Some days nothing we write seems good enough, other days, it’s as if the nine muses themselves have descended onto the page. After one of those magical writing days, we long for them all to be like that, to all be graced with exquisite inspiration and flow but every moment we dedicate to writing, no […]
Anais Nin on Art, the Marvelous and Escaping Ordinary Life
“Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvellous. I want to be a writer who reminds others that these moments exist; I want to prove that there is infinite space, infinite meaning, infinite dimension. But I am not always in […]
Powerful Acupressure Points to Increase Your Focus, Memory and Concentration
If you find yourself unable to focus on your work or distracted by your thoughts, both your enjoyment of and the creative process itself can become a muddled affair. This can cause your motivation and therefore dedication for your creative projects to plummet, perhaps in turn affecting your creative confidence. Yet when your mind is balanced by attending […]
10 Writing Tips by Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is an acclaimed author of more than forty novels and countless short stories. She won the National Book Award for her novel, Them and has been thrice-nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Here she offers the following writing tips: Write your heart out. The first sentence can be written only after the last sentence has been […]
Sarah Waters on being disciplined
“Treat writing as a job. Be disciplined. Lots of writers get a bit OCD-ish about this. Graham Greene famously wrote 500 words a day. Jean Plaidy managed 5,000 before lunch, then spent the afternoon answering fan mail. My minimum is 1,000 words a day – which is sometimes easy to achieve, and is sometimes, frankly, like […]
Writing Fiction: 10 Travel-Inspired Storytelling Techniques
Most people like to know where they are going, have a route, a map, when travelling or heading into the wilderness, and it is the same with storytelling. Yet, like travelling, sometimes the magic only happens when you deviate a little from the plan, let go, loosen up and allow yourself to write untethered by a […]
Jim Jarmusch on Authenticity and Stealing from Other Artists
Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, […]
Margaret Atwood’s Ten Tips for Writers
Margaret Atwood is widely known for her award-winning book, The Handmaid’s Tale. While she is mostly known as a novelist, she has also published many volumes of poetry, including poems inspired by myths and fairytales. Here she offers writers some practical [and perhaps not-so-practical] writing tips: 1. Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the […]
Find Instant Calm and Fresh Inspiration With This Beneficial Acupressure Sequence
Use this simple acupressure sequence to create instant calm and simultaneous a wake-up of inspiration. Combining these points creates clarity of mind, increased insight and focus and is also very nurturing and peaceful, stilling any internal chatter and allowing you to create unfettered by doubts or worries about anything beyond this present moment. All of which make […]
8 Tips on Finding [and Enhancing] the Optimum Space for Your Creativity
Although the ritual of always working in the same place can provide fertile ground for your routine, when you need to shake-up your inspiration, add a little pep to your process and creative offerings too, shutting yourself away like an author in his garret or artist in her studio isn’t always the ideal thing for your creativity. Where we […]