Whatever you think about the origins of the universe, one thing seems certain: the universe started as a kind of blank slate that is now filled with stars, planets, comets, gas, dark matter, and all manner of other debris and material. Think about the effort and creativity that must have gone into the creation of … Read more
What is the core value of your life? What is the “center”? For some writers, it’s their writing. Meaning, everything else is a sort of support system for their writing. Family, health, social life, rest and other important elements of their life always come second because they see their main task as answering their creative … Read more
As we talked about yesterday, you need to have a system where you can plant or store all the thoughts, information, and ideas you will use as raw material for writing. And while that is an important start, you need to water these tiny seeds so they can grow into something useful. There are all … Read more
Everyone who has ever planted anything knows that you can’t just throw seeds on the ground. You must prepare the soil. Otherwise, the soil won’t be ready to receive the seeds. The seeds will die and all the effort and future potential will have been wasted. Your creative mind works the same way. It can’t … Read more
Think about the last time you went to the eye doctor. You probably thought you were seeing just fine until the exam. It turns out your vision was blurry and you didn’t even know it. Our creativity works the same way. We get busy and distracted. We lose sight of the amazing world around us … Read more
William Goldman was one of the most successful Hollywood screenwriters of all time. He was the creative genius behind scripts for The Princess Bride and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, among many others. In total, he had nearly three dozen scripts produced, which is remarkable by anyone’s standards. In his funny and insightful book … Read more
We writers love to create stories. And why not? There is something fun about creating a fantasy world, living in it for a while, and inviting others to join us there. Sometimes these fantasies bleed over into the real world, where we don’t quite live in reality. Here is one of the fantasies we love: … Read more
Has this ever happened to you? You block out time on your calendar, you get your pen or pencil—or computer—ready, and you sit down at your desk, ready to write. You’ve been looking forward to this time and can’t wait to get your creative juices flowing. So, you sit there, patiently waiting for the Muse … Read more
There are a lot of critical skills we have to develop as writers, but none is more important than creativity. You can be productive, think like a business person, and have great networking skills. But without the ability to see the connections between ideas and be creative on demand, you are dead in the water … Read more
We have it pretty easy in the modern world, right? In many ways, this is the golden age of writing. We have more opportunities than ever before to publish our work and impact other people with our words. Yet at the same time, it’s also a challenging time for writers. Why? Because there are so … Read more