Routine and Novelty

by Shelley Burbank

What is better for creativity: routine or novelty? 

For the past eight months I've been living halfway around the world in a foreign (ish) country. Novelty. 

However, I knew exactly ONE person when I moved to Guam, and that was my husband. Since then I've met a few of his co-workers and some very friendly ladies in the exercise classes I attend a couple times a week, but I lack the kind of friendships that lead to coffee-dates, mani-pedis, hang-outs beside the pool, shopping afternoons, art museum mornings, and ladies-who-lunch lunches. Much of my time is my own. My weekdays are pretty much the same, week after week, month after month. Routine. 

This expatriate adventure in Micronesia has been a unique combination of extreme novelty and extreme routine all at the same time. Every single day spent in my apartment is pretty much the same, but once I step outside the door--boom! I'm hit by unusual sights, sounds, and smells, not to mention humidity-levels. 

All of this was somewhat expected. I knew I'd be a little lonely. I knew I'd have a cool opportunity to learn about a different culture and corner of the world. I had visions of using this time to write a series of novellas set in Guam as well as a couple of full-length novels set Stateside. So far, I haven't gotten into the kind of flow I'd hoped, and this has led me to contemplate the effects of both routine and novelty on creativity. Here's what I've noticed so far. 

When I am sticking to a routine, a schedule, for writing, I tend to get more done. My fingers and my mind remain limber, and I'm able to put a decent number of words on the page every day. I plow through my outline, scenes and chapters pile up, and I finish projects and meet deadlines with ease.

Routine, then, seems very good for productivity. Sometimes it can even lead to inspiration out of sheer boredom. A desperate voice in the back of my mind whispers, "Please, PLEASE, if we have to sit here staring at this stupid computer screen for five hours today, think up something funny or wild or twisty, I beg you!"

But there inevitably comes a time when my mood dips below boredom into the blahs. The blahs are the enemy of creativity. When ennui hits, nothing seems compelling. Every idea is deemed too dumb, too unoriginal, too unbelievable. This is when creativity needs a hit of novelty. An afternoon at a museum. A trip up the coast. A new exercise routine. A gathering of strangers who might become friends. 

Too much newness or change can backfire, however. Such is the case with my recent trip across multiple times zones for a visit back in Maine. New impressions, new scenery, snatches of conversations in airport dining rooms and gift shops; catching up with old friends and family; routines thrown out the window; a full calendar of visits and visitors, dropping into a dead sleep at 8:30 p.m. from sheer psychological exhaustion. Being overstimulated keeps my head whirling, unable to slow down enough to plan, to plot, to settle into the rhythm of language and story. 

Like eating an entire homemade apple pie in one sitting, drastic change can be too much of a good thing! Instead of a stomach ache I have a creativity ache. Ouch.   

All this might sound complicated, but really this is just the normal ebb and flow in the writing life, despite the fact that right now my ebbs and flows are a bit more extreme. I've learned, through experience, to take each stage as it comes, to be patient with myself on the slow, boring, and difficult days, and to let my expectations slide during those crazy, over-scheduled times. Most important, I try to appreciate those miraculous stretches of days when everything balances and I experience creative flow while conforming to a daily routine. 

Here are some tricks and tips I've used for getting into a creative rhythm while avoiding the blahs:

1. Schedule your writing time. Maybe it's one hour first thing in the morning or every Sunday afternoon. If you are one of those people who can bear down for 10-15 hours a day for a few weeks or a month, go for it. Making a schedule and sticking with it tells your brain, "Hey, it's time to play!" 

2. Make creativity dates with yourself. This is something that Julia Cameron advocates in her book The Artist's Way. She calls it an "artist date" and advocates a weekly, two-hour block of time where you wander in an art gallery or a craft store or take a nature hike or a swim or a concert, anything that is engaging and interesting and fun rather than "work" or "obligation." This is something I need to work on. It's so easy for me to succumb to a rut and ignore the signs of creativity depletion. When I DO force myself to get out of my apartment and into a specialty shop or even a walk along a new section of my village, I feel uplifted and energized.

3. Balance social time and alone time. Your ratio will be different than mine and will depend on things like introversion/extroversion, job demands, family obligations, and your interest in extracurricular activities and clubs (church, community meetings, pickleball league, Boy Scout leader duties, etc.) In my experience as an introvert, I'm apt to accidentally over-schedule my time which depletes my energy, not only psychologically and physically, but also creatively. If you are an extrovert, you will need more stimulation and "people time." Either way, it's perfectly okay to say "no" to any activity that doesn't fit your needs. 

4. Exercise. Walking is especially helpful for getting the creative juices flowing. I don't know why, but there's plenty of anecdotal evidence. See: Charles Dickens and Stephen King. You can combine your exercise time with your alone time or you can exercise with other people. Your choice!   

5. Meditation. I've experimented with this over the past few years, and when I'm consistent with it, I find my ability to focus improves and I'm even able to sleep better.   

6. Try some other form of art. This year I've challenged myself to learn to draw. I'm not very good at it, but when I'm concentrating on an image or shading or coloring, it's like a little break for my writing "muscles." Crafts like knitting or scrapbooking or cooking apply here. 

Right now my head feels stuffed with cotton batting and my eyes are closing. I've had no time for writing or thinking in over a week. I'm zapped from socializing, and this is made even worse by many months of forced solitude to which I all-too-easily adjusted. It will be a miracle if this post makes any sense at all. I hope it does. If not, I tried. Don't judge me too harshly. 

It's been a challenging year. 

Novella Finished and Out With Beta Readers

By Shelley Burbank

Happy Friday, Friends! 

How's your summer going so far? Have you written all the words, read all the books, soaked up all the sun, splashed in the lake or ocean, cooked up some burgers or portobellos on the ol' grill while fireflies danced and sparkled in the long grass on the side of the road? 

For me, this past month has been all about revising Strawberry Moon Mystery. Early beta reader response has been positive overall. I'm hoping with a few tweaks and changes, I'll be able to make it available to readers by the end of September, latest. The more I learn about indie publishing, the less appealing it is, but I'm at this stage where it makes the most sense, at least with this novella.

I'm going to price it fairly high because it's either that or give it away for nothing some other way. Here's my thought: my readers, the readers I'm hoping to attract, will be willing to pay $5.99 for a 120 page ebook. I know the common wisdom is to price it low, but you know what? I think that just signals a lack of confidence and a sense of my work's worth. I haven't decided yet on the print cost, but I think I'll keep in in line with the other two books in the series at 19.99. (It would be so much easier if we could just round up to $20! Especially since we are getting rid of the USA penny! Are any of us REALLY fooled by the .99 on the end of pricing?)

