Cynthia Morris

Who are you writing for? ⁠Who counts in determining what we create?

Sometimes we get bogged down by the idea of what our audience, peers, or the people in our lives will think of our creative pursuits. That can lead to a muddying of the waters of the creative process.

In this episode, Dallas shares how she broke through those barriers to write the books that were in her heart. Listen as she walks us through:

• How she learned to write for herself to leverage her creativity.
• The life events that inspired each of her books, and how the therapeutic power of writing helped carry her through grief
• How a decade working on the just-released Thanks, Carissa, For Ruining My Life reflects her growth as a person
• Plus the life changes that have helped her reframe her view of her writing time and ignited a new passion for investing in her creative pursuits

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Amy Bender
Gretchen Rubin
Sara Barelis
InstagramDallasWoodburn.com
Facebook Book Breakthrough Community
Thanks, Carissa, for Ruining My Life
The Best Week That Never Happened

What happens when you lose your mojo by making the stuff you are told to make instead of what you want to make?

Today, we’re sitting down with Koosje Koene to talk about how burnout in her photography business led her to a series of dull “cubicle” jobs. It was then that she started spending all of her free time soaking in her creative pursuits and drawing each day. Now she teaches others how to develop their own creative practice.

Listen as she walks us through:

● Why draw? How sketching challenges us to step out of our comfort zone
● What sketching has in common with cooking and how both practices are more about why than how
● The trick to lowering the stakes so you can get off the creative roller coaster, create your own sketchbook practice, and even have fun

Plus, in the video, she shares some of her favorite sketches with us.

Join us September 27 – October 2 for a life-changing workshop: Paris Sketchbook

Mentioned in this episode

Koosje’s Website

Sketchbook Skool

Koosje’s YouTube

Koosje’s Patreon

Draw Tip Tuesday YouTube playlist 

The Beauty in the Mundane

Inktober

Susan Colon

Sabine Wisman

Jane LaFazio

Hahnemühle Nostalgie series

The episode is also posted on my YouTube channel.

Why do you read books? We might read all kinds of books, but not have an intention for our time spent with that author. What if you read books more intentionally? Nicholas Hutchison of Bookthinkers spends his days reading books with the aim of learning, growing and applying what he’s learned right away.

I love that idea, but personally don’t have systems in place for turning bookish inspiration into action. I asked Nicholas how he manages the ideas he reads about and turns them into changes in his life. We also talked about the challenges he’s facing finishing writing his own book, his morning routines and their effects on his productivity, and much more bookish fun.

Tune in to give your bookish self a treat and hear more about how to make your reading time more effective.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Bookthinkers

Instagram

Quora

Permission to Glow – Kristoffer Carter

Art and Business of Online Writing – Nicolas Cole

Compound Effect – Darren Hardy

Rich Dad, Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosaki

Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill

Built to Serve – Evan Carmichael

Robert Green

Ryan Holiday

Own the Day , Own Your Life – Aubrey Marcus

Peter Drucker

You might have the dream of writing a book. Maybe you have more than one book idea. If you’re like me, you have an abundance of ideas. One of the biggest ways we stumble in our creative work is not choosing at all. This keeps us on the sidelines of our dreams.

In this solo episode of Stumbling Toward Genius, you will hear a few ways to look at how to choose among your brilliant ideas. I will share some perspectives that will hopefully help with any creative decision, not just choosing which book to write. I’ll also talk about the book I am currently writing and how I made the decision to write this now and not earlier.

Be sure to check below for my choosing checklist to help with your creative decisions.

Mentioned in this episode

Checklist for choosing among your creative projects.

Write Your Book Coaching Group

Write A Manifesto for Your Book

The Busy Woman’s Guide to Writing a World-Changing Book 

Atelier

Focus Group survey to help me with my current book

Have you tried writing a book but have gotten stuck when it comes to organizing and structuring it?

