This morning I had finished my morning pages, replied to emails and blog comments and bookmarked new blog posts for later reading (I’m loving the Read It Later Firefox add-on), and sat down to do 30 minutes of motivational reading before plunging into my writing project. I opened Sage Cohen’s The Productive Writer to chapter …
How do writers manage the tempting distractions and pervasive multitasking of 21st century life? Below are some more of the ideas you shared in comments to a previous post here. Please continue the conversation by sharing what has worked for you, and be sure to visit the commenters’ blogs and websites when you have a …
“Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.” ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Think of the last time you were fully engaged with your writing. You were working to meet the challenge at hand, but you didn’t feel as though you were working. Rather, you were playing intensely. Your skills were perfectly matched to what was expected …
Do you avoid having a daily routine for fear that it will stifle your creativity? As someone who enjoys—almost craves—flexibility, I used to avoid routine, well, routinely. Then I discovered the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who argues that people who use their creativity successfully often have strict, daily routines that free their minds to do …
Your job is simply to write, imperfectly at first, maybe even incompetently at times. You can fix it later.