I hear this often: “I want to see Paris through your eyes, Cynthia.”
What’s it like to move through life as a writer or artist?
Let’s play ‘Being Cynthia Morris’. Come, step in and adopt my perspective. This is how you’d see the world, whether you’re traveling or at home.
Your thoughts are not linear, and they bounce between what you’re going to eat later to what you’re trying to sort out with your latest article, to being captured by anything and everything that’s happening around you.
You notice everything, every color, every noise, every written word, every dog turd and gesture. It may seem like you’re spacing out and not paying attention, but really, you’re feeling, hearing, seeing and smelling everything.
You’re constantly curious, er, nosy. You’re making up stories all the time about people around you. That couple there? First date. That woman inching along the sidewalk? Widowed for 20 years, still misses her husband’s irritating morning cough. Those young women? On holiday from Spain, enjoying Paris for the first time at volume.
The curiosity doesn’t stop at people. Why is that metro stop called Wagram? Why did they call their shop that? What’s behind all these giant, closed doors?
You move back and forth in time. You’re walking down a tiny street in the Marais, peeking into designer clothing shops. The next thing you know, you’re imagining the sound of jackboots on the cobblestones, feeling the fright of a Jewish person out after curfew. Your own memories intertwine with history. You’re constantly fascinated and astounded by layers of time and history.
You’re obsessed with language. Words in English trip through your head, and also French. A word you’d mulled over yesterday suddenly pops in your head, along with the understanding of its origins and pronunciation.
You’re constantly writing in your mind. Ideas for new articles, better ways to express yourself in old articles, a streaming narration of Facebook posts (that you’ll never do) run through your head.
You’re always accompanied by your inner narrator, and heaven forbid you leave the house without a notebook and pen, or you’ll have to stop and buy writing materials to capture everything. (This article came while walking in the Luxembourg gardens.)
Despite the amazing and disheartening news of the day, you’re hopeful and optimistic. You fear your novel may not be good enough, but you’re also optimistic enough to go for it. In fact, you’ve come to relish ventures that challenge you beyond your perceived capabilities and are always looking for ways to grow.
You’re an idea matchmaker, constantly seeking connections. How does X relate to Y? Can you extend the metaphor to align this idea with that idea to make something new and engaging? What if….
You’re positive about people. You see people with kindness, curiosity and respect. You’re blown away by the thought of the millions of people in the world, the variety of experience and the gazillion stories out there being lived, told and shared right this very minute.
You surf a constantly shifting wave of emotions: joy, wonder, sadness, loneliness, frustration, contentment. You’ve come far enough to not cling too much to any one, since you know the next influx of emotion is cresting at the next corner.
You’re a magnet for insights about how you can be a better person, serve others better, enjoy life more. You’re curious about your evolution as a human and about your ever-shifting inner landscape.
You’re still a child in some ways, full of wonder and naiveté. You are willing and able to be stopped in your tracks by something that captures your attention. You can pass cute babies by but dogs will always charm you.
Surprised? Probably not; you’re probably very similar. I’m not saying this is the best way to live, just that it’s my way.
What’s the world like through your eyes? Take a few minutes to jot down your version of the world through your eyes.
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If You Listen, the Forest Speaks
Sitting near an incredible six-trunked tree in Ireland where Yeats once sat and wrote poetry, my friend Tonja led me in a meditation to connect with the trees, and then invited me to write from the quiet, still place she’d guided me to.
In the mossy forest at Coole Park, I resisted the writing. There was no reason or sense, just a slight disinclination to put pen to paper. Then I felt the voice of the tree, heard a few opening lines, and let my pen lead me.
