Occasionally I run into someone who tells me that he or she is a good writer, and for whatever reason, this has happened to me recently with two former graduate students. With both of them (bless their hearts), I thought, “huh?” To my mind, neither of these individuals are good writers. Smart, capable, creative, interesting, [ Read more … ]
Learning & Creative Process
Finding YOUR Way to Self Care
Ivanka Trump was widely panned for suggesting that busy mothers should get regular massages, because for many of us that’s just not realistic. I myself, have never been into meditating. And if I don’t like something, I’m not going to end up doing it. A friend says that people always tell her to slow down, [ Read more … ]
The only difference between creative people and non-creative people
Creative people aren’t any different from people who don’t consider themselves to be creative. It’s just that creative people have chosen to say “yes” to their heart’s longing to express itself.
Poison oak blisters and teaching
I learned early in my career that I can teach and be in front of a group when I’m not feeling well or I’m sick. The example that’s forever etched into my memory is when I was hired to teach a day-long seminar at UC Berkeley. And I just happened to have gnarly poison oak [ Read more … ]
Finding Your Image
For many years, I led creative writing workshops. Early on I noticed that some writing prompts tended to keep people entrenched in their thinking mind… and their subsequent writing was heady and dry. These writing prompts often involved using a word or newspaper headline to write from. Their writing might have been slick and witty, [ Read more … ]