Most of us come to write a non-fiction book with a lot of ideas. We have so much material. How to keep various drafts organized? What to do with scraps and bits of writing we have here and there? Then, how does it all go together? What belongs in the book? What’s tangential? What goes where? You can see how madness can quickly descend. When we are disorganized and uncertain, it’s a sure cocktail to foment writing insecurity. Helplessness takes over and we abandon our book writing. Don’t do it!

In this solo episode, I will share two of the main stumbles that stop people from writing their non-fiction books or memoirs.

A caveat, there is so much to say about this, so I am just sharing a few approaches that may help you. Also, each book is its own thing and has its own voice, shape, and agenda. There is no one-size-fits-all. I love helping my clients shape their ideas in world-changing books in my customized coaching.

Mentioned in this episode:

Diane von Furstenberg’s Own It

Bibliophile, An Illustrated Miscellany by Jane Mount

Nick Bantock’s Griffin and Sabine stories, illustrated serial novels

Adam J Kurtz

Drawing is thinking / Milton Glaser ; introduction by Judith Thurman

We are each other’s harvest: celebrating African American farmers, land, and legacy

Why we cook: women on food, identity, and connection

Karen Wright is an executive coach and founder of Parachute Executive Coaching in Toronto, Canada. She’s a single mother, shares Cynthia’s passion for Paris, and can’t wait to dust off her passport, hopefully soon.

When life pushes you into leadership situations you don’t want to be in, you could be called an Accidental Alpha. Karen Wright is an executive coach who found herself in charge of her life in ways she hadn’t planned. She coined the term Accidental Alpha Woman and discovered that many of her friends were in the position of taking on things they didn’t sign up for. After struggling with being an accidental alpha, Karen brought her coaching skills to help her navigate life and work. An author of The Complete Executive, she knew the power of putting your ideas into book form. She also knows that even when life throws us stuff we don’t want to deal with, we are always playing a role in that scenario. So she wrote The Accidental Alpha, sharing her Receive framework.

In this episode, Karen shares her Receive framework. This is super helpful if you are a person who has trouble receiving help, support, accolades, or anything.

Mentioned in the show

The Accidental Alpha Woman

Karen Wright

The Complete Executive

Difference between complex and complicated TEDx talk 

Are you like me, always wanting to tweak and revise things? I love designing. In this episode of Stumbling Toward Genius, I try a new format. You’ll hear a few more personal stories from me from my studio and life. I share these so you know I’m not sitting on the sidelines with everything all figured out. I am in the creative zone with you, figuring it out as I go!

Here’s how it often goes. We have an idea for a book. It can grow inside us for years. We love this idea and we cherish it. Our idea expands and morphs and gives us a sense of having something precious. But I believe our ideas have a shelf life. Our talents are not Twinkies with no expiration date. I also believe that making our ideas real is way more satisfying than holding onto them, cherishing the sense of possibility.

In this episode, I’ll share some of the common pitfalls that keep us at the starting gate of a book or any other project. You’ll hear about the new book I am writing and how I am going through all these pitfalls even though this is my 9th book. And, I’ll give you strategies that help me and my clients get past the obstacles that we stumble over when we get started with a project.

Also in this episode, you’ll hear about a major creative win I had last month and my unexpected response when it came to fruition. (Plus how I coped with that weird reaction!)

I also share how I am getting more reading time into my life and how this is making me feel more me. Plus, how I get through self-guided classes where there is no accountability from the teacher.

Mentioned in this episode

Atelier

Why It’s So Hard to Finish Our Projects 

Write Your Book Coaching Group

The Busy Woman’s Guide to Writing a World-Changing Book 

Poets & Writers magazine

iPad Artist with Sketchbook Skool

Pam Slim seeks to connect people as communities. Through our work together, we can build the kind of world we want to inhabit. Her latest book, The Widest Net, shows business owners how to connect within communities instead of speaking from afar to audiences. In this episode, Pam shares what’s at the core of her work and how even though this book felt so right, it was a challenge to write.