What emerged surprised me: a brief passage, sweet and rich and evocative of the timeless sense I felt there in the forest. The words flowed, I felt rooted, and without worrying whether the writing would be good or serve a purpose, I penned this:
All the winds that hurry through, and the drops of rain that smatter on their rush to ground, the people passing by, their feet clopping along the stones making the ground a hard path, the clouds above painting the sky a moving pillowed landscape, the insects that hop along my bark, the birds make of my branches a stage upon which to gossip and chatter, and I, among my colony of upright peers, stand nearly still, growing imperceptibly taller and wider, so slowly that you might not even know I’m moving, but I’m busting through, stretching beyond my barriers.
My bark splitting into rivers, a long weeping groove of tracks from the tops of my branches to the roots of my toes, each branch bigger than the next, splaying out wider than my years, who knew I’d last this long certainly not me, holding roots for moss and twigs and poets and sky.”
Afterward, I relished the freedom and creativity that I’d allowed to flow through me. Inspired, I felt re-connected to the writer in me who loves to create magical, fictional voices. After years of writing my novel and inspirational articles for Original Impulse, I felt the stirrings of my ‘creative’ writing again.
These are the rewards of turning yourself over to your pen and notebook without agenda. Of releasing the need to control, look good, or know where you’re going. When I first began free writing in 1994, these were the kinds of writings that emerged: stories of people I’d never known, tales of magic and discovery, and emotional landscapes that allowed me to feel and live more deeply.
You can do this kind of writing in The Devoted Writer. This online writing workshop offers a simple invitation: write every day for 15 minutes for 31 days, using the prompts I’ve created. Participants from around the globe give themselves this precious time, and together we pen our way to our own unique voices.
As a leader of this course, it’s my pleasure to see writers of all ilk relish writing in a new and liberated way. As a participant, I add ink to the many pages I’ve written over the years, to contribute to the bank of unpublished writing that has made me the writer and woman I am.
Brave New World: Move Your Writing Beyond the Journal
You’re journaling regularly, doing morning pages or free writing. Your notebooks and pages begin to stack up, and you feel good about the writing habit you’ve created.
Still, you yearn for more. You want to move beyond the journaling stage, but you don’t know how. This leap in the writing process can be daunting. Without direction and focus, you can stay in journaling mode forever. Which is fine, unless you have a different vision for your writing.
It seems simple, but my clients and students have used this to graduate from journaling to writing polished, publishable pieces.
Ready? It’s super simple: choose a specific project to work on.
I know. It’s too easy, right? But we often need a nudge out of the safe privacy of our journals to take our writing to its next phase.
So, choose a project. An essay you want to write. A nugget of an idea that you discovered in a journaling session. An idea for a story or play or poem – you may not know its form yet, but you know it’s a good idea and you want to develop it.
Once you’ve chosen a an article, short story, essay or poem, follow these steps:
- Commit to developing the idea.
- Give yourself a deadline.
- Give it a stab.
- Assess what help you need to develop it.
- Drive past the fears that will show up when it’s 80% complete.
- Don’t stop until you’re done.
- See what you’ve learned and how you’ve grown as a result of going a bit further.
What has helped you go from journal to finished pieces? Share your success stories in a comment below.
Paris Minute: Velib Bike Love
A Paris Minute: Paris Plage
The beach, in Paris? Mais oui!
Take a Creative Getaway
You feel it in the pauses of your days. Between picking up the kids from school, getting your work done and taking care of the house, the urge to get away pecks at you.
You imagine yourself in a cottage by the sea, or perhaps a cabin surrounded by trees. There, you feel a spaciousness you don’t find at home. Away, you’re able to finally focus on your writing.
This is a common urge for creatives, this desire to escape the daily demands of life and slip off somewhere secluded. There, we are sure, we will finally be able to focus and write the masterpiece we know is inside us somewhere.
I have felt this urge, and many times I’ve been able to honor it. Two months house sitting in a remote French village, a week here or there house sitting in the mountains, and now, this sojourn I’ve embarked on in Paris.
Get away without leaving home
While it’s true that time away can give us the focus we need and want, we can also get that focus at home. I know, because I’ve often felt the urge to get away. I’ve known, very sincerely, that if I just had a month away, I could finish my novel.
