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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

Sep 18

A simple prompt that reveals new writing ideas

I believe you have to make your own writing inspiration rather than waiting for it to happen. I’ve found I can generate inspiration by being observant, reading, and by using writing prompts and freewriting. Even when I feel resistance, I find that if I just start, I surprise myself.

One of the most effective prompts I use is one in which I type or write in a notebook, “I remember.” Then I time myself for about 20 minutes and list everything I can think of. If you’re trying to access memories for a memoir or to spark a short story or poetry ideas, you’ll be surprised at what this exercise reveals.

The second step is to do the same thing with the phrase, “I don’t remember.” You might think, “how can I write about what I don’t remember if I don’t remember it?” Have faith. These prompts are a good way of letting go of writing resistance. These exercises, especially done together, have a way of revealing themes and emotional moments that will take your writing to a whole new level.

What are your favorite ways to warm up for writing or excavate new ideas?

For more ideas to nurture writing inspiration, read Carol’s post, Four ways to cultivate writerly inspiration.

Sep 17

Young People’s literature gets a boost from the National Book Foundation

For the first time in its history, the National Book Foundation has announced the 2013 Young People’s Literature Longlist for the National Book Award. This is the first time the National Book Foundation has announced a “longlist” of ten titles for each National Book Awards category. The list includes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The Longlist for Poetry will be announced today, the Longlist for Nonfiction on Sept 18, and the Longlist for Fiction on September 19. The short list of five finalists in each category will be announced in mid-October.

The nominees for Young People’s Literature address important contemporary issues, including the immigrant experience, coming of age as an LGBT teen, and the impact of technology on civilization.

Personally, I’ve read some great books for young people and I’m excited this category is doing more to recognize the incredible talent in the field.

One example is Lisa Graff’s nominated book, A Tangle of Knots,which takes place in a slightly magical version of our world, where most everyone has a special talent—something he or she is uniquely gifted at, often to a supernatural degree. Read more

Sep 16

How to create new stories from existing writing

Part of writing includes stalled starts and manuscripts that are better left in a drawer. But sometimes those pieces of writing that didn’t work out can be turned into something new. Add to that, poems or essays or short stories that reveal ideas and characters so compelling that they may generate brand new works.

One example of this is the memoir Breaking Clean by Montana author Judy Blunt. The first chapter was initially an essay Blunt wrote as a college writing assignment.

Short story writer Pete Fromm wrote How All This Started, a novel, which began as a short story by the same name that was published in his short story collection, Night Swimming.

I recently read a poem to my writer’s group and my writer pals said they wanted to know more about one of the characters in the poem. Maybe my poem will lead to a short story or novel.

Even drafts that don’t work may have promise. As we write and read and write again, we change and learn. We have a new perspective. A draft that didn’t seem to work years ago may have new life in light of all we’ve learned.

What drafts or works have you written that still resonate? Maybe now is the time to give them new life.

Sep 12

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Why your brain is your frenemy when it comes to reading and writing

Our brains are capable of doing amazing things, including adapting to typos and duplicate words in text as we read so that we can speed through a document without even noticing the mistakes. Convenient. We see what we expect to see.

But that can be a problem when we’re trying to create a polished manuscript free of typos and glitches. Add to that the fact that the more we read the same piece of text, the closer we are to it and the less likely we are to spot errors.

There’s even an Internet meme (with an element of truth to it) that calls this malady typoglycemia. See for yourself:

“I cdn’uolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg: the phaonmneel pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to a rseearch taem at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Scuh a cdonition is arppoiatrely cllaed Typoglycemia .

“Amzanig huh? Yaeh and you awlyas thguoht slpeling was ipmorantt.”

Go to the Wikipedia typoglycemia page to see the correct text.

So knowing this, how do we bypass our brains when it comes to reviewing text for errors? Read more

Sep 11

Neil Gaiman reads Coraline aloud with famous authors

Neil Gaiman’s N.Y. Times bestselling novel Coralineis celebrating its 10th anniversary. To read an overview of the novel and learn about all its successes, check out this post by Anne Margaret Daniel in the Huffington Post.

To celebrate the book’s birthday, Gaiman reads aloud the entire novel with a few of his famous friends including, Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket; Cassandra Clare; and R. L. Stein.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

To learn about the benefits of reading your own work aloud, please read my previous post “Editing Techniques to Make Your Prose Sing.”

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