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Cynthia Morris

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Not Getting Things Done? Enter the Deadline Zone

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a focused space in which to write your book or finish your project? You often yearn for that far-off creative zone, an idyllic escape where you can focus on your work without daily distractions, tempting dates with friends and other seductive projects.

A mountain getaway would surely help you stay focused on one project. You may even replace Julie Andrews with an image of yourself, singing blissfully to the sky because you’re so tuned into the creative flow!
Sigh. Maybe you can’t escape your daily grind, but you can create what I call The Deadline Zone. This is less a place than a practice – and your ability to shut off distractions to complete projects is a key factor in your success.

Something about the word ‘deadline’ strikes fear in the hearts of many. Most people understand the urgency and focus of a deadline. [Read more…] about Not Getting Things Done? Enter the Deadline Zone

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Too Much On Your ‘Plate’? MindMap Your Way to Sanity

As usual, you’re juggling a lot of things at once. You’re managing creative projects, work projects, family projects. You have a lot on your plate but you get lost in the daily details. You keep adding more and because you don’t have a sense of the whole, you live in a state of overwhelm and stress.

The problem? You don’t have a solid sense of everything that you’ve committed to, so you keep saying yes.
The solution is simple. Draw a visual of your ‘plate.’ I use a mindmap for each month so I can see at a glance what I’ve committed to.

Mindmap your plate

At the end of the month, do a plate map for the following month. In a page in your work journal, put the name of the month in the middle. In circles or boxes around it, name your projects. From each of those projects you can list out tasks to complete each project.

I don’t list ongoing things like client work, administrative work, or miscellaneous things like commenting on blogs and in forums. The map tracks major projects that require immediate attention and focus to complete them.

There are at least three ways this helps you be sane with your commitments:

Reality check. Seeing my big projects on the page helps me know when I’ve taken on too much. Throughout the month I can flip back to the plate map and get a quick reminder of my focus when days threaten to dissolve in minituae.

Just say no to shiny new things. When new opportunities arise, I can check my plate map to see if I can truly add anything more.

How did it go? At the end of the month, I go back to the page and check in to see if I completed my projects. If not, they go onto the next month. Like this, month by month, I am able to manage multiple projects and complete things without feeling overwhelmed.

The numbers. Here’s a bonus. Last month I added a list on the plate map of my estimated expenses for the month. At first I thought this kind of thing didn’t belong on the plate map. Then I realized it was a simple way to see that month’s expenses at a glance, and also to see how what I was working on related to my finances. (If I were really doing that thoroughly, I’d add income as well.)

Try it – place everything you’re trying to consume on one page in a notebook or online document. What do you see? How do you use visual planning techniques to get things done?

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Creatively Stuck? Try Shapeshifting

You’re a dedicated painter. It’s your chosen medium, and you’ve got your studio all set up. Your paints are orderly, your palette is prepared, your canvas propped on the easel. You’re all set to be the creative genius painter you know you are inside.
But despite all this preparation, you avoid the studio. Your setup has become a museum display, a dusty ode to creativity that’s never used. You pass the studio door full of shame and self-recrimination.
You read self-help books. You set deadlines, you berate yourself and try to browbeat yourself to get in there and paint, dammit.
You spend hours wondering what happened. Why? Why? Why  aren’t you painting?
What happened to your creative passion? It could be any number of things, and while understanding our the source of our pain can help, often you’ll get further by indulging your creativity instead of trying to discipline it.

How I got unstuck
Years ago, I was rejected for teaching an online course for writers. The honcho nixed me because I’d used incorrect grammar – horror! – and she couldn’t count on me to have proper communication with the students.
I was ashamed enough to want to do something about it. I decided then and there to master the art of writing, or die trying. I knew this was a lifelong endeavor, but by golly, I was committed to perfecting, revising, honing, MASTERING! the art of writing.
Soon afterward, I became restless. I wanted to ditch the revisions for my novel, abandon writing e-books and articles about creativity, and splash playfully into the vibrant world of color.
Color excites me, color engages me, color moves me. I have a powerful and healing connection to color, and after years of the black and white of the writing life, the kaleidoscope of color was calling me more than mastery was.
One art feeds the other
I became enamored of text and image together, in an illustrated journal. Sarah Midda’s South of France inspired me to crack open my own blank journal and fill it with messy scribbles, inarticulate drawings, and color.
My journals exploded with life. I tapped into the joy of creating again. With the journal, there was no master, no need for excellence or proficiency. No dictates to be good, dammit, or die trying. I became more joyful and relaxed.
And guess what? My writing life got better. I kept working on my novel and writing articles and e-books. By shifting the form I demanded my creativity to take, my writing life flourished.
Permission to shapeshift
Shift the shape your creativity takes. It’s worked for my clients. A blocked painter became an ardent video producer and jewelry maker. A filmmaker became a sculptor and photographer.
There’s nothing wrong with committing to excellence in your chosen field. It’s honorable and good, until it squeezes the creative impulse from you and has you avoid the studio instead of rushing in. Creativity demands discipline but it’s also about play, exploration, discovery and fun.
The creative urge is natural and undeniable. It’s our own self-labels and expectations that can dampen this original impulse.