But that month away wasn’t available for me, and there will be a lot of times when it’s not available for you, either. How to focus anyway? Here are a few suggestions.
Master the art of the mini getaway. An hour, two hours, three hours away from home in the library, a park, a friend’s house while she’s at work, a quiet bookstore or a café can give you the sense of getting away. Toni Morrison used to check into hotels to focus on her novel.
To make it feel more like a getaway, turn off your phone. Go offline.
Go somewhere new, a place where you’re not known.
If you can’t get away from the house, write in a room you don’t normally frequent. If you’ve got a one-room home, turn your chair in a new direction.
While it’s largely a question of changing locations and stepping away from our obligations, my clients have found that they can do this with a few small adjustments at home.
Practice the art of the mini getaway until you can take a real getaway.
Planning for bigger getaways
Your real getaway may take a whole year to plan and save for. Mark the dates on your calendar.
Figure out where you will go. Estimate the costs, and start saving.
Plan what you will work on while there, and know that it may take you a day or two to settle into your focused zone.
This doesn’t have to cost a lot, be far away, or be complicated. I’ve often house sat, saving money on accommodations.
The point of a creative getaway is to focus, to release yourself from your other roles, to set aside distractions so you can write.
What works for you to get away, even when you can’t escape your daily routine?
What have mini or big getaways done for your writing?
Share your getaway tips in a comment below.
Creative Risk Taking
I’m sitting in front of my typewriter, in my apartment in Denver. It’s 1994, and I’m embarking on my writing life. Working on an article, I fervently hope that an editor will accept it.
Things sure have changed for writers, haven’t they? Fast-forward seventeen years, and we’re seeing writers freely publishing on their own and others’ blogs, and writers of all genres succeeding at the game of self-publishing. As creators, we’ve never had more power and more access to our audience than we do now.
Taking risks for writing
Creating anything for others is asking them to take a risk on your work. Buying a book, spending precious time reading a blog, getting a ticket to a movie – they’re all risks we take. Minor risks, most of them, but with so many things vying for our time, energy and resources, we must be choosy with the risks we take.
[Read more…] about Creative Risk Taking
Following in Sylvia’s Footsteps to Paris
In 1919, young American Sylvia Beach moved to Paris and opened a bookshop, Shakespeare and Company. She’d been to Europe with her family as a girl and as a young adult, yearned to live in Paris.
When I read about this pioneer in Noel Riley Fitch’s Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation, I found a female role model for living an unconventional life. A bookish woman who moves to Paris to live a literary existence – that’s my kind of heroine.
[Read more…] about Following in Sylvia’s Footsteps to Paris
This Writer’s Life at a Crossroads
We’d like to think that things move in a steady trajectory onward and upward. That in life and art we steadily improve, increase our skills and capacity, and ultimately arrive, fulfilled, at some better place than where we started.
But it seems the real path is circular, a spiral that moves forward but can bring us back to where we started. Or maybe it feels more like a squiggly Picasso line.
When clients come to me, ‘stuck’, they worry about their ability to move out of a rut. I assure them that ruts are a normal part of the creative cycle. It’s normal to arrive at a need to renew and refresh your commitment to your art.
[Read more…] about This Writer’s Life at a Crossroads
Two Simple Ways to Be Creative Daily
My office futon is folded out and my illustrated journal, pen, free writing journal and timer all lie there, inviting me to rest, write and color.
The yoga mat and tennis racquet are in the garage, next to my bike.
Appointments for tennis, yoga, and friend gatherings are on the calendar.
Without these simple strategies for making sure these ‘optional’ practices are in my life, I might never draw, do my free writing, exercise, or get time with friends.
Having visual reminders and time blocked on the calendar are two simple ways to make sure the things that make life pleasurable actually happen.
What works for you to have non-essential but important things in your life? Share your strategies in a comment below.
