Soothe your spirit, calm your mind, ease stress, and let your body chill with these techniques If you’re feeling a little over-heated, overwhelmed or stressed, finding the inspiration to write and create may be far more difficult, motivation too, all the more slender. In the spirit of chilling out and keeping your cool — creative and otherwise — […]
Pema Chödrön on Tigers, Strawberries and the Preciousness of the Moment
Joseph Conrad on Fiction, Art and the Power of the Written Word
Fiction — if it at all aspires to be art — appeals to temperament. And in truth it must be, like painting, like music, like all art, the appeal of one temperament to all the other innumerable temperaments whose subtle and resistless power endows passing events with their true meaning, and creates the moral, the […]
7 Ways to Embrace Vulnerability and Write Truth
When you create with openness, with a willingness to trust and be vulnerable for your art, your writing is all the more authentic and true because it is uncensored, drawn from the deepest part of yourself — pure feeling articulated on the page — but it can be hard to share our truths, to write without censor, especially when the […]
Creative Confidence: How to Believe in Yourself [and Your Art]
“Self-confidence grows every time you keep a promise to yourself.” —Asha Dornfest Sometimes everything just feels right. You feel confident and relaxed, as if life and your creative projects are all swimming along sweetly. Other times, a fluctuation in your creativity, subtle anxiety or momentary doubt can knock your confidence and lead you to question everything you […]
Creative Overwhelm: Slowing Down and Finding Stillness in a Busy World
Finding stillness in our busy world is crucial not only for our ability to live in such a world, physically, and neurologically, but also for our inner landscape. In stillness we are able to reconnect with our centre, our true, authentic self. To silence the endless clamour of our planet of bleeps and busyness, and disconnect from the demands […]
Anne Lamott on Perfectionism, People-Pleasing and Shooting for the Moon
Picasso on Art, Instinct and the Shadow
“I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, —the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don’t start measuring her limbs.” ~ Pablo […]
8 Ways to Reignite Your Passion for Writing and Write [Even If You Don’t Feel Like It]
In a brilliant interview in The Paris Review, E. B. White said, “A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.” To allow the seeds of inspiration grow into tiny shoots and push through the soil, like the magnificent miracles they are, you need to metaphorically water them […]
7 Powerful Yoga Asanas for Writers and Artists
Yoga does far more than stretch and tone the body. For writers and artists there are many benefits to having a regular practice. From on-the-spot relief from creative block and easing pains and tension, to reducing writing doubt and finding new inspiration, the following yoga asanas each hold special qualities that benefit writers and artists. Whatever the medium of your […]