Creativity Tips: The Danger of Distracted Living

If I told you about the foolish mistake I made this weekend, you'd question your own sanity for reading the blog. Suffice it to say, the only logical response to my action was, "What were you thinking?"

And I'll tell you what I was thinking:

I can't believe it's already 8:15 at night and I haven't eaten yet and god I'm tired and I had no idea it would take so long to run those errands and is it really going to snow tomorrow and I'm not sure we have food for dinner and I hope mom is feeling OK for bingo in the morning and Kate's birthday is almost here and Mary will be in this weekend and I forgot to print my work calendar for next week and I don't remember if I have a meeting on Monday so I need to check and damn why is that driver right on my tail and oh I need to buy peanut butter.  

Let me take an educated guess: I'm not the only person with those brainwaves. We're all suffering from distracted living. 

Oy. Squirrels are everywhere. This week, I'm going to ignore them. This week, I'm going to focus. Every time I start thinking of 30 things at once, every time I get distracted from the topic at hand, I'm going to congratulate myself on recognizing the issue* and reel it in. 

Join me! Focus on focus. What do you think? 

P.S. Squirrel! (Sorry. I couldn't resist.)

*Concept stolen from Shanna, who was talking about real focus -- meditation. I'll work on that next. 

Friday Fun: Creativity Is In The Bag

You know the bags airlines keep tucked into seatbacks? You know what they're for? Yeah, well ... think again ...

Your creativity assignment for the weekend? Take an object that is "always" used for one thing -- and use it for something else. Cheers!

Creativity Tips: Try, Try Again

Creative Inspiration: After Years, by Ted Kooser

And, if you like that, listen to the wonderful Ted Kooser read The Beaded Purse. His description at the start of the reading -- of hearing the story and wanting to write it on the tablecloth -- that's it. That's it exactly. Listen, and the poems come to you. 

#Creativity Tips: Lose the Fear

One of my favorite artists is Laura Bolter -- you can check out her beautiful work here. While I don't know many of the artists and writers and other creative folk I admire, I have the good fortune of calling Laura a friend. So when she posted this pic -- and comment -- on Facebook, I was all over it:

"This has always been a struggle for me. So in an effort to stop striving for constant perfection, I'm sharing this with filled in counters, blobs of dried paint and other imperfections." -- Laura Bolter

Laura, you're not alone. When it comes to creativity, fear is the big stumbling block. We're afraid of being wrong, of being misunderstood, of not being appreciated. We're afraid of hurting someone with truth in our writing. We're afraid we'll choose the wrong words, use the wrong colors.

The first step in losing the fear is acknowledging it. Only then can we deal with it. .

By the by, if Laura hadn't pointed out the imperfections, would you have noticed them?

Fabulous Phrases: Stolen from the NY Times

As promised long ago, I will periodically share fabulous phrases. And if you see a line you love, send it my way!

Today's phrase comes from Louis Bayard, plucked from his New York Times' summary of the Downton Abbey finale:

“For better or for worse,” 

my grandmother used to say, 

“but not for lunch.”

Tom, my dear retired husband ... if you read this, don't take it personally. ;-)

#Creative Community: Want to be in my book?

Think he'd buy one? It could happen!

Shhhhhh. I'm going to tell you a sorta-kinda secret: I'm working on a book proposal about creativity in business -- basically, my creativity presentation in book form, with a ton of fun exercises and quotes and more.

If you like the blog, you'll like the book.

I'll babble more about it in the days ahead, but right now the agent has me hard at work on the marketing section. This, my friends, is where you come in. I need to demonstrate that I can sell books. And I'm not above bribing you to do that:

Tell me you'll buy a book, 

and you'll be named in the acknowledgement section!

That's right! You too can be published. Post a comment here, send an email, Tweet at me, whatever. Tell me if you expect to buy one for yourself, two for gifts, or 50 for the office. (Ooh. Promise to buy 50 and you'll get extra goodies. I might even make you a sock monkey.)

P.S. Ya'll deserve to be in the acknowledgement section anyway. Such a gift to have you along on the ride!
P.P.S. Have you read the free Creative Chai ebook yet?