Daily Writing Impulse
If you’re looking for a way to gain traction on a simple writing practice, perhaps a daily reminder in your inbox will help.
Because this was requested so often, I’ve developed a writing prompt subscription service.
Monthly or annual subscriptions to the Daily Writing Impulse are available here. Start anytime and use the prompts to write if not daily, at least several times a week.
Subscribe to Impulses, my bi-weekly newsletter, to get insider discounts on this and other offers.
A discount for the Daily Writing Impulse is available to Impulses subscribers and Original Impulses clients before August 1st, 2011. Get the newsletter now and get the deals all year round.
Liberate Yourself from Old Projects
There they are – bulging in the file cabinet, collecting dust: your old writing projects. Some are complete, but most are 80% finished.
When you look at them, you feel a mix of emotions:
- Despair that you never finished that great story
- Hope that someday you might finish that great story
- Excitement – when you revisit the idea, you really like it. There’s some good writing in there.
- Overwhelm – where do you start?
You close the drawer and try to forget about these half-bakeds. You want to write new things but after seeing this logjam, you lose confidence that you can ever complete something.
It’s one of the most difficult decisions to make – revive a project or abandon it. Use my coaching questions to help discern whether the project(s) can be resumed or are ready to be dropped.
1. Where did the impulse for this project come from? Was this your idea or someone else’s?
2. What is your motivation now? What is important about completing this project? Get clear about what you expect completion of this project to do for your life.
3. How has the project changed? Is this piece still in the same genre? Has the focus of the work changed?
4. How have you changed since you began this project? Take a look at your circumstances. Assess your maturity, your commitment, and your other obligations. Is there still room for this project?
5. What tools or skills do you need to finish? Assess required time, space, and resources to get a realistic picture of what you need to complete the work. Locate the support, books, and other reference materials that will help you to complete the piece.
6. What are your strengths? Where else in your life have you stayed with a project even when you didn’t know you could? Take stock of your completion history and know that you can complete a project.
7. What would it feel like to set this project aside? Check in to see if you are ready to let this project go. Notice if you feel regret, remorse, or relief when you consider shelving this project.
8. What does your gut say? Respect yourself. Do what you need to do to feel that you are doing the right thing for you, right now. Trust your instincts to guide you in making decisions that you can live with.
Incomplete projects may be costing you more than you think. Lack of confidence, inability to focus, fear of starting new projects can all be caused by these partial projects that are clogging the queue.
List your unfinished projects and use these questions for each of them. Do the work or let go, and open yourself to new creative energy in your life.
Be More Creative – Organize Your Book with Index Cards
I’ve written two books, six ebooks and hundreds of articles. The most difficult thing about writing isn’t generating new ideas – it’s wrangling them into coherent order.
Organizing ideas is a challenge for my clients, too. The content for a book can feel unwieldy. This sense of chaos leads to despair and can make my clients want to give up.
Some advocate the outline form, but this is often too linear to be useful. My clients are often visual thinkers, so an outline just puts them to sleep and brings out their perfectionist, who insists that everything be all nice and tidy and figured out before they start writing.
I offer a simple method to make order from the chaos and keep you engaged with your material.
Index cards to the rescue
If you’re writing a book – fiction or non-fiction, try this. Place each idea or scene on its own index card. Feel free to use different colors for different themes or parts of the book.
My novel is set in Paris and in Denver. I used different colors for each location, and when I laid the cards out, this allowed me to see the arc of the story and to gauge the balance between the two parts.
The cards – some people use sticky notes – allow you to shuffle your ideas around. This ability to move scenes around is very helpful when you’re trying to map the whole book out.
One day, a client came to our coaching call with a ton of ideas and inspiration. But was overwhelmed and unsure about how to manage it all. I invited her to try the index card method for homework. This is what she had to say about it:
“I love the index cards. I can place my brain on them and walk away with room in my mind to form more questions and answers. It feels organic to my writing process. It allows my to escape fonts, software and written design. It frees me and embraces me all at once. Simply love it.” Brook
Try blocking out individual scenes for your book, e-book or long article. See how the non-linear method mirrors your non-linear thinking process and allows you to feel more in control of your abundant ideas.