Creativity Webs

Lately I find myself wanting to focus on multiple creative pursuits: learning to crochet granny squares, reading ancient and world history and Guam history, catching up on classic literature I've missed, and continuing to explore art techniques and art journaling. All this plus more story ideas than I can handle. It feels as if I'm spinning a complex web of creativity and getting myself tangled up in all the threads. 

How do you balance your creative life?

I think one way, moving forward, will be reducing my screen time. It's so easy to fall into a nightly television habit. I'm more productive in the mornings, but I could spend my evenings reading the history and literature and knitting/crocheting. One idea was to create a cozy reading space, and so I bought a beautiful, cheery yellow lamp to sit beside a chair in my living room.

I'd like to add a pretty blue and yellow print to the shade if I can figure out how to do it properly. And yes, that's the same knit dishcloth I started months ago. I looked for some floral artwork at the local Salvation Army Thrift Store with no luck, but I was in a hurry. I'll get there again soon and take my time poking into odd corners.

Facebook, Shmacebook

As I'm about to begin "marketing" the novella, Facebook is once again on my iPhone. Am I pleased with this development? No. Simply, no. Hopefully I've figured out how to use the platform without it using me. I hop on. I post. I skeedaddle. No scrolling. Very little hitting the like button. Even less commenting. 

This makes me a "freeloader" and I don't care! 

Hope you have a wonderful week and final weeks of summer. See you in the fall!

Shelley

Have you subscribed to Pink Dandelions, my monthly newsletter on creativity, culture, manifesting, mindfulness, and nurturing your own beautiful life? http://shelleyburbank.substack.com/

[A version of this blog post appeared on my private blog, Shelley's Journal.

Rediscovering the Joy of Writing

 

Happy Friday! Shelley here, once again, from Guam where I'm finding inspiration in the oddest places, like this moldering, broken balustrade overlooking the ocean from high atop a cliff covered in tangled vegetation and littered with trash--beverage containers, plastic bags, tattered towels, even a computer screen coming apart at the seams. 

There must be a story here at the end of the narrow path winding through the overgrown lot. A former resort hotel? Or the vacation compound of a wealthy Japanese family destroyed in some long-ago typhoon? I could probably research and find out, but I'm not sure I want to. I'd much rather imagine. 

Often there's a strange beauty in the broken things. A piquant nostalgia for what once was and could have been. An acknowledgment of a particular failure and the world and life moving on just the same. 

JOY 

Conflict--external or internal--is the heart of story. We put our characters through the proverbial wringer, squeezing the emotions from their arcs, pinning them up to dry on the narrative clothesline where they once again take shape, billowy like sheets or white, button-down shirts. They come off the line at the end of the day smelling like sunshine and grass with a faint, clean whiff of Ivory soap.

In our own creative journeys, we writers and artists also find ourselves conflicted. We are dumped into crucibles of our own making or of someone else's. The heat's turned up. We're bashed around. At this point, we must either adapt, change, or (metaphorically) die. 

I recently went through an intense period of creative questioning, searching, and ultimately changing, fueled by reflection on the last several years which involved publication of two novels; social media engagement and marketing; disappointing royalty statements; learning how to use a graphic design app for making marketing materials like headers, social media images, and reels; an experiment with Facebook ads (these worked but I disliked the process); wrangling with an expensive website that required coddling and fixes too often for my liking; and countless hours reading and listening and studying and watching "experts" on the topics related to "selling your books" and the publishing industry in general.

My conclusions? Marketing makes me miserable. A creative life doesn't have to be this hard. A mailing list is key. The publishing industry is a hard, cold, capitalist business. A really, REALLY good book sells itself by word of mouth. Social media is a dumpster, and it's on fire every single second of every single day. A total waste of time. 

My a-ha moment? When I remembered I got into this because of my love of books and my desire to craft stories. I realized nobody can "beat" me at THIS game, the game of writing (as opposed to the game of publishing.) 

If I continue to write, I win. 

If I continue to learn my craft and improve, I succeed. 

This isn't a unique perspective. We've all heard it before, but when it hits you, really hits you, that you don't care anymore if you ever make a living from your writing, or even if you ever sell another copy of your book, you feel a particular and awesome joy. The joy of creativity, purpose, and play. 

AM I JUST A LOSER?

I know what some of you are thinking (because I've thought it myself about myself and others. Yup. Not proud). People who have failed resort to this sort of thinking to make themselves feel better. 

I nod and say in reply, Yeah. And what's wrong with that? 

Is it more noble to feel terrible every day? Is it more worthwhile to pout and rail about the unfairness of life and publishing? Does it serve creativity to concentrate on failure and despair rather than joy? Is suffering somehow a better, more elevated outcome than happiness? 

How perverted that perspective!

Given the choice, I'll take happiness in my creative life, thank you very much. Publishing's game continues on. Rules change. Someone's gonna "win" and many are gonna "lose," and I'll watch from over here on the sidelines, stoic and detached, while others fight it out. I'd rather concentrate on my craft--something within my control--and revel in this lightness I'm feeling. 

I haven't felt this good about my writing life in several years. I'm listening to podcasts and reading articles on craft not on marketing. I'm enjoying the challenges of narrative structure, of thematic choices, and progressive plot complications. I'm about to rip my current short story to pieces and start all over again, and I DON'T CARE how long it takes me to get it right.

So, if you are struggling with these same dilemmas and are feeling like all this marketing and social media and striving are sucking the joy out of your creativity, consider setting all that aside, at least for now, and focusing just on the work for awhile. 

When you've finished something, send it out and see if anyone bites. Then forget about it and get back to the page . . . where the joy lives. 

----

For more on creativity, purpose, and nurturing a creative life, check out my once-per-month, free newsletter, PINK DANDELIONS. This month's issue is below. Click to read. 

Tariffied: Impacts on Publishing, Writing, & Creativity

Hello, Type M Readers & Writers:

Shelley here reporting from an island in the Philippine Sea and feeling very weirded-out by everything going on over there on the mainland. Guam is a far-away outpost of the USA. My husband works for the Department of the Navy. We've been on island since January, trying to get our bearings. It would have been difficult in normal circumstances. 

Now I don't know whether to be grateful to be off the mainland or terrified. 

