Book Winner and Bookmarkable! Links

Congratulations to Pam for being the random winner of a copy of Rebecca Rasmussen’s The Bird Sisters! I wish I had enough copies of this special book to send to everyone; however, please know that there is still time to leave a comment on Christi Craig’s interview with Rebecca for another chance. A huge thank you to everyone who left a comment and for your continued support of this blog.

So many good links to share this weekend! What bookmarkable finds have come your way lately?

When The Magic Doesn’t Work

One of my favorite books on writing is Terry Brooks’ Sometimes the Magic Works (read an excerpt on being “not all here”). As much as I like the title, I think that writers often think that the magic doesn’t work often enough, and that something is wrong when it doesn’t.

In a terrific post this week on Writer Unboxed, Anna Elliott writes about how to handle those times when writing feeling anything but magical:

“[M]aybe every time you sit down at the keyboard you’re bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to have flights of creative inspiration land on your page with the clockwork regularity of jet liners at JFK.  If so, that’s awesome.  And I kind of hate you.  Just a little.  But this post is for anyone out there who, like me, feels like the moment when you open your WIP file is sort of like having a giant syringe inject you with a concentrated dose of writerly-fear serum: what if the magic doesn’t happen today?  What if I hit a wall?  What if I don’t hear my characters’ voices today?” Read More

When Blogging Works

The blog lizislifelines this week offers a powerful example of how writing about the inability to connect–when the magic doesn’t work–can lead to the very connection that seems so elusive. This is how it’s done (beautiful, Lizi):

“I’ve been writing a lot lately. Snips and chunks of my day, whenever I am free, spent typing, deleting, typing, writing with the speed of a 100 meter sprint foot slap to the track. I’ve been writing here, writing for the solitary audience of a notebook, and writing for this class. As much as I love playing with words, I often feel a deep, lonely distance between what I want to write, and what I actually end up writing. Like an archer who misses the target and hits a stray chicken instead, the squawk is loud and there are feathers everywhere. Often I look at what I’ve put to paper and it makes my eyes hurt.” Read More

Creativity Boost

My writing always benefits from making the time to indulge in other creative pursuits. One my newest hobbies that is quickly reaching addiction level is ceramic painting.

No one writes about creativity with more passion than Rose Deniz, and her interview this week with Charlie of Happy Threads offers both creative inspiration and thoughts on making tough but rewarding choices so as to lead a creative life:

“Creating the charts and preparing the content for the blog takes up most of my time. Overall, including weekends, I spend about 30 hours a week working on content, sewing, stitching and blogging. This commitment means that I have time for my full time job and my kids but there is not much time left over for socialising, watching TV or just lazing around. In fact, since I started Happy Threads I don’t watch any TV at all and I don’t miss it.” Read More

If you love to cook …

… you will want to bookmark my friend Hannah’s blog, Alimental, especially if you like to experiment with vegetarian and vegan dishes. One look at her Chili Lime Stir-Fry will tell you why.

For All Who Care About Education

Finally, Ken Robinson has been a great influence on my thinking about creativity and learning. If you haven’t yet seen this RSA Animate version of part of one of his talks on changing education paradigms, you are in for a thoughtful treat. I also highly recommend his book The Element and popular TED Talks “How Schools Kill Creativity” and “The Learning Revolution.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U]