Mentioned in this episode:

David Moldawer

Hiro Boga

Michael Bungay Stanier

Main Street Learning Lab K’eh

Darryl Slim

Dorie Clark

What are your plans for your creativity next year? Perhaps you have a project in mind and can’t wait to get started. That’s me!

Or maybe you don’t know what you want to work on. There are possible projects. Your friends have clear goals. But you don’t know what you want to do.

In this episode of Stumbling Toward Genius I will share a perspective on how to focus your creative time so you feel satisfied and on track no matter what happens. It’s both broad and specific, and I think you’ll love it.

If you’re like me, you tend to be ‘all over the place’ with your ideas and possibilities. The Creative Edge gives us a broad yet specific focus. It makes it easy to choose projects that give us a sense of momentum and progress.

Did someone – a teacher, or parent, or peer – shut down your art? This happens all too often, especially when we are young. As kids, we don’t have the perspective or resiliency to know when someone is telling us something that’s not helpful for us. This drives me crazy! I work with so many people who have had to reclaim their artist. And sometimes, it’s decades before they shed the story someone else told them. Did this happen to you?

In this episode of Stumbling Toward Genius, I talk with multi-media artist Sean McMullin. To be transparent, Sean and I are art buddies who meet regularly to talk about what we are making. We go on and on about what inspires us and what gets in the way or supports our art-making. But in this episode, the focus is on Sean. We talk about:

• Giving ourselves permission to explore and create.
• Ending a lifelong struggle with creativity.
• How Sean makes his art a central part of his days with project management skills.
• Why and when and how to share.
• Keeping good notes as a key to a successful art practice.

If you’ve ever struggled to find space for your art or to reclaim the artist that got shut down as a child, this episode is for you.

Mentioned in this episode:

Sean’s Instagram account

Mark Dion

Emilie Wopnick

Barbara Sher

At the end of the year, it’s tempting to just dive into planning for the next year. But if we don’t pause to reflect on the year we had, we rob ourselves of much of the empowerment and joy we earned through our actions. For creatives especially, doing an annual review process can give us the confidence and courage to brave new things. In this solo episode, I share why it’s so important to reflect. I also share some of the major challenges I experienced, some creative wins, including one of the biggest creative projects of my life.

The lens I look back through is always focused on my creative process. What did I make? What did I learn from that? How did the books and podcasts and shows and movies and things that I consumed impact my life and my creativity. With these guiding inquiries, I’m able to not only see what I did, but I can appreciate who I became as a result of doing those things.

Doing an annual reflection process helps us digest the year, the things we did, and who we were. It allows us to honor and savor our efforts and our being. We often skip this step and end of the year feeling harried and unaccomplished, we start the new year on an empty tank.

Mentioned in this episode:  

Annual Review for Creatives workshop  

Sparketype  

Write Your Travel Stories  

Victoria Bresee, therapist  

Mindfulness Workbook for addiction: a guide for coping with the grief, stress and anger that trigger addictive behaviors by Rebecca E. Williams, PhD and Julia S. Craft MA
(also available in the Denver library)

Tim Ferris with Paul Conti: How Trauma Works and How to Heal from It  

School of Life: Why Happiness is a Useless Word  

Things that made a difference in my life this year  

Workshops 

Center for Applied Jungian Studies  

Esther Perel The Great Adaptation Conference  

Natalie Goldberg haiku workshop  

Transform Your Relationship with Food  

Suleika Jaouad’s Isolation Journals   

Books 

Still Writing by Dani Shapiro 

The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick’s

Living Color : Painting, Writing, and the Bones of Seeing by Natalie Goldberg

Illustration Workshop : Find Your Style, Practice Drawing skills, and Build a Stellar Portfolio  by Mary Kate McDevitt 

Three Simple Lines by Natalie Goldberg  

How to be an artist  by Jerry Saltz  

Let’s Eat France
This might be the coolest book I have ever seen. It’s for the lover of food, the francophile and the person who loves trivia and history. Feel free to treat me to this for Christmast!!  