I'm a worrier. When my husband decided to apply for this position, November's election hadn't yet happened. I voiced some concerns about what if things go sideways while we're there, but we decided to take a chance. Yup. We chose this, so I can't complain or say it was totally unexpected. That it's toward the worse end of the spectrum of outcomes I'd considered saddens and alarms me. It's not the absolute worst. Yet. But we are darn close to China here. 

One thing I can say is that all this chaos and uncertainty is impacting my writing. I'm trying oh so hard to build a creative sanctuary in my head and my home, but short of turning off the news altogether and living in a fantasy world of there's nothing happening lalalalala puppies and unicorns, I don't see how I can ignore the sitch out there and concentrate on fictional narratives. 

Perhaps I should consider it a challenge. If I can manage to flex these concentration muscles now, I might be able to continue to create no matter what happens in two weeks, three months, or four years. 

I mean, haven't some authors written works while actually jailed? 

A quick Google search pulls up a list of ten best books written in jail. These include Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory, Don Quixote by Cervantes, and Justine by the Marquis de Sade. (Note 1)

Okay, so if Mallory could write while moldering in the not-so-cozy confines of a 15th-century prison, certainly I can write while holed up in an ocean-facing condo in the beautiful, tropical island paradise that is Guam. And honestly, diving into fictional worlds might be the best antidote to the news cycle if I can only get myself to ignore it. 

My new table, cushions, and pillows on the balcony

I'd love to hear how other writers are handling this. Feel free to comment. 

Publishing and Writing Community Impacts

I try to immerse myself in the literary life, but even the book world news is somber. I've somehow signed up for a ridiculous number of Substack newsletters, and one came in today from a new indie publisher of mid-life women's books, Empress Publications. They are just launching a new nonfiction book on mid-life women's sexuality written by a medical doctor. They contracted with an artisanal, women-owned press in China to create a pretty book on bamboo paper. (Note 2)

Now, because of the new tariffs and closing of the de minimis loophole, the book is going to cost a lot more to get into the hands of readers. Who wins here? Anyone? 

Maybe the environment? All this mail-ordering and purchasing cheap throw-away goods isn't so good for the planet. As someone concerned with sustainability and over-consumption, I take this as perhaps the only positive glimmer on a dark sea of awful. But books? We keep those. We pass them down. They aren't throw-away items. Not the good ones anyway. I digress...

The de minimis exemption was a bipartisan law passed by Congress that allowed shipments valued under $800 per person per day to enter the U.S.A. without duty charges or taxes. According to the National Foreign Trade Council, American small business plus consumers benefited from the exemption and provided low-income communities access to affordable goods...including books. (Note 3)

That's not the worst of it. Almost everything that is sourced outside the U.S., including paper and books and ink and parts for printing presses, etc. is going to have increased tariffs. That means production will slow or goods will cost more or both. I think the publishing industry at all levels is going to suffer. 

Between cutting funding to libraries and museums and now these new tariffs, one has to wonder if our country cares at all about readers, authors, booksellers, literacy, books, or the arts in general. Is America ditching reading and culture altogether? 

Some may protest: "It's not me that's doing this!" Well, I'm sorry, but we can't pretend we aren't part of the country that is making these decisions. When our country does something...WE ARE doing it. If we let these actions continue, we are doing it. If we don't gather together and tell our representatives to go in a different direction, we are doing it. 

😀 Maybe this will all turn out just fine, and I'm worrying about nothing. 

Some of you may sincerely believe this is just a small bump in the road and everything is gonna be okay. I sincerely hope you are right. If I'm worrying about nothing, that will be the best outcome. I'll have only grown some new gray hairs and maybe shaved a few days off the end of my life. I'll even give credit where credit is due. 

I may not be feeling the fiction writing right now, but I do seem to be capable of writing opinion essays. Maybe this is just where I have to dwell for now. Meanwhile, I'm researching for a potential series set in the 1960s, so I'm not completely wasting my time. I have books to read, notes to take, ideas to spin. 

Let's hope this chaos calms down before summer. 

Note 1: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/sep/19/books-written-in-prison

Note 2: https://open.substack.com/pub/alisajones/p/zippers-tariffs-and-the-price-of

Note 3: https://www.nftc.org/de-minimis-a-vital-tax-exemption/

 

Creativity & Manifesting Your Dreams

    

Today, I’m going to share some excerpts from a recent essay I sent with my newsletter, PINK DANDELIONS. Not because I don’t want to write something specific for Type M, but because this is what I’m thinking about this week and anything new I tried to write would probably just rehash all this anyway. 

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower 

Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees 

Is my destroyer. 

And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose 

My youth is bent by the same wintry fever. 

 –Dylan Thomas Lately 

I’ve been thinking about what I call “the creative energy of the universe,” what it is, how it operates without and within us, whether it’s simply a phrase to explain the inexplicable–OUR inexplicable–drive to create, thrive, succeed, manifest, or if it is actually somewhere, substantive, other, extra, above. 

    Can we find ways to connect with it or tap into it or use the force, I wonder? Or is it simply a concept? A wordy way to explain an ephemeral feeling that there must be something out there besides ourselves, or something within ourselves beyond flesh? Or both? 

     I believe in manifestation–tapping into the creative energy to make things happen as you want them to. Manifestation is inspiration (one kind of energy) plus action (a different kind of energy). If you set your sights on an accomplishment and take actions to help yourself as best you can, you end up accomplishing your goal, often through circumstances you couldn’t predict.

    That doesn’t mean something magical happened in the sense that saying a prayer or casting a spell made it happen just POOF! Prayers and spells are ways we focus our intentions. If we focus our intentions, we make certain choices in our actions. Our actions cause reactions, often leading to what we envisioned. 

     It’s kind of simple, really. 

    One thing I’m pretty sure of: You can’t really manifest if you don’t know what you want. 

     Now that I’ve accomplished the goal of becoming a published author, I’m not sure what I want. I have a dollar amount in mind for earnings. It’s modest. I don’t want to be famous, but I do want a loyal readership for whom I can create beautiful, entertaining, and uplifting stories. Also a modest number. What I don’t know is how I want to move toward these goals. 

     Traditional publishing? Indie publishing? Selling on Amazon? Selling from my own online shop? Creating a Patreon? Getting an agent? 

     It’s hard to envision the path forward. I’m in a holding pattern. I’m confused. I’m uncertain. I’m a pool a stagnant water. The force isn’t blasting against my roots or driving the flower of creativity through the green stem. 

