Cynthia Morris

If you’re like me, when you travel, you get a ton of inspiration. When I lead writing and creativity workshops, I invite people to gather their inspiration in one place. I call this ‘Flashes of Inspiration’. It’s a page at the back of my notebook where I write down all the wacky ideas I get. I don’t worry about feasibility or whether I will ever implement these ideas. It’s easier to find these gems later when they’re all in one place.

As a coach, I am about actionable ideas. There’s a point where more ideas aren’t really good. We creative types can easily get overwhelmed and then just do nothing. 

But while walking with my group in Paris, I reconsidered the value of ideas. Whenever I get an idea, I think to myself, “This is a GREAT idea!” I am full of enthusiasm, possibility, and joy. It doesn’t really matter if the idea is good or actionable. What if just the idea in itself, that blip of SQUEEE!! Is enough? What if we didn’t have to take action on everything?

I get joy from looking at my Flashes of Inspiration list. I typed up the ideas I got while leading Paris Sketchbook and Write Your Heart Out in Paris. The last item on the list is where my coach or project manager wants to come in. Do I need to make this list actionable? Probably not. Usually, things that rise to the top of the priority list get done. Sometimes, years later, you will pick up a list and see you’ve done most of them. 

Here’s my list, shared with you, with all the wild and whackery of it, in no particular order. 

1. Invite a ‘focus’ group of people for different sections of the book, most specifically ‘space’. “Listening party” (from Krista Tippett)
2. Paint my one small wall with chalkboard paint and do patterns on it. Or paint a pattern on the wall. (recurring inspiration)
3. Go back to the Portugal romance – fictionalize it and make it fun. 
4. Write the Portugal novel as a graphic novel. 
5. Digitize the Paris coffee books – aka take photos and put them into Notion so when I am in Paris I can use it. 
6. Grow an indoor herb garden in the winter. 
7. Make some kind of art or sculpture from Steve’s matchbooks – what would be a cool way to display them? 
8. Print photo stickers for the sketchbook. 
9. Resume meditation practice!
10. Write up Gigia’s melon ball apple trick and send it to Cook’s Illustrated. 
11. Never eat molten chocolate cake again. 
12. Take a romance novel writing class. 
13. Take a graphic novel writing class. 
14. Go back to healthy eating!
15. Sign up for the swim class. 
16. Write 10 jokes a day. 
17. List and illustrate 100 things from my favorite Paris market. 
18. Try more abstract paintings. 
19. Do a giant painting for the living room and frame it in a gold frame. 
20. Turn Write Your Heart Out in Paris into a class or ebook (or it actually belongs in current WIP).
21. Something about Chardon – do a painting or write a bit about it. 
22. Do a book of all my illustrated city alphabets. 
23. Use Smart and Soul website for professionals who want to write personal projects. 
24. Illustrated series – sinks of Paris. They are so tiny and cute. 
25. When in Paris, have projects to do. Like when I researched and wrote a historical novel. 
26. Get a better tone for my phone and ipad timer. 
27. Make that dance mix I keep talking about. 
28. Set up a call with Andrea to talk about pattern design. 
29. Study French more. 
30. Hire a creativity coach. 
31. Write a novel about the weekend in France during NaNoWriMo. 
32. Do NaNoWriMo about the novel in France. 
33. Submit my illustrated journey blessings to a travel magazine like Afar. 
34. Gather my photos into a Dropbox folder. 
35. Choose which of these things I will do and when. 

How do you capture and take action on the inspiration when you get while traveling? Share your secrets below.

Have you ever been pulled away from a project? Perhaps you feared it was over and you wouldn’t get back to it. I know the feeling!

Now that I am back from France, it’s time to focus on my book. I took a hiatus during the summer and early fall. Turns out it’s a lot of work and focus required to lead two workshops in France! I didn’t have any bandwidth to focus on the book. 

Sure, I have been thinking about my book and making notes about it. But I haven’t been driving it forward the way I would like. 

This happens all the time – our steady going on our projects gets interrupted. Life will always throw us a distraction or something that we cannot avoid. 

It can be distressing to be pulled away from our work. But a break doesn’t have to mean a breakup. Here are a couple of suggestions to make getting back into the groove easier. 

Invite a deeper trust. Know that you will get back into it. Connect to the reason why you do it in the first place. Trust that you and your project won’t be done until the project itself is done. 

Relinquish any angst or self-recriminiation about taking a pause. It’s just life. It’s not you or your lack of discipline. Okay, maybe it is, but you will know the difference between procrastination and an unavoidable interruption. 

If you can, give yourself a return date. I knew I wouldn’t be doing any work on it until I came back from France. So I gave myself the return date of October 24th. I’m using the Atelier to help me with weekly accountability. 

Getting back into a project you’ve been away for can be daunting. Where to start? I suggest a 15-minute date with your project. 

Give yourself a short period of time to get acquainted. Don’t expect yourself to produce anything. Just get in touch with it. Read over what you’ve written. See what’s next. Give yourself the chance to get excited about it again. Before you know it, you will have clarity on the next steps. Set yourself up for a work session to do those next things. 

Make the return graceful, not stressful. What has helped you come back to a project? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

I wish it weren’t true but sometimes you will HATE writing your book.

I used to think that when we love our topic, we should love writing about it.

And that writing a book should be a great adventure, start to finish.

I was writing yet another draft of my novel. I had to take a walk to air out my thoughts. OMG this is so HARD, I remember thinking.

I was learning as I went how to craft a story. DUH! How would I know how to write a novel? Only by doing it – badly.

On the walk, a voice in my head replied to my whiney “It’s so HARD!” with “Yes, it’s hard. So? You can learn anything.”

