Posts Tagged ‘ideas’

Confident Creating

Monday, May 13th, 2013

I am delighted to introduce this guest article from IACCW Expert Eric Maisel. Enjoy!

If you want to live a creative life and make your mark in some competitive art field like writing, film-making, the visual arts, or music, and if at the same time you want to live an emotionally healthy life full of love and satisfaction, you need an intimate understanding of certain key ideas and how they relate to the creative process.

One key idea is that you must act confidently whether or not you feel confident. You need to manifest confidence in every stage of the creative process if you want to get your creative work accomplished. Here’s what confidence looks like throughout the creative process.

Stage 1. Wishing

‘Wishing’ is a pre-contemplation stage where you haven’t really decided that you intend to create. You dabble at making art, you don’t find your efforts very satisfying, and you don’t feel that you go deep all that often. The confidence that you need to manifest during this stage of the process is the confidence that you are equal to the rigors of creating. If you don’t confidently accept the reality of process and the reality of difficulty you may never really get started. Read the rest of this entry ›

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How to Strengthen Your Writing With Silence

Monday, April 8th, 2013

“Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Silence is one of the most significant components of the creative writing process. It is the alpha and omega of Conscious Writing, and invites readers into the essence of the stories you are telling and the ideas you are sharing.

Writing with silence leads to active participation from your readers who use their imagination to complete the picture your words are painting in the most meaningful way for them as individuals.

Powerful writing is punctuated with silence that creates space for your readers to experience the living reality beyond and through your words. As a result, your writing has immense depth and a memorable impact.

“He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.” Elbert Hubbard

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7 Tips for Creating Your New Year Writing Success Strategy

Tuesday, January 15th, 2013

The New Year is a fabulous time to inject a fresh burst of energy into your plans for writing and publishing your book.

So here are 7 tips to help you have your best writing year yet:

1. Identify what is genuinely important to you about your writing. So many people today live in the fast lane. As a result, it is easy to lose sight of what really matters.

With your writing, being consciously connected to what is truly important enables you to give yourself permission to prioritise your writing time. This means that you will get your writing done and feel more creatively satisfied as a result.

So start this year by taking time to re-connect to the source of your inspiration to write. Then write about that in your journal to refer back to in the coming months.

2. Clarify your vision. With that connection in place to keep you grounded, the next step is to sharpen your focus on where you are heading. Being clear about your vision will inspire and motivate you to maintain your progress.

One of the most powerful ways of bringing your vision to life is to create a Vision Board. This involves making a collage of images to represent yourself as an author and what you want to achieve with your writing.

If you have already made one, the turn of the year is a wonderful opportunity to add new images which feel appropriate for this year, or make a fresh one to reflect your new ideas for 2013.

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How to Harness the Creative Power of Stillness

Monday, August 6th, 2012

Perfect_momentSix weeks ago I broke a large bone in my foot and entered a phase of involuntary stillness that has been both challenging and surprisingly rewarding.

As a core component of my daily practice, stillness has been an integral part of my life for a long time. So I chose to accept this unexpected situation fully and see it as an extended meditation on stillness and surrender.

Naturally, there have been moments when I have felt a long way from this balanced perspective! Yet, overall, the requirement to prioritize physical stillness has opened up a whole new level of appreciation for the depth of creative potential accessible to us all through stillness.

Fortunately, there is no need for you to have such a dramatic entry point or such an extended duration of stillness to benefit from the conscious and creative gifts it has to offer.

Conscious Stillness

Conscious stillness means being fully present to deep inner and outer stillness at every level. Having a still body with a chattering mind will not deliver up the same results.

When we prioritize complete stillness, even for short periods of time, a whole new world is revealed. Imagine seeing the reflected world in the surface of a lake and suddenly finding yourself within the reflection looking out.

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