     Here are some steps I’m going to use to move forward. 

     First, I’m going to get into a regular exercise, meditation, and journaling routine. Eating fewer carbs–especially sugar and pasta–usually helps with any brain fog I’m experiencing. 

     Second, using journaling and visualization and a vision board, I will figure out what I want my personal life and career to look like by this time next year, the year after, and five years from now. If you don’t know where you want to go, you will end up somewhere you probably don’t want to be. This step is crucial. 

     Third, with these outcomes in mind, I will think up definite steps to take and will work toward them every day. Calendar journals work well for this step. 

     Fourth, I will celebrate milestones and actions taken. 

     With some concrete inspiration and goals plus action steps to take, I believe I can create the creative literary and personal life I imagine. Maybe these steps will inspire you as well. Remember, creativity comes in many forms: art, home decor, cooking, writing. You can even see your LIFE as a work of art, one you create every day, each day a brushstroke on the canvas.

Welcoming the Unexpected

Journal Collage Cover

By Shelley Burbank

One of the best parts of coming to the last page of a journal is starting the first page of a new one. No, it’s what comes before that. It’s picking out a new journal with a beautiful cover or, in my case, creating a collage cover that will inspire me over the course of filling the pages. I use no set dates. I start when I start. I write when I feel like it. I stop when I get to the last page, even if it’s a random day in February. 

Soft, leather books with wraparound ties. Pretty floral designs with gold-embossed letters spelling “Journal” and/or the year. Plain, black moleskine notebooks. Marble or other decorated composition books. I’ve tried all of these, but my preference now is to buy a spiral bound, college-ruled notebook with cardboard covers and make my own design from magazine cutouts, bits of pretty papers (even cocktail napkins), ephemera like ticket stubs or postcards, and even ribbons or buttons.  

This year I completed my last journal not long after Christmas. This wasn’t planned, but that meant I could create a new journal right at the new year, coinciding not only with my 57th birthday but also with a huge, life-changing move halfway around the world to Guam, a tiny speck in the Pacific barely 36 miles long and 12 miles wide.  

I’d been approaching this big move with a great deal of trepidation. Not only that, I’d become disenchanted with the whole publishing/marketing/PR side of my writing life, especially the social media aspect, at the same time. Here I was with some book projects started and stalled, another project planned, and feeling meh about the entire industry and unsure how to attract new readers and keep my writing career moving forward. A downward spiral seemed imminent. 

But I had a journal collage to create. 

Feeling cranky and uninspired, I gathered some magazines around me, grabbed my scissors and a gluestick, and tried to relax so that my subconscious could do its work.

At first, I couldn’t find anything I wanted to use for my collage. I cut out a few things, pushed them around into different configurations, testing the design. Nothing felt right, but then an advertisement with a clear blue-green background and butterflies caught my attention. I cut out a big chunk and laid it on the journal cover as a potential background layer. My mood lifted. That color felt like tropical beaches, far-off coastal skies, and luxury. It felt like something I could work with. Something appropriate to my adventures ahead.

Once I had the color, more images popped out for me. A dragonfly in golden brown hues. A ripped bit of cocktail napkin from a pack my friend gifted to me last summer. A turtle. A caftan. Sunglasses. 

Aha! My inner self knew I needed a different, positive approach to this move. Lean into it, my muse whispered. I cut out a starfish and a postcard and, most important, I spotted a writing prompt in Magnolia magazine reading: How can you approach each day open to the unexpected?

THIS, I thought, heart lifting. This is the attitude I needed moving forward. Openess to the new, the strange, the unfamiliar, the unexpected. 

Sure enough, not long after completing my journal collage and writing a few entries, a new story idea popped into my head, and I quickly wrote in the journal as the narrative formed. A character swam up from the depths. Who was she? What was her story? Why does she decide to go to . . . Guam?  

Everyone who said to me, “Well, this adventure should inspire some new writing,” had been right! 

I now plan on writing a series of stories set in Guam featuring my new character, a woman my age but not my circumstances (although she is a writer!) who decides to sell her home and move to that tiny speck in the Pacific. She (I don’t know her name yet. Katrina? Lindsay? Lynnie? Brooke? Marley? Tatum?) found a mysterious postcard from Guam addressed to her now-deceased mother, sent in 1973 from a man my character’s never heard of. Part of her journey will be discovering what this man mean to her mom, but really the postcard just gave her an idea of where to go when she needs a new start. 

Using long short stories, or novellas, I’ll be able to share my Guam experiences with my friends, family, and readers. How and where I’ll share them remains to be figured out, but I’m happy to be feeling creative again. In the end, I want my life to be about creativity and books and writing. 

Living your own “good life” is an art. I encourage you, my friends and readers, to be creative in your actual daily living. Find the things that make you happy and incorporate them into your life as much as possible. Be aware of the passing of your days. Make each day meaningful in little ways with your own rituals. Be deliberate in your choice of meals, music, books, collections, furnishings, and daily tasks.

How can YOU welcome the unexpected as we head into 2025?

Encouraging Your Muse

 Catherine Dilts

Waiting passively for “the muse” to whisper in your ear is like sitting in a dark room waiting for someone to turn on the lights. There’s a point at which you need to stand up, walk across the room, and flip on the light switch.

There are periods when writing fiction can feel like slogging through a murky bog. Other times, the ideas rush like a clear mountain stream drawn downhill by gravity. There’s an undeniable ebb and flow to creativity.

What happens when a writer has gone days, weeks, or months without a visit from their muse?

Creativity can’t be forced, you might say. To which I counter: people do all kinds of things to trick their brains into being in the right state to perform various tasks. I recall finding my younger daughter sitting in her room with a text book and a candle. She explained that she was training herself to be focused to study whenever that scented candle was burning.

Ah, a physical cue. Like brewing coffee in the morning as you get ready for work. The smell of the coffee, even more than the caffeine, is a signal for your brain to switch gears.

Routines and triggers can cause you to anticipate an activity, but can they make you feel creative? Yes. I believe you can trick your muse into showing up, just as you can steer your brain, if you consistently use the same techniques.

All of the techniques. Because your brain is a crafty creature, and dull routine can sap creativity. So change things up.

Routine: Yes, I just said dull routine can sap creativity. But a routine is essential for convincing your brain that it’s that time of day. Time to write! Use scent, sound, and scenery cues. Like my daughter’s scented candle, smell is a powerful trigger. Some authors need the sounds of a coffee shop, while others need noise-cancelling headsets, or certain types of music. While writing an as-yet unpublished novel, I played late sixties to early seventies music constantly, to set my mind in the time period. 

