressed Writer: An Interview With Julie Fast, Author of Get it Done When You’re Depressed,” Linda Formichelli, The Renegade Writer:  Linda returns to this list with an insightful interview that spoke to me as a writer who has battled depression. Julie has an arresting description of the condition, the “black blanket.”
• “Best Writing Advice from Our Favorite NYT Bestselling Authors,” Stacey O’Neale, The YA Fantasy Freak: The advice starts strong right off the bat — “Finish your book.”
• “Taking the High Road,” Daisy Hickman, guest post on SunnyRoomStudio: Daisy has an inspiring story to tell, about how she accidentally found herself writing a memoir.

*The Artist’s Road reserves the right not to be there for you if being there is inconvenient.

Collaboration and Mutual Respect

Frank Sinatra said he lived his life “My Way,” but a filmmaker and screenwriter I met in Providence, Rhode Island has a more democratic approach to life.

All eyes and ears are on Eileen as she instructs the actors on how to sneeze (you'll need to watch the video).

I visited Eileen Boarman while she was directing a Public Service Announcement, or PSA, for Rhode Island Department of Transportation. She allowed me to film a bit of her film shoot, and then interview her. You can see my resulting video from this stop on my cross-country U.S. road trip below.

Much of our conversation didn’t make that video, in particular this theme of collaboration and mutual respect. It surfaced first in her discussion of the PSA. The script was written collaboratively, she told me. One person made the candy used in the shoot, another provided lighting, yet another sound equipment.

She had the same experience when serving as a producer’s assistant during the shooting of the Showtime series “Brotherhood” in Providence. Roles were more defined, but the set was always a team of respected collaborators.

“I’m finding in this business,” she told me, “that when people work together and really respect each other’s roles and aren’t afraid of where an idea might come from, it’s such a better experience.”

Everyone plays an important role on the set, Eileen says, although that boy on the left seems to be playing a Game Boy.

Making sure not to fear others’ wisdom been a driver in Eileen’s career. She began her life the arts as a young actress, but when she wasn’t acting she would help with props or the light board. By the time she was a theater director she knew the importance of every person on the team.

“No matter how small the role,” she told me, “every single person that participates has an equally important role in the final product.”

In the last decade she’s shifted to film. During film school she focused on screenplays — she’s drawn to writing — but has sought out knowledge on all aspects of film production, allowing her to,  say, direct a PSA.

Her drive for cooperation really became clear, however, when she discussed her screenplay set in Northern Ireland, a work she began in film school.

Eileen conducted research by traveling traveled across Northern Ireland, meeting and staying with Catholics and Protestants. She believes most there “want resolution” and desire to “just accept each other’s differences and live together as part of one country.” But that fear among many that their rights will be taken away can keep the fires of discord burning.

“I don’t know why it always has to be ‘my way,’” she says. “We have that problem in this country too.”

For Eileen, ‘my way’ and ‘your way’ can be ‘our way.’ That’s a good approach in politics, art or life.

What role does collaboration and mutual respect play in your creative life?

A Circle of Trust

It’s been fifteen years since I’ve been in a writer’s group. Not coincidentally, it’s been fifteen years since I was living an art-committed life.

A circle of mistrust, the mouth of a cannon atop the Citadel in Quebec City. The fortress, built in the early 1800s to repel an expected American invasion, is the reason the U.S. never invaded Quebec (well, so the locals told me).

Last week I participated in an inaugural meeting of a writer’s group. We cobbled ourselves together in various ways — one posted her card on a writer’s center bulletin board, others met each other in writing classes, and two connected via Twitter and their respective blogs.

There are seven of us, quite diverse in many ways. We have varying writing projects — a sci-fi novel, a memoir, a creative nonfiction book, a play, a cookbook. We are a range of ages, professional backgrounds, and interests. Of those who are parents, the children’s ages range from infancy to adulthood.

We all have a few things in common, however.

We all desire the motivation to write that comes with a deadline to share work.

We all seek constructive feedback on our writing.

We all crave being a part of a trust circle of fellow creatives, where we can share our dreams and struggles without judgment.

It’s early yet, but I think we’ve found all of those things. I’m very optimistic, and I can’t wait to receive those first pages from my fellow group members.

Are you in a writer’s group, or a group of creative peers? What advice do you have for how to assemble one or ensure one succeeds?

Creativity Tweets of the Week – 4/8/11

As I assemble this week’s top links on creativity and writing I promoted this week on Twitter, more than a million Americans — many of them here where I live in Washington, D.C. — are facing a forced, unpaid vacation in the form of a U.S. government shutdown. The good news is they will join locked-out NFL players in having plenty of time to read all of the posts in this week’s Creativity Tweets of the Week.

CREATIVITY:

• “the psychology of creativity: limiting ourselves with myths and attitudes,” Douglas Eby, Talent Development Resources: Douglas is featured regularly in my roundups, and here he tackles false memes such as the starving artist and the sucks-at-marketing artist.
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  Like this banyan tree I saw in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the reach of The Artist's Road is wide and strong, providing shelter and comfort.

  “Haunted by Unfinished Projects? Fight Back,” Kate Arms-Roberts, A Writer Writing: Don’t all of us as creatives suffer from this? Kate’s post played a role this week in inspiring me to wrap up a creative project I’ve been sitting for a month; I’ve set a deadline of next Friday to complete it. Thank you, Kate.

• “the secret of claiming yourself as a creative (or artist, writer…),” Marianne Mullen, awaken creativity: Here’s a good takeaway – stop defining yourself by others’ standards.
• “What’s the Pattern?” Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein, Psychology Today: Don’t we all love a great opening line? Here’s this one: “What do babies, birders and a set of fictional folks faced with a do-or-die puzzle have in common?” Um, an obsession with objects displaying color contrasts? Turns out I was close.

WRITING:

• “Advice from a Real Life Editor Who Might Hire You,” Linda Yvette Chavez, guest post on Ollin Morales’ Courage 2 Create: This is a fun post from Linda, editor of the female-focused comedy website Comediva. If I were a different gender I’d take her advice and pitch her something funnier than what I write here, for sure.
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  Like these redwoods I admired outside of San Francisco, California, The Artist's Road endures while reaching for the sky.

  “A Round of Words in 80 Days: A Writing Journey,” Danielle Meitiv, Brave Blue Words: I’ll admit, it made me a bit jealous to learn how much Danielle hopes to produce in the next few weeks. It also made me a little tired. Can I take a nap now?

• “Care and Feeding of the Discouraged Writer,” Cheryl Reifsnyder, Cheryl’s Musings: This is one of those posts that applies to any creative. One takeaway — look for affirmation from people in your trust circle.
• “I Don’t Know; I Know: the future of publishing for authors,” Bob Mayer, WRITE IT FORWARD: Short answer is it’s anyone’s guess, although Bob has some good guesses. I liked this question he posed — why the rift between indie-published and trade-published authors?

Governments may shut down. They may collapse. But The Artist’s Road will always be there for you, each and every week, providing reliable, uncorrupted links and posts on creativity. Of course, those posts will always be coupled with remarkable humility.