Magazines 

Cook’s Illustrated
I got this randomly from the library. I couldn’t even get past the masthead because it was so interesting and valuable! I tore out the subscription card and handed it to Steve. “Birthday present,” I said. I LOVE this magazine and cannot believe I am only this year getting on board. 

Poets & Writers
If you are serious about the life of a writer, this is the magazine to have. In this episode of Stumbling Toward Genius, I mentioned a special piece I have in the January/February 2022 issue. Don’t miss it!

Podcasts 

I listen to podcasts constantly, it seems. These are the ones I especially loved this year.  

Daring Greatly  

Unlocking Us 

This Jungian Life 

Art Juice  

The Splendid Table  

Other treats

A fun, unexpected treat was Mud\Wtr. My stepson Mark Davenport and I were talking about mushrooms. I have been using Lion’s Mane in my morning coffee and also taking a mushroom supplement. Mark asked if I knew about Mud/Wtr. I checked it out.

Their copywriting and marketing was so compelling, I had to order. I got their morning kit and was in love with it before I even tasted it! Then I tried it. I love the blend of spices, mushrooms and a spot of black tea. This has replaced my second cappuccino. I highly recommend this. Use this link to check it out.  

My new favorite notebook! I put images from my favorite calendar on the front of these to jazz them up a bit.  Zen Art Supplies dot grid notebook 

Affiliate links are used in this blog post.  

What’s your relationship with poetry? You may have read or written some back in school. Perhaps you think poetry is obtuse and intellectual and not for you.

I love poetry for how essential it is. Every word matters in a poem. A writer has no place to hide; their truth and emotions are right there in the sparseness of the lines. The very first writing class I taught was a poetry class. The things I learned from that class inform all the writing I do. Whatever your relationship with poetry, I think you’ll love the conversation I had with poet and poetry lover Mark McGuinness. Writers of all genres will benefit from the things he shared about bringing his love for poetry to life in his podcast, A Mouthful of Air.

Mark and I talk about what it’s like to create something from your passion, to finally have a place for all the enthusiasm he has for poetry.

“This is the most complicated thing I’ve ever created,” he confessed. As an introverted Brit, learning how to read poetry with emotion and his true voice was a challenge. Mark shares the story of how he broke out of his self-consciousness and into his true voice.

Voice is one of the most important elements of writing. Somehow, even though our voice is right there within us all the time, it’s oddly elusive when it comes to expressing ourselves. Mark shares some surprising perspectives on voice that gave me new ways of thinking about voice and how to access it.

Even though Mark is a seasoned podcast host and producer, A Mouthful of Air gave him new challenges. He was able to break away from traditional podcast formats in order to shape an experience he wanted people to have of poetry.

Our conversation was energizing to me and gave me a renewed sense of hope and vitality. I feel emboldened to return to poetry myself, both reading and writing it.

Enjoy this episode of Stumbling Toward Genius, getting insight from Mark’s stumbles and how he recovered with grace and commitment.

Find A Mouthful of Air here:

amouthfulofair.fm

Twitter @amouthfulofair

Instagram

Facebook

Linkedin

Mentioned in the episode:

Kristin Linklater Voice Center

I’d be so grateful for your help with a review of the podcast Stumbling Toward Genius on iTunes.

When you’re a writer, people will often say you have a gift with language. What if we used our words as a gift? I love the idea of being generous with your words. There are a million ways to do this. I suspect you give the gift of your words all the time.

In this solo episode of Stumbling Toward Genius, I share a few thoughts on how to use your words as a gift to others. Plus, a special treat from my client, Christopher Robbins, who generously agreed to give the gift of his words to us here.

Warning: There is explicit language near the end of this episode.

Mentioned in this episode:

Christopher Robbins

Annual Review for Creatives workshop

Impulse Writing Club

My new favorite postage stamps