Confidence: Believe in yourself, your message, and your skillset. There’s no greater drag on creativity than self-doubt. If you falter, “fake it ‘til you make it.”

Keep going: When you think you’re stuck, or become bored with a project, push just a little bit longer. You might make it past that speed bump and get rolling again.

Step away: The polar opposite of the above advice? Not exactly. The step away technique doesn’t simply mean quit writing. Work on a different story, writing-related social media, promotion, or research.

Touch grass: the youngsters use this phrase to mean “step away from your electronics.” Get off social media, peel your face off your computer/TV/phone screen, and go outdoors. Sunshine and fresh air have wonderful healing properties. Get grounded in nature. Or focus on a different type of creativity. Crocheting, painting, tying flies, or cooking, like making a batch of my annual gingerbread dinosaur cookies shown in the photo above.

Lately, I’ve been experiencing an upswing in creativity and energy. I know this feeling isn’t permanent. There will be times when my desire to hammer away on my keyboard flags. This time of year, there’s no grass to touch. But if I hit a slump, maybe I can touch snow to jumpstart my creativity.

Creative Longings

By Shelley Burbank

I was chatting with an artist friend of mine, Sharon, about creativity.* Sharon once wrote a novel. She always wanted to be a writer, or thought she did. She’s very talented. She can write a beautiful sentence, build a story, and conjure characters from thin air.  

Writing, however, made her unhappy. By her own account, writing took her to dark places, made her miserable. Dealing with the publishing landscape multiplied that misery by a hundred-fold. After much soul searching, Sharon realized she and writing needed to break up. Instead, she turned back to her first love, art. It is as if the sun burst forth from the clouds.

Since taking up sketching, painting, and other visual art again (plus interior design, to boot), she’s light, happy, fulfilled, and practically blazing with joy. It’s been wondrous to behold. 

Here’s a not-so-secret secret: I wish I could draw. Draw, paint, all kinds of visual art. I’ve practiced. I can sometimes do a passable facsimile of the thing, but drawing doesn’t come naturally. The urge to create something in visual media comes naturally. The act–the muscle memory and the eye–not so much. (Collage is satisfying, and I’ll do that for myself when the mood strikes. For my own enjoyment.) 

I love illustrated books and stories. I envision these illustrations and want them for my stories and think I want to make them. If I’m being totally honest, though, I think what I really want is the finished product. I’m not that interested in the process, and we all know that process is the good part when the art’s real inside. When the art’s part of you. 

An illustration by me

Today I told Sharon, “I’m jealous of artists. But I remind myself I can enjoy it without having to DO it.”

“That’s where I’ve gotten to with writing!”

“Why do I think I have to DO everything????”

“Girl, if I had that answer for myself, I’d share. We both have the ‘I bet I could do that’ gene.”

“Right,” I said. “I bet creative people just get urges to create. Maybe it’s that simple. So do the one you’re best at. Support the rest.”

That last bit hit me, even as I typed it. Creative people are often drawn to multiple disciplines, hobbies, arts. Piano lessons in grades 1-5 taught me I’d never be a musician, even though I enjoyed playing my favorite songs well into my college years. Sometimes I suspect I’d be good at sculpture. Or pottery. Or weaving. But I’m old and wise enough now to know that’s ridiculous. 

I learned to knit and tried spinning yarn for a while, loving the idea of fiber art. I had fun playing around with the spinning wheel and drop spindle, looking at fiber art magazines, day-dreaming about natural dye processes. I carded, rolled, spun yarn, and knit a scarf from mohair roving…

Reader, it didn’t stick. 

My one true passion has always been books and writing. Writing is where I’ve put my energy and my ten-thousand hours. Writing is my art form. 

I can appreciate all the arts. I can listen to Mozart’s Queen of the Night aria and sing it at the top of my lungs in the car all alone, but I’ll never sing opera in public. I love theater, but find me in the audience on opening night clapping my hands off. I’ll pick out beautiful handspun yarn at the Fryeburg Fair and admire the woman spinning directly from her angora bunny in the corner. I’ll follow visual artists on social media and sigh with admiration over the designs, but my collages and art journals will be for myself and for sharing on social media as amateur-at-best pieces, not for professional purposes. I’ll buy hand-thrown pottery, art prints, handmade quilts, and fabulously concocted desserts. Yes, my heart will ache a little to do all these things, but I can resist.   

I don’t have to do it all. Writing is my medium. I can support the rest.

_________

* Names of people in my essays are changed and sometimes the characters are amalgams. The conversations are real. 

My Book Launch and Creativity

 By Thomas Kies

Whisper Room, my fifth novel, is due for release on August 2nd and obviously I couldn’t be any happier.  I’m busy preparing for book signing events taking place starting this weekend (yes, I know, it’s a couple of days early). That being said, I’m going to cheat this week and rerun one of my favorite blogs that I’ve written.  This one seems appropriate.  It’s simply entitled: Creativity.

         Creativity

There’s a theory that everyone is born with in innate sense of creativity.  As babies grow into toddlers, and toddlers grow into school age children, they have within them a sense of adventure and curiosity.  As they discover and learn, they take great joy in creating, whether it’s coloring, drawing, painting, singing, dancing, or making castles out of Legos. 

That same theory posits that as we grow into adulthood, we’re often urged to forget our creative side and conform.  Buckle down, do what’s necessary, make money.  

But that creative spark, though dampened, lives on in all of us.  It may come back out in the form of a hobby, tending a garden, making a special dinner, or redecorating a room.

This weekend my wife and I had an outstanding dinner at the house of two friends of ours.  In addition to a delightful meal, the conversation was thought provoking.  We talked about food (of course), home remodeling, a smattering of politics, watching your adult children evolve, and ghosts.  Yes, ghosts.

We also had a very interesting discussion about creativity.

We can save our discussion on ghosts for another blog.

Being of a certain age, we all had former lives and are all redefining ourselves.  One of us was a concert pianist who performed all over the world.  Her husband was a noteworthy magazine publisher.  Now they own a boutique hotel here on the coast, in a historic little town right on the waterfront.  They’ve redecorated, upgraded, installed a 21st Century computer and reservation system, and began a marketing program that includes sophisticated usage of social media. 

Additionally, they buy fixer-upper homes, make them look pretty, and sell them, moving on to the next project.  