Shame and guilt will not work long-term to generate a creative practice that you thrive in.
I give you permission to try new media without being labeled a dilettante. You have permission to switch media entirely even if you’ve spent years and thousands of dollars investing in one medium. You have permission to be talented in many media, and to give yourself to all and any of them.
What about you? Share your shapeshifting stories here.

  • When have you switched art forms and seen a positive result?
  • What permission do you need to try something new in order to refresh your creativity?

My Curious Excursions renew your sense of play and creative joy using a visual journal to capture your juju. In Boulder in June, Paris in September, these forays into the world, guided by your journal, are guaranteed to rejuvenate and inspire.
Find out more and save your spot.



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Shed the Weight of Procrastination

When I was twenty, I had surgery that required a local anesthetic. The surgeon told me that if the pain ever got too bad, I could tell him to stop.

Stop?! Why would I want to prolong the pain? I didn’t want any breaks; I wanted it over as quickly as possible. Why would I want to endure the painful situation longer than necessary?

I wonder this same thing about people who procrastinate. They avoid writing content for their web site, filing taxes, or scheduling appointments. They even seem to cling to their procrastinatory habits like an honor badge.

Prolonging the pain and choosing to live in a state of suffering doesn’t make sense to me. Why would anyone want to bear an undone task like a constant weight? [Read more…] about Shed the Weight of Procrastination

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Five (Nasty) Tricks to Make Writing Easier

Ah, the delightfully creative human psyche. We trick ourselves in all sorts of ways to do the things we actually want to do.

Argh....get it!

Try these powerful methods to get yourself to write that blog, book, or article you’ve always wanted to write:

  1. Set yourself up on a caffeine drip.
  2. Use ropes to tie yourself to the chair. You will get BIC – butt in chair – with this method!
  3. Get your spouse to hold you hostage, locking you in a closet with your notebook and pen.
  4. Deprive yourself of food until you do it. Nails two goals at once!
  5. Call yourself names if you don’t do it. Namby-pamby, wannabe writer, loser…those are popular ones.

Have you tried any of these methods to overcome writer’s block? I bet they worked very well. The rope burns showed just how much you struggled to write that poem.
Obviously I’m being facetious here. Abuse and torture do not pave the high path to producing anything. And while caffeine is great for the illusion of brilliance, soon your adrenals are shot.
I’ve got a better way (and it’s fun and sexy too!): free writing.
I have worked with hundreds of writers using the free writing method as popularized by Natalie Goldberg. It works. Trust me.
Join me and your new writing tribe for the online Free Write Fling, which starts tomorrow. Or, if you’re feeling feisty, share your tricks for making yourself write in a comment below.

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Love It Daily: The Benefits of a Regular Creative Practice

You hear it all the time: If you’re serious about your art, you plug away at it EVERY SINGLE DAY.

I’m on the fence about whether this advice is useful. I know that if we’re being honest with ourselves, we rarely manage to do something daily. Yet we try and when we don’t succeed, we harangue ourselves for not measuring up.

Still, there’s some benefit from practicing something on a daily basis. I recently completed a 58-day project. The mission was to do one drawing a day in my Moleskine accordion notebook.

I did this because I wanted the comfort and regularity of drawing, and I liked the idea of recording my life visually. It was great fun and I also gained a lot for my creative life overall.

Here’s what a daily practice taught me that you may benefit from as well: [Read more…] about Love It Daily: The Benefits of a Regular Creative Practice

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Spark Your Creativity with Artist Dates


What the? Wacky art in Rome

One of the best strategies to enhance and enjoy your creativity comes from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.* The Artist Date invites you take yourself out for something that’s fun for your creative self. Alone or with others, these outings are meant to fill your creative well, to spark your spirit, and quite simply, to enjoy yourself.
[Read more…] about Spark Your Creativity with Artist Dates

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Snuggling in for a Creativity Retreat at Home

Winter is cozy season, and cozy for writers often means focused time to nestle in and get a lot of writing done. We dream of escaping to a cabin in the forest for uninterrupted writing time. But not all of us are able to escape the home scene. Good news – you can carve out a writing retreat at home and watch the pages stack up.

If you have even a small window of time this season for a creative retreat, here are some tips that can help you carve out space for uninterrupted writing bliss.

Of course, these twelve tactics work for artists of any medium. [Read more…] about Snuggling in for a Creativity Retreat at Home

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Inspiration: What's It Good For?


Inspiration grows in Rome (and everywhere else too!).

You’re traveling or otherwise out of your normal rhythm. The new stimulus gives you ideas for changes to make work, home and the studio.
Ignited by the inspiration, you vow to take action. But before long, you’re sucked back into your groove and those flashes of inspiration fade.
You begin to be suspicious about inspiration. What’s it for? Do all those aha epiphanies actually offer something beyond the momentary creative thrill?
[Read more…] about Inspiration: What's It Good For?

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The Lowlights Can Be the Best Part of Travel and Creativity





Don't be embarrassed about your lowlights.

