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Oct 1

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Artists as activists: How will you wield your power?

Writers often write to shed light on a difficult subject, find justice, and make a difference. Some writers say it’s our duty to seek truth, speak out, and stand up for those who can’t. It’s the reason why writers are among the first to be persecuted during times of political unrest.

Poet Martin Espada, who worked as a tenant lawyer and is now a professor at Amherst College, in Amherst, Mass., says he feels it’s his duty as a poet to make the invisible visible. He calls himself a poet spy, taking notes on what will later become poems.

Espada writes about controversial issues and fights for human rights through his poetry. He writes about immigration reform, dictators, prisoners on Death Row, poverty, and 9/11 victims.

In an interview with Bill Moyers, Espada said, “There’s something about poetry that saves me. There’s something about poetry that energizes me, that brings me to another plane. That fires all the hormones, I don’t know what. Something intangible, and yet tangible at the same time. There is something to poetry and activism which has the same energizing effect.”

What will you do to wield your talent as an artist, a citizen of the world, and as a communicator, whether you’re a writer, painter, photographer, or someone who has a vision for something better?

Espada has won numerous awards, including the American Book Award, the PEN/Revson Fellowship, and the Paterson Poetry Prize. His most recent book is The Trouble Ball. For more information about Espada and his writing, visit his website.

Sep 30

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Frustrate your characters to keep readers turning pages

As writers, our job is to frustrate our characters. This job can be hard on us because we usually like our protagonist, maybe even feel she is a part of us. But when we write, we are forced to act more like her antagonist than best friend. That’s because, in order to keep our reader turning pages, we need to create conflict for our characters.

Even in fiction that doesn’t feature car crashes, bombs, or airplanes falling from the sky, we need to have some amount of conflict or tension. We need to create frustrated characters. So how do we keep the stakes high even in a cozy romance or literary novel? Read more

Sep 26

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How to honor someone special in your life by writing a tribute

Has your life been significantly changed by a family member, friend, teacher, or mentor? Consider how you can use your talent and passion for writing to create a tribute. The gift of words is a one-of-a-kind present that can’t be purchased at any store and has lasting value that goes beyond any material object.

Tributes can mark a special event or be a gift for a birthday, retirement party, or anniversary. Eulogies praise a person after they’ve passed on, but some of the best gifts of words are ones you can share with the person they honor while they’re still alive. One of my uncles always said he didn’t want a funeral. If anyone had anything to say about him, he preferred they say it before he died. So when his health began to fail, we threw him a party and told him what he meant to us.

Try these techniques to generate ideas:

1. Think of specific examples of when this person was there for you or did something that made your life better. The more you write, the more you’ll remember. Relax and write without thinking too hard. Don’t edit or worry about punctuation or grammar. Just put  your thoughts on the page.

2. Expand your writing to describe the impact, how you changed because of this person, and why it mattered. Read more

Sep 25

J. J. Abram’s mystery box as metaphor for writing

In producer/director/writer J. J. Abrams’s Ted Talk below, he says his fascination with how things work and the mystery surrounding life were given to him by his grandfather.

When he was a boy, his grandfather took him to a magic store where Abrams bought a Tannen’s Mystery Magic Box. This many years later, the box has never been opened because he says it represents his grandfather to him and the infinite possibilities and hopes that his grandfather instilled in him.

Abrams believes that mystery is the catalyst to imagination. He gives the example of when he was working on the TV series “Lost.” He had 11.5 weeks to write the script, cast it, and shoot it.

Because of the short time period, he and his crew had no time to think about what the show couldn’t be. No time to think about what they couldn’t accomplish. Read more

Sep 24

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Scientific experiments indicate a “writer’s uniform” could make you more effective

So much about writing is a mind game.

Successful writers have routines that alert the subconscious to bring forth the muse. It may be a specific Montblanc pen, Moleskine notebook, extra-hot cafe latte… or a certain piece of clothing.

Plenty of professions have uniforms that, in the mind of the wearers, may set a mood or tone with them and the people around them. Think: doctors and nurses and their patients.

It just may be that you go into writing mode more deeply if you have a “writing uniform.”

Maybe it’s a special jacket, a certain scarf you always wear, or a particular t-shirt that has meaning. (Some writers have been known to wear cozy pajamas and bunny slippers, while others wore nothing at all). But I digress.

For entertaining and informative insight about a concept called “enclothed cognition,” watch this 2-minute video, which as it turns out is also a great example of an effective book trailer for You Are Now Less Dumb: How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourselfby David McRaney.

You’ll learn how a particular uniform or piece of clothing can have symbolic meaning and how the psychological experience of wearing it could positively impact your writing practice.

What would your writing uniform be?

In a related post about routines, read How award-winning author Jonathan Franzen writes.

For more information about David McRaney, visit his blog.

Sep 23

Doodle to tap creativity and focus

As mentioned in my post “Happiness Projects for Your Writing Life,” I was introduced to doodling by my massage therapist who decided to doodle every day for a month as part of his Happiness Project.

More recently, I learned that practicing doodling while learning new information can increase our retention and understanding of that information by up to 40%. I’ve never really been a doodler, but I wanted to test this idea at a recent two-day seminar to see if it really worked.

It took me awhile to get the hang of doodling while taking lecture notes. I’m not a “natural” drawer so I had to consciously thing of things to doodle at first (I started with a lot of hearts). It felt good and I was having fun. I also did seem to be more aware of what the speakers were saying. Read more

Sep 19

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Practice strategies of super elite performers: Sleep your way to creativity

I’ve learned that taking a break from the computer and “sleeping on” my writing often reveals breakthroughs — a solution to a problem or a story idea. And often this inspiration happens right after I lie down when my brain is buzzing from a writing session.

But I recently found that sleep is more important to the creative process than I realized.

Christine Carter, Ph.D, a sociologist and happiness expert at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, writes on her blog about elite performers and how they become successful. “People who go to the top of their fields don’t just practice deliberately and persistently, they also rest strategically,” she says.

It’s well known that most people need seven to eight hours of sleep a night. But Americans average only 6.5 hours of sleep per night, Carter says. She’s written about characteristics of elite performers and says super high achievers clock in more sleep time than average. Elite performers tend to get 8.6 hours of sleep a night and high performing athletes even more. Read more

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