They’ve traded one set of creative skills for another.  

My wife was at one time a very successful market research analysist who had done work for major corporations all over the world.  She’s retired now, and during our discussion, wondered what her creative superpower might be. 

During our earlier discussion, we talked about her enjoyment of genealogy and how it led to her discovery of a brother she never knew she had.  It’s an amazing story that I may share on another occasion.  But the conclusion we reached was Cindy’s creative superpower was in her curiosity.  She’s a discoverer—an explorer. 

Mine is that I’m a crime novelist and I make stuff up.  Being a novelist has always been a dream of mine.

I read where the definition of creativity is: Transforming your ideas, dreams, and imagination into reality. 

An article from Huffington Post cited a recent New Zealand study which says that “engaging in creative activities contributes to an “upward spiral” of positive emotions, psychological well-being, and feelings of “flourishing” in life.”

The Pacific Standard Magazine cited another study conducted at the University of North Carolina – Greensboro on college students that says that “those who reported feeling happy and active were more likely to be doing something creative at the time.”

When I think about it, the happiest people I know are the ones who are creating and/or exploring—trying new things. 

So, what do you do to get your creative spark fired up?

I take a walk around our neighborhood or up to the beach.  I find that by the time I get back, I have a fresh perspective on what I’m currently working on.

Here are some other suggestions I found on the web:

Keep a journal and jot down ideas as they occur to you.

Exercise.

Take a media break.

Read a book.

Don’t be afraid to play.  Thomas Edison’s notebooks and Alexander Graham Bell’s prototypes suggest that they played while working. 

Take a break from your daily routine.

Try to think about things and look at the world around you in a different way. 

And finally—I like this one the best—dare to dream!

More on creativity

by Rick Blechta

Just under this post is one by Tom Kies, and I strongly suggest you read it. Not only is it excellent, but my post this week is riffing off it.

For longer than I can remember I’ve had people telling me how creative I am. 

I find it sort of embarrassing, actually, since I was brought up not to be conceited and being singled out for praise makes me feel as if I am being conceited if I acknowledge it.

Identifying first as a musician — since I’ve been at it by far the longest — a certain amount of creativity has to be acknowledged, otherwise you wouldn’t be much of a musician. Every musical phrase, every note to be honest, has to be created which is a thoughtful process if you wish to do it well.

But too much music can become a problem. It did for me.

When I was 38, after doing music seemingly 24/7 for 20 years, I burnt out. At that point, I was still teaching full-time in schools as well as conducting a high-end ensemble at the Royal Conservatory on Saturdays, but it began taking a toll on me psychologically. My wife, also a musician, suggested I find something else to do in my spare time. She knew I couldn’t walk away from my two jobs, but she also guessed that I needed some form of hobby or interest that had no musical component.

Easier said than done. I spent several months trying to figure out what that might be. Eventually I came to writing, something at which I’d always been pretty good. I wrote three interconnected baseball-themed short stories that I’ve thankfully lost track of. The characters were interesting as were the plots, but the writing itself was, shall I say, underdeveloped.

After reading a few books on how to write and pulling out the notes from a university creative writing course I took, I sort of got better at it.

I decided to write a mystery short story. Six months later, I realized I was no good at this mainly because my short story was 315 pages. I got up the nerve to show my novel to a few people, got some positive feedback, then found an editor to help me.

But midway through this process, I realized how happy and content I now was. My daily musical jobs didn’t bother me as much. I was no longer feeling burnt out. In fact, every night I couldn’t wait until the boys were in bed so I could get down to my created world.

And that, my friends, wraps around to what Tom said at the end of his post. Feeling creative and indulging it — no matter what it might involve — does something good deep inside us. In fact I can’t think of a single friend who has some sort of passion in life that isn’t also pretty darn happy.

Tom is so right.

Creativity

 There’s a theory that everyone is born with in innate sense of creativity.  As babies grow into toddlers, and toddlers grow into school age children, they have within them a sense of adventure and curiosity.  As they discover and learn, they take great joy in creating, whether it’s coloring, drawing, painting, singing, dancing, or making castles out of Legos. 

That same theory posits that as we grow into adulthood, we’re often urged to forget our creative side and conform.  Buckle down, do what’s necessary, make money.  

But that creative spark, though dampened, lives on in all of us.  It may come back out in the form of a hobby, tending a garden, making a special dinner, or redecorating a room.

This weekend my wife and I had an outstanding dinner at the house of two friends of ours.  In addition to a delightful meal, the conversation was thought provoking.  We talked about food (of course), home remodeling, a smattering of politics, watching your adult children evolve, and ghosts.  Yes, ghosts.

We also had a very interesting discussion about creativity.

We can save our discussion on ghosts for another blog.

Being of a certain age, we all had former lives and are all redefining ourselves.  One of us was a concert pianist who performed all over the world.  Her husband was a noteworthy magazine publisher.  Now they own a boutique hotel here on the coast, in a historic little town right on the waterfront.  They’ve redecorated, upgraded, installed a 21st Century computer and reservation system, and began a marketing program that includes sophisticated usage of social media. 

Additionally, they buy fixer-upper homes, make them look pretty, and sell them, moving on to the next project.  

They’ve traded one set of creative skills for another.  

My wife was at one time a very successful market research analysist who had done work for major corporations all over the world.  She’s retired now, and during our discussion, wondered what her creative superpower might be. 

During our earlier discussion, we talked about her enjoyment of genealogy and how it led to her discovery of a brother she never knew she had.  It’s an amazing story that I may share on another occasion.  But the conclusion we reached was Cindy’s creative superpower was in her curiosity.  She’s a discoverer—an explorer. 

Mine is that I’m a crime novelist and I make stuff up.  Being a novelist has always been a dream of mine.

I read where the definition of creativity is: Transforming your ideas, dreams, and imagination into reality. 

An article from Huffington Post cited a recent New Zealand study which says that “engaging in creative activities contributes to an “upward spiral” of positive emotions, psychological well-being, and feelings of “flourishing” in life.”

The Pacific Standard Magazine cited another study conducted at the University of North Carolina – Greensboro on college students that says that “those who reported feeling happy and active were more likely to be doing something creative at the time.”

When I think about it, the happiest people I know are the ones who are creating and/or exploring—trying new things. 

So, what do you do to get your creative spark fired up?

I take a walk around our neighborhood or up to the beach.  I find that by the time I get back, I have a fresh perspective on what I’m currently working on.