How has this or a similar method helped you organize your content? Let us know in a comment below.
Too Hot to Move? Dream Instead
Summer – lazy time! It can feel too hot to move, let alone focus on anything specific. We’d rather lie in the hammock, sip lemonade and read a book.
What if you honored those inclinations to slow down? Give yourself permission to be lazy. Chilling out doesn’t mean leaving your creativity behind.
Use the mellow pace to get big – in your mind.
Dream, envision, and open yourself to possibility. Reflect on where you’ve been so far this year and imagine where the rest of the year will take you.
Jot your vision and dreams down, no matter how lofty or mundane. No need to do anything about them, or even plan, if you don’t want. Just capture the dream.
This kind of dreamy spaciousness is exactly what we need most for our creativity – the space to explore possibilities.
One fun exercise, from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, is to list five alternate careers. If you had taken five other paths, what might they have been?
Mine:
- Professor
- Tour guide
- Stand up comic
- Singer
- Psychotherapist
When I look at these, I see pieces of what I’d like to have in my life: more time in front of audiences. More time moving people emotionally and creatively.
I can do that in my current life as coach and writer. I don’t need to worry in these lazy days of summer about how I will do that. Just seeding these desires is enough for now.
I’m off to dream about the book tour for my novel, how I will decorate my new home, and how much fun it will be to enjoy it all with my hot man.
What dreams do your summer lazy days evoke? Let us know in a comment below. And if you’ve never gone through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, it’s an excellent resource for sourcing your deep desires and dreaming big.
In case you think dreaming is a waste of time, check out this book: Write It Down, Make It Happen by Henriette Klauser.
Buff Up Your Creativity: Ten Creative Capabilities Enhanced by Travel
I gave this article to my Curious Boulder participants to remind them that travel itself is a creativity workshop. Formerly published in 2009 here, I offer these perspectives to you again, so your summer travel may incite your creative juju.
Creativity is a combination of skills, qualities and perspectives that allows someone to bring ideas into form. Identifying and cultivating those capabilities allows you to be more effective in life and work.
It’sno surprise that the rigors of travel build our creative capacity. Both
endeavors push us to our physical, mental and sometimes emotional limits.
Travel and creativity aren’t for pansies.
After a year as a creative nomad in Europe, and from observing the changes I see in my Curious Excursions participants. I have charted ten ways that travel sparks our creativity. Check out the following ten creative capabilities to see how travel has contributed to yours.
[Read more…] about Buff Up Your Creativity: Ten Creative Capabilities Enhanced by Travel
How to Be More Creative
People often tell me they want to be more creative. Of course, I’m curious. “What does that look like for you?” I ask.
What does it mean for you to be more creative? You might not have a ready answer. If we can’t pinpoint exactly what ‘more creative’ looks like, we can have a sense of how we want to feel.
When we’re more creative, we:
- Experience more vitality and vibrancy
- Enjoy a sense of play
- Feel more empowered
- Attract more opportunities and success
- Connect more easily to like-minded people.
So when we say we want to be ‘more creative’ we really want to be more alive.
The creative spark strikes us and lights us up, allowing us to savor those ‘aha’ moments where something new makes sense and can change our lives.
How does one get ‘more creative’? Practice by pushing the edges of your comfort zone. Try:
- adopting an open ‘why not’ perspective
- experimenting in new media
- dropping perfectionism like a bad habit
- a willingness to try, fail, and appear stupid
- making new connections between things and ideas
- acting according to your values without worrying what others will think of your lifestyle and choices
What does your ‘more creative’ look like? Share your ideas below.
Stay tuned for more ways to fire up your creativity. Get your juju delivered with a subscription to Impulses, my bi-weekly newsletter.