Remember the time you were stuck at the side of the road all night, trying to hitchhike your way to Andorra? Then there’s the time you spent four hours in a Madrid train station, trying to buy tickets, only to be thrown out by the ticket seller because you were a weeping wreck.
Or how about when you somehow lost your money and tube pass and had to hike four hours across drizzly London, using an A-Z map book to find your way back to your squat?
These lowlights of our trips can be excruciating in the moment, but later prove to be some of the best things that happened to us. Why are lowlights so great for the creative traveler? Here are six reasons the lowlights can be the real reason we leave home.
[Read more…] about The Lowlights Can Be the Best Part of Travel and Creativity

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Don’t Invite Your Critic to the Show

Have you ever done a performance, mounted an art show, given a speech, taught a class, or any other scenario where you are in front of a group, doing your thing? If so, chances are the performance gremlin has shown up immediately afterwards, ready to tear you apart with zeal.
This mean-spirited or judgmental part of yourself may pounce on your efforts with words like:
 

Let your bouncer keep this guy out of the show!

  • You blew it!
  • They hated it.
  • Why did you say that?
  • No one bought anything – see, I told you…
  • Don’t ever do that again!

Sound familiar? This voice lures many of us to shrink. We avoid putting our work out to the public. It’s counter to that part of us that wants to soar, that wants to express our deepest self, that wants to go out there and share our work.
Yet it’s risky to put ourselves out there. When we put ourselves in front of others, we risk judgment. We risk flubbing up. We risk exposing the naked truth that we are not yet perfect.
But these risks are no reason to stop ourselves. My clients put themselves out there, and I do too, with my tours in Europe, my writing and my videos. And we all face the gremlin’s commentary afterward.
I’ve developed a simple tool that can take the sting out of the post-show gremlin that seems to want to criticize us until we decide to stay in a dark, safe spot in the corner.
My Post-Show Debrief can be used after any kind of performance or even for writing articles or blog posts. Here’s how.
[Read more…] about Don’t Invite Your Critic to the Show

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The Season to Write

Roman Autumn - I'll be there next week! Holy See!

Autumn brings coziness, breezes, leaves scuttling, orange and red dripping from trees, emerging from the ground and making way to the kitchen and table: soups, squashes and beans. Sweaters, boots, collars turned up, scarves tucking you safely away from autumn’s chill.
Is there any better time to write than autumn? The transition from summer to autumn invites slowness and introspection. Life’s transitions are more apparent in the fall, and writing captures the moments I notice and appreciate.
A daily rhythm of writing helps us slow down, pay attention, and appreciate life. The ritual of writing helps ease the sorrow of seeing summer pass.
I invite you to join me to write every day in October. There’s still time to register for the Free Write Fling, which begins October 1st.
Write your rhythm for 15 minutes every day for the month of October. By the end of it, you’ve got a writing practice that you can commit to easily.
Everyone who finishes all 31 days will be entered into a drawing for two coaching sessions with me. Everyone who completes all the days get a copy of my e-book, Cross the Finish Line: Leap over the Hurdles to Completion.
Register here.
Repeat flingers, contact me to register and get your repeater discount.

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All the Travel Advice You’ll Ever Need


Covered Passage in Paris

When I took my creative leap and shucked my stable life in Boulder for a year as a Creative Nomad in Europe, I didn’t realize that I’d be doing damage to my business’s brand.
In my business, I’m a certified coach, workshop leader, author and speaker, specializing in helping people bring their brilliant ideas into form. Writers, artists, entrepreneurs – those juicy people who need support building confidence and practices to make their dreams happen  – that’s who I help to succeed.
Imagine my horror when a friend recently called me the “Go-to Girl for Europe.” [Read more…] about All the Travel Advice You’ll Ever Need

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Shed the Suit and Write from Your Soul

When I became a coach in 1999, I went out and bought a suit. I wanted to be ‘professional.’ As a young coach, I felt the need to dress for success, and I thought the suit would ensure that I was taken seriously.
It didn’t take long to realize that for me, professionalism was something else. Professionalism was being completely present for my clients. It was honoring my word and living my integrity. To survive in business, life and writing, one must be authentic. You cannot adopt someone else’s business practices. You cannot take their same steps through life and you cannot parrot someone else’s writing style.

Writing not rooted in your soul goes nowhere. It’s a struggle and it leads only to misery. It’s what we call ‘selling out.’
[Read more…] about Shed the Suit and Write from Your Soul

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Ten Ways to Improve Your Writing

*This article sprung from a writing conference I attended years ago.

Pens Do Make It Easier to Write

Sixty or so writers filed into the conference room for Drusilla Campbell’s “Night Owl Critique” session at the San Diego State University Writers’ Conference. These writers must be sleep lightweights, I thought. Eight p.m. is hardly late. As we put our offerings on the front table, Drusilla announced in a deep and scratchy voice that she would read until they were all gone.
This was my first on-the-spot critique session, and I looked forward to hearing what she had to say about the first pages of my novel. Drusilla read each submission aloud, pausing to elucidate writing lessons that we could all benefit from. These ten lessons will improve almost any kind of writing. Writers, take heed!
[Read more…] about Ten Ways to Improve Your Writing