Here are some other suggestions I found on the web:

Keep a journal and jot down ideas as they occur to you.

Exercise.

Take a media break.

Read a book.

Don’t be afraid to play.  Thomas Edison’s notebooks and Alexander Graham Bell’s prototypes suggest that they played while working. 

Take a break from your daily routine.

Try to think about things and look at the world around you in a different way. 

And finally—I like this one the best—dare to dream!

Searching for that grain of sand

Before I explain that title, I want to second Rick's excellent suggestion about buying a book (or more!) from your local independent bookstore as a gift this holiday season, and I love the idea of Type Mers buying one another's books. Read and transport yourselves this holiday!

Now for my actual blog. I'm probably not the first person to use the oyster metaphor to describe writing a novel. An oyster starts with a single grain of sand inside and then works layer upon layer around it to create a beautiful pearl. For me, that's how my novels start. With a single intriguing idea. It can be a simple image like a pair of shoes, a character that I am curious about, a small snippet from the newspaper. No matter how small, it's a toehold that allows me to start spinning the story around it, expanding and developing and adding until sometimes the original germ of the idea has completely disappeared as it's subsumed by the bigger story it inspired.

I am just embarking on the fifth Amanda Doucette novel, and at the outset I knew only one thing; it would be set in British Columbia. Because of the constraints I'd set upon this series, it should involve Amanda creating a charity event somewhere in the wilderness. Luckily, British Columbia has plenty of absolutely spectacular wilderness, so there was a lot to choose from. After some thinking and some reading, I narrowed it down to the west coast of Vancouver Island, in part because I always travel for research and it's on my bucket list. But a setting does not make a story by itself. I needed an idea. So I started to read about the history and people of the area, looking for that inspirational grain of sand. Lots of history. Lots of drama. Shipwrecks and swindles and epidemics and heartbreaking loss. It was way too big a canvas. Most novels, especially mystery/ thrillers are about struggles and triumphs on a more intimate scale. So I continued to read, asking myself all the time "what is this book going to be about?"

Then this morning, the idea came to me in a single word. Hermits. Apparently the wild west coast of Vancouver Island is a haven for hermits. Every hermit has a very intimate story, of tragedy, triumph, rejections, and perseverance. And in that single word lay a world of possibilities. A grain of sand I can build a story around. In the few short hours since reading that, the tiniest pearl has already begun in my head. It will mean a whole lot more research but now it will be focussed. I will no longer be casting about aimlessly but slowly building the knowledge I need. I am still far from setting pen to paper, and I know there will be moments of despair and frustration as the story develops, but it's an exciting moment.

I even came up with the title, far earlier than I usually do. But that's a secret until I'm more confident about the pearl I'm hoping is in there.

 

Pandemic voices

For weeks now, our Type M blog posts have circled around the central player in our lives - the pandemic. We have talked about the inability to write, the question of whether to include the pandemic in our stories, the lament over lost opportunities to celebrate and promote our books, and the ups and downs of our moods. As I tried to figure out what to say today, I thought "Can anyone stand one more blog about the damn pandemic?" Are we sick of it? Do we want our lives back? Can't we at least pretend things will go back to normal?

Then I realized this is our job. As artists we document the emotional reality of our times. Economists will talk about job losses, stock market rollercoasters, and accumulating debt. Scientists will talk about advances in virology and herd immunity, epidemiologists about infection curves and deaths per million, etc. Social scientists will analyze lockdown fatigue, crowd contagion, and the delicate balance of maintaining public cooperation. Ecologists will describe the return of the animals and the blue of the sky.

All important for the historical record. We are living through possibly the most significant global event in a century, in terms of its scope and impact on every single person (and indeed on nature and the planet). Other crises have had a more drastic effect on specific parts of the world, such as the world wars, the Holocaust, and the Khmer Rouge. And even then, much of normal life went on in the streets and towns. But this crisis is against a single enemy worldwide, and has changed almost every aspect of our daily lives, from hugging our families to trying to buy yeast.

People's experiences and reactions are all over the map, and as several posts have already pointed out, they change from day to day and evolve over time. Artists have always been a mirror to our inner life. Psychologists and other mental health researchers are going to dissect our adjustment and struggles minutely. They are going to subject us to surveys and statistical analyses and possibly even experimental re-enactments. All this is going to be very valuable for future planning, but trust me, as someone who worked in that field for years, it's going to be dry as dust. It will not bring to life the essence of being alone on Mother's Day, staring at your one-year old grandson trying to eat the phone his parents are using for Zoom. It will not capture the sound of your silent wail. Nor the hummingbird restlessness you feel some days after listening to too much news. Shall I bake cupcakes? Watch Netflix? Or even, horrors, wash the floors?

The blogs, poems, paintings, and short isolation videos that artists are producing all over the world will serve as a record of our times, a mirror of our feelings and thoughts at the moment we go through them. And any books that come out of it, whether about the pandemic or not, will be a testament to these times. So feel free to create and to put it out there, to be shared online across the world. Someone will be listening, and equally important, history will be listening.

Walking for mind and soul

Facebook is very useful for the random links it shares, sometimes posted by friends and other times by sponsoring companies. Facebook is also good at tracking what I like or might want, so I would never get a link to Rebel Media, for example. (if I did, it would be killed as fast I could click delete.)

Recently The New Yorker posted a link to an article about the connection between walking, thinking, and writing. I apologize if this link is behind a paywall, but the gist is that walking stimulates creativity and novel thinking by allowing the mind to drift in and out between the real world and our own inner world, and furthermore, that walking in nature does this better than walking in the city.

Other studies have confirmed the benefits to both physical and mental health of walking in nature, this at a time when more and more people live in clamorous cities and green spaces are fewer and fewer (because there are no property taxes to be collected on parks, for one thing). My city of Ottawa has an official city planning policy of "intensification", which means building more tall condos and multi-unit dwellings on lots where there used to be smaller homes on lots with lovely mature trees and gardens. But I digress.

The main interest for me in this article, and in similar ones, is that walking in nature stimulates creative thought. Scientifically, this is apparently because blood flow to the brain increases when we move and because our body, including our brain, tends to move in sync with our surroundings. Hence if we are listening to hard rock music or walking down a busy street, our body revs up. While this can be energizing and enjoyable at the right time, it is not conducive to creative thought, which needs a drifting openness of mind to allow novel, random thoughts to enter.

