Want to Consider Collaboration?
- At July 25, 2022
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
4
Ever think about collaborating with another writer or artist on a creative project? Wonder how it works? Bryan Collins, host of the “Become a Writer Today” Podcast recently interviewed Becky and me about our collaboration on our two books, Writing in Community and The Fire Inside. We had an intriguing conversation which provided an opportunity for us to think more about collaboration, how it worked successfully for us, and how a collaborative partner can help you to accomplish more–and better!
You may want to know:
How does the collaborative process work?
What are the advantages?
How do you find a collaborative partner?
You can listen to the interview (or view the transcript of it) here.
For more inspiration, check out our website www.thewritingandcreativelife.com.
Or follow this link to purchase our latest book, The Fire Inside.
Grace Falls Upon Us
- At December 13, 2021
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
- 6
“The joy…comes, rather, from the unexpected grace of allowing such an unremarkable event to fill the soul with such remarkable delight.”—Maria Popova
Grace Falls Upon Us
Reaching into me, grace finds a smallness, grows with water and sun, kindness and attention. Sometimes found in the unlikeliest places, grace nurtures the seed of possibility bestowing hope, rekindling energy. The world tilts a bit when it’s extended—as if a surprise of flowers arrived at your front door. You breathe in, and the air around smells pure and fresh. When grace falls upon us, we feel we have lifts in our shoes.
Read More»Listen to a Sample of our Audiobook!
- At October 18, 2021
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
- 8
The Fire Inside
The Fire Inside is now available as an audiobook, and you can listen to a sample by clicking on the arrow below. (We think our reader/narrator, Melissa Melottey, is great!) You may purchase through Apple itunes https://apple.co/3BprtCe or Audible https://adbl.co/3iDEPCq. Note that if you are new to Audible, there’s an option to listen free. Take a listen!
The World of the Imagination and “Making it So”
- At September 20, 2021
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
- 9
Making it So!
Make It So
Remember Jean Luc Picard, Starfleet Captain in Star Trek? When he and his officers hit upon a solution to get themselves out of a sticky situation—by going to warp speed, say, or activating the deflector shield to evade a hostile force—he instructed his crew to “make it so.” And it would be done. I love that. Determining a course of action and following through. Making it so.
Much of what we do in this life is based upon the decisions we make. Generally speaking, if we decide to pursue a particular dream, if we believe in it strongly enough and dedicate ourselves to shepherding it to fruition, that dream will come into being. Perhaps you want desperately to achieve a college education. What do you do? Study hard in high school, complete college applications and line up loans and scholarships. Or perhaps you want to write a novel. You go to work—preparing an outline, blocking out periods of time to write, and paragraph by paragraph, you write the book. You “make it so.”
Decision by decision, we create our lives—committing to relationships, buying condominiums, going on vacations to Hawaii or the mountains. We learn to play the guitar or the piano, create Japanese gardens or meditation gardens, convert basement rooms into art studios. Roadblocks appear, circumstances may necessitate we alter out plans somewhat, but when we act on our passions, we can create lives which are rich and full, lives full of meaning.
From time to time, however, we may find ourselves feeling a bit stale. Still, as Rousseau said, “The world of reality has its limits; the world of the imagination is boundless.” Maybe it’s time to stretch the imagination, look for ways to further complete our lives. One way we can do this is to set aside time to dream. Get your notebook, number from one to ten, and complete the following phrase: “If all the forces of the universe were with me and the odds were good that I would be successful, I would…” How would you complete the phrase? Maybe you would:
- complete a number of paintings and display them in a local art gallery
- start a series of poems about your garden and the natural world
- add a new sitting area to the first floor of the house.
Let your imagination go and jot down as many dreams as you can. Gloria Steinem said that “Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” So let’s dream, and allow more possibility into our lives. And then, let’s make it so.
For more inspiration, check out our website www.thewritingandcreativelife.com.
Or follow this link to purchase our latest book, The Fire Inside.
A Cat Looks at Inspiration
- At January 29, 2017
- By Write in Community
- In Blog
- 4
“It you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent Van Gogh
Have you ever felt like a cat who looks like she’s sleeping on the sunny windowsill, but she’s 
really listening to every sound, every movement? Well, that’s been me for the past six weeks. I feel a need to hang out a bit, store up energy, sleep, and maybe hibernate a little. Some days I can’t get enough of it, sleep that is. Seeing the sun first thing in the morning—who needs it, except to curl up in? And some nights I am ready to go to bed at 9:00, but push myself to stay awake until 10:00. Maybe these urges are less about hibernation and more about self-preservation. The state of somnolence can teach us a lot: we learn from our dreams, especially the recurring ones. I’m paying close attention to what my dreams are telling me—because I need some inspiration.
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