The Blog of Writing, Creativity Coach & Mentor Cynthia Morris

Sorting Out the Mess of a Chaotic Book Draft This is part of the Claim Your AUTHORity series. At one point while writing Chasing Sylvia Beach, I deleted 15,000 words of interior monologue. The book was a mess, and cutting this much was just the beginning of making order from chaos. It was like I’d been driving with a mud-caked windshield and now it [Read more...] April 10th, 2012 \| Category: Creativity \| 3 comments
Write Your Book Even When You Feel Clueless The idea for your book seemed so clear. You grabbed the inspiration, made a rough outline, and dove into scribbling your ideas down. Soon enough, your enthusiasm burbled over into chaos. You lost the thread of logic and your writing just feels like a handful of messy incoherence. You may experience any or all of the following signs of cluelessness while writing your book: [Read more...]	Go Ahead – Take the Fool’s Journey The fools who dare, who risk, are the ones we admire. We relish their daring. We applaud their willingness to take a stand. We adore the wildly imaginative things they’ve created. Be a fool. Let your creativity run wild. [Read more...]
Celebrate National Poetry Month There are many ways to celebrate the art of poetry and what it can give to our lives. Here’s a start, a poem I wrote for my favorite spring shrub. Poet’s note: There’s a mistake – the common flowering shrub known as ‘forsythia’ is REALLY called ‘forcynthia’. [Read more...]	Who to Trust When Writing Your Book? Feedback is vital to the creative process. But inept critique from the wrong sources can squash your confidence or worse – dissuade you from continuing with your book. Here I illustrate four groups you might consider asking for help writing your novel or non-fiction book. [Read more...]
How Was New York? Enough people asked me about my trip to NYC that I felt a report was in order. Rather than try to write it up in an essay, I thought I’d share a bit of my travel companion – my Moleskine Japanese Album. [Read more...]	Target the Heart of Your Book to Write More Easily Here’s a simple but profound exercise to target the heart of your book so the ‘what’s it about’ question will no longer haunt you. [Read more...]
Dear Sylvia Beach: I’m So Glad You Were Born Dear Sylvia, I’m so glad you were born one hundred twenty-five years ago. I’m writing this letter to honor your life and to express gratitude for the brave choices you’ve made. It’s the choices we make that make us, and so many of your choices have inspired my own actions. [Read more...]	What Happy Writers Do When we’re satisfied with our writing – writing often, working on challenging pieces, having our work read – we’re happy. I’m on a mission to help people who want to write feel good about their creative impulses. [Read more...]
Famous Authors Dish: Who’s in the Novel Chasing Sylvia Beach Who’s in the novel Chasing Sylvia Beach? Some famous authors are miffed to have been left out: Chasing Sylvia Beach launch: June 22nd, 2012.	One Powerful Practice That Makes Writers Happy ‘Values’ is one of those coachy concepts that sometimes makes people scratch their head and go ‘What values?’ But beyond a moral concept or a bumper sticker, values can provide powerful fuel for writers and artists. [Read more...]