Knowing book writing is hard work invited my values of learning, curiosity, and challenge to rise up. Now, for all 9 books I’ve written, whenever it got hard, I didn’t cave in. I leaned in.

Normalizing the work of writing a book is one of the biggest gifts I give my clients. And now you have it. You’re welcome.

Have you given up on your book or major body of work because you mistake the ‘hard’ work of writing to be a fault of your own?

Share your thoughts in the comments below.

I like to think that each of us has a predominant feeling tone. We see this tone reflected in our writing or creative work. We connect with it through other’s art: movies, music, art often allows us to experience our feeling tone.

My feeling tone is a blend of melancholy/hope/joy. I love things that bring a sense of the poignancy of life to the forefront. Life is a mixed bag, right? It’s sad and hopeful and gorgeous and funny all at once.

Art gives me a way to honor that blend of feelings. We started watching a show called This Is Us. We’ve been trying to avoid getting into TV shows because, well, you know. You get hooked. The next thing you know you’re watching every night.

I ask myself what is it that pulls me in? It’s wanting to be in that world. To experience that feeling tone.

This Is Us is a show with wonderful characters, all flawed, all fully human, all doing their best to be themselves. The themes revolve around parenting, being a sibling, and being successful at what we care most about.

We just love it. It’s a sweet show, and with all the trouble in the world and the other dark stuff we have been watching (Ozark), This Is Us is the show I need right now.

Turns out we have tuned into this program just as it’s coming to the finale of its 6-season run. Steve came into the studio the other day to announce,“Sweetie. There are 150 episodes of the show.” I thought, Great! That’s a year of nightly watching. OY VEY!

What words describe your feeling tone in your art and life? What shows, music or art reflect that feeling tone back to you? Share in the comments below.

Last Call Ya’ll for Impulse Writing Club!

Registration for the Impulse Writing Club is still open. Want to join us for 16 weeks of writing? Register today!

I published my first novel ten years ago.

It took 12 years and 17 drafts.

Whaaaaat?!?!

I learned so many things from writing that book. One gift I received was learning that I am a tenacious person.

When committed to something, I will stay with it to the end. I finish and publish books, launch programs and lead workshops in France.

Writing that book gave me those ‘finishing skills’. It gave me the confidence to try all kinds of things that seemed beyond my reach.

Every project we finish has a gift for us at the finish line. What have you gained from completing a major project?

What project are you finally ready to commit to? A book, a body of artwork, a professional project all benefit from focus and support. 

Enrollment is open for the Original Impulse Atelier. This is my eight-month coaching group where we all dive into one project each. It starts in September, but there is some pre-work that can be done in August if you’d like to get a head start. 

All the details are here. 

Plan ahead for a productive season with us 

Hey! If you are already thinking ahead to autumn and to the deliciousness of focus that season brings, consider the Atelier. This coaching program runs along the school year calendar. In it, each member – me included – focuses on one project. We make great progress and learn a ton about our creative process. 

The Atelier is accepting applications now – if you want to make serious and fun progress on a project, this is the program for you. All the details are here. 

A cool reading job I did this month 

Recently, I was invited to be a juror for the Courage to Write literary grant sponsored by the DeGroot Family Foundation. Two other jurors and I read 33 applications. They included a letter and a sample of the writing. We were judging on several criteria, including of course the quality of the writing. 

I accepted this invitation because I have never done this. I knew I would learn from doing it. 

It was fun and an honor to peek into these writers’ worlds. To learn about their passion projects and to appreciate the commitment they have to write even when life is super busy and complicated. 

I also wanted to be a juror because pitching your idea in a succinct and compelling way is vital for anyone wanting to bring their work to the world. I help my Atelier members learn how to present their ideas. It’s not easy!

After reading through all the applications, I have one piece of advice for anyone who wants to present their idea to the world. 

Make it easy for people to talk about your work. Some might call this the ‘elevator pitch’. Whatever you call it, get the central idea of your project into one short sentence that’s easy for people to remember. 

I found myself wanting to share a couple of the project ideas with my husband. The easier it was to refer to the project, the more likely we are to share it. 

What makes for good writing? 

I recently finished Maggie O’Farrell’s This Must Be the Place and Tana French’s The Likeness. Now I’m reading The Magician’s Assistant by Ann Patchett. 

It’s a rare book that I LOVE. So I’ve been curious about what I consider good writing. In this post, I share some thoughts from my book group and also what I consider ‘good writing’. 

This piece focuses on fiction. I read a lot of non-fiction, too, and that kind of book has different criteria for me. 

This is of course highly subjective, but this is the kind of thing I ponder in the middle of just about everything: what makes for good writing? 

My book club had a couple of less than compelling picks last year, so as we prepare to choose our next set of books, we collectively asked ‘what makes for good writing?’ 

I took some notes and by the end of the discussion, of course it was obvious that we all have different takes on ‘good writing’. And we also realized that we want that variety. If we all had the same metrics, the discussion would be uninspired. 

Here are some of the things we want when we are reading fiction. 

• Easy to get into and read
• Be able to relax, enjoy, and be immersed in the book
• Don’t want to be distracted from the story
• No didacticism, teachy, preachy stuff (sorry Barbara Kingsolver)
• Emotionally intelligent
• Want a challenge/want to learn something/makes you think/changes you 
• Like when the author is trying to do something different/unique storytelling (How Much of These Hills Is Gold)

For me, I love lyrical prose. I adore sentences that move me, stop me reading, make me go WHOA. I want to be moved emotionally and I want a peek into a world. 

I mostly read historical fiction by women featuring strong female characters. I tend to avoid contemporary fiction that mirrors real life too much. Honestly, I read fiction at night to shut off the world. I don’t want something that is more of the same. 

That’s it for today! What is ‘good writing’ for you as a reader? As a writer? Share your thoughts on the Original Impulse blog here.