Like most authors, I suspect, I have always known this. Because I have dogs, I take long walks every day and that's when I do my best story development. If I have a plot snag or a character puzzle, I often take a walk just to "clear my head". I find the act of walking is a non-intrusive backdrop with just enough stimulation to keep me thinking. Have you ever tried to sit in a chair doing absolutely nothing except think? Chances are you start to doodle or jot down notes or pace from the kitchen to the office.

The walks in nature are by far the best. Distractions are fewer, you don't have to watch for street lights or dodge cars or pedestrians, you can look for occasional inspiration at the rustling trees and glistening lake. Or you can stay almost entirely inside your own head, imagining your story. Taking this nature walk idea one step further, another scientific benefit is that walking on uneven, unpredictable terrain like a hiking trail engages more parts of the brain than walking in a straight line along a flat path. This has limits for creativity, I find, because if you have to pay attention not to trip over a root or rock, you can't lose yourself as completely in your imagination, but in moderation, it can help get the juices going.

One worrisome thing I notice on my walks is how few people are actually enjoying just being in nature. Almost everyone is listening to something on their earbuds (audio books, music?). Since I find that disruptive to my thoughts, I never do, but I'd like to know if it helps or hinders "mind drift". Or if the walkers are not attached to earbuds, they have their nose in their phones, oblivious to everything around them. This transports them to another world, for sure, but not one of their own imagination. I am afraid that imagination and mind drift are becoming a lost art.

And what a loss that would be to our creative future.

More on inspiration

Barbara here. In my last post, I wrote about inspiration on the road, specifically a three-week personal holiday travelling through India and Nepal. I am still on that trip, now staying at the final destination of Kathmandu before flying home later in the week. Throughout the trip internet access has been capricious and slow, so I will try to be short.

The trip has been filled with inspirational moments that make your spirit and imagination soar. Imagine the passion and enduring loyalty that drove a grieving emperor to build a tomb to his beloved dead wife, embarking on a dream that took 22 years, employed 20,000 workers, and cost an unimaginable sum. Clad in shimmering white marble inlaid with precious stones, perfect in its symmetry, set off by fountains and gardens, it is breathtaking. Humbling yet exalting.

Another inspirational moment was sunrise in a boat on the Ganges River, joining the many faithful who make a pilgrimage to this sacred river seeking blessing or fulfillment of a wish. Along with others I lit a candle in a tiny flower boat and watched it dance along the current with the others, bearing our wishes out towards the sea.

A third inspiration came at sunrise again, on a flight out of Kathmandu over the legendary Mount Everest. Despite the persistent smog that plagues Asian cities, the sky over the Himalayas was a fierce, crisp blue, and the sun lit the white glacial peaks in perfect detail. Everest is but one of dozens of jagged, terrifying peaks around it, but its power lies in the human dreams that it has inspired. Cold and solitary, it still carries with it those legions of climbers who have dared to dream big, who've fought and triumphed and sometimes died on its rugged slopes.

There were many other touchingly inspirational moments as well. Watching a young rickshaw driver who couldn't have weighed 100 pounds, valiantly struggling to pedal his large charges around the markets. Watching young mothers trim the excess silk from the scarves and fabric bolts in the silk factory in Varanasi, sitting on the floor in a circle with their babies and toddlers by their side.

As Aline said in her Monday post, writing is about stepping into another person's shoes and imagining their world. Travel not only offers us other shoes, but other worlds and lives beyond our own. Not only will that enrich our writing, but our humanity as well. I will carry the inspiration of these moments with me for a long time.

Born to be

Barbara here. Rick has invited us all to put in our two cents on the question of talent and storytelling. Canada abolished its one cent coin a few years ago, so here's my plug nickels's worth. I have no idea whether the talent for storytelling is born into us or not, bit I do believe that most of us, if not all, are born with a creative urge and the path through which it is expressed. This path may be guided by early exposure, as in musicians or artists who follow in their parents' footsteps, but sometimes it has nothing to do with the culture and interests of our families.

I was born into a family of musicians and painters. They did other things with their lives, but my grandfather, as a surgeon in France during World War I, painted scenes of rural France as an outlet and counterpoint to the horrific demands of his job. His talent for painting predated the war; I have a painting of his hanging in my house, done when he was 16 years old. My mother was a high school science teacher but inherited that painter's passion, and many of the other walls in my house hold paintings done by her, inspired by the sight of a child playing or a spectacular play of light on mountains or sea.

I, however have never had the slightest urge to pick up a sketchpad or capture a scene on canvas. I have absolutely zero talent for drawing, painting, or otherwise interpreting the world in visual form. But from the age of six, when I first learned how to spell, I have been inventing stories. Story ideas spin in my head all the time. The question is not where do I get my ideas (for they are in the line at the coffee shop and in the sidebars of the newspaper), but how do I know whether an idea has the legs for a 300-page novel, or whether it deserves to be a scene or a subplot in a larger story. Experience and practice have taught me that.

Writing, particularly fiction writing, occupied no part of my family tree. I am the first in my whole extended family to be obsessed with creating stories. However, some of the prerequisites to good storytelling were present in my family home. My parents were avid readers and our home was filled with books. Filled. Every kind of book from biography to history to great literature and poetry. I had free rein of the shelves and picked up books at random, reading William Faulkner and Alexander Solzhenitzyn at whim From them I learned the secrets of great drama and absorbed, without lectures or lessons, the techniques of story arc, characterization, and imagery.

I wrote all through my childhood and throughout adulthood, mostly dreadful sap that fortunately did not see the light of day but that helped me to learn my craft. My late husband, however, was a painter. He saw the world not in terms of story bites like me but in terms of images and framed scenes to be captured on canvas. Not in terms of characters and conflicts but in terms of colour, shapes. shadows, and contrasting light. Yet our children, with their DNA packed on both sides with a painter's genes and on one side with a storyteller's, followed neither path. Like me, they show no talent or inclination for visual art. One has some interest in writing song lyrics and another in writing scripts, so some of that has past on through the DNA. But their creativity has found its primary outlet in other forms -- in music and acting.

It is a strange, human beast, this creative urge. Who knows where it comes from, but I believe we all have it. Perhaps we are all born with our own primary outlet, whether it's writing, art, acting, music, dance, crafts, woodworking, photography, or even software design. It may be the random re-alligning of the DNA but it comes from the core of who who are. The rest -- the talent, training, and practice it takes to do it well -- are secondary, because if it's not your passion, you won't put yourself at the artist's easel or the writer's desk long enough to get anything done.