Why “Write What You Like” is the real first rule of writing, with a hearty thanks to Austin Kleon for the assist.
creativity
Many years ago, I was in the world’s worst acting class. Its badness was made possible by its goodness. Much like a relationship where you’re slowly gaslighted into madness until a gigantic Acme mallet (or Joseph Cotten) shows up to snap you out of it, about 90% of what went down was fine, excellent, even. [...]
My father did not start out a tidy type, and I am my father’s daughter: most of my life has been a battle between me and stuff, me and dirt, me and disorder. Oh, I could, and did, endlessly re-label and sort the files in the canary-yellow file cabinet I requested and received for my [...]
There are three people and/or things directly to blame for me starting a blog way, way back on November 1, 2004: a severe onset of Crohn’s disease, which served both to jar things loose and make me unafear’d (or less afear’d) of looking like a jackass; my friend, Debbie, who is so discreet her web [...]
Whether from laziness, lack of inspiration or the youthful conditioning that made me the cheapskate I am today, it’s rare that I will mark up a book. Unless the book is choreographer Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit and you are me over the past two weeks. If my first pass was any indication, I’m going [...]
Back when I was a young pup Shilling for the Man, I wrote a lot of ads for a certain mass-market sports beverage. As in, a lot of ads. Because while those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of working in the salt mines of advertising might not know it, the ratio of ads-come-up-with [...]
Those of you with a touch of mania understand the glorious thrill of getting gobs of stuff done. And I’m not talking about stuff you can cross off of a list (although that’s nice, too): I’m talking about the wildly productive times in your week, month, year when it feels like you’re surfing wave after [...]
Did you read Julie & Julia? I did, and I enjoyed much of it heartily. Not precisely for the book itself, which is a perfect example of marvelous voice and great story minus adequate time and editing, but for the way it brings to vivid, crazy-passionate life the joy of throwing yourself madly into what [...]
For those of you who do most of your creating off-stage, you may not have experienced the ¡olé! moment. That’s my new-favorite term for the magical thing that happens when you get in the zone and out of the way and the work just flows through you. The term comes to me via the astonishing [...]
There’s a terror in doing something for the first time, of course. Will I do well? Will I do it “right”? Will I even make it through to the end in one piece? Will they like me? What is more terrifying, by far, is to do the next thing. Even if you do well. Especially [...]
