All writer’s know the dread of staring at a blank page. The ticking of the clock and nothing gets written. Time is slipping away and we are producing nothing. It all seems like a waste. While we can’t always get the words to flow when we want them, we can flip our attitude and utilize Yūgen and Mono No Aware to fight writer’s block
Tag: mindfulness
Discovery Starts as a Terrible Idea
As a modern society, we are obsessed with productivity. Wasting time is seen as a cardinal sin. Yet sometimes the greatest discoveries happen when we take the time to look deeper. Sometimes discovery starts as a terrible idea.
Your Mistakes Can Make Great Art
We all try to avoid mistakes whenever possible. We even smirk when Siri mistranslates our words. That strive for perfection in art or writing seems to drive us. Yet art that does exactly what the artist wants can also be tiresome and boring. It turns out that your mistakes can make great art.
Stop Fixing Yourself, You’re Not Broken
So many self help books and gurus focus on how to fix yourself and turn you into the person you’ve always wanted to be. But this implies that you’re somehow broken. That the problems you struggle with were hardwired into you from the start. What if all this is hogwash? Then you could stop fixing yourself and start living your life.
Increase Your Writing Time with Habit Stacking (and Synaptic Pruning)
Our brain is like the hedge maze from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Too easily we can wander the twists and turns of our thoughts and then get utterly lost. Yet as we age, our brains do some amazing things — they prune away neural connections. A baby, in fact, has more neural connections than an adult brain, but is often helpless because of a plethora of choices. Only by pruning, can we make these connections faster. You can use the technique of habit stacking to increase your writing time but capitalizing on the brain’s ability for synaptic pruning.
The Care and Feeding of Your Muse (How to Cultivate your Creative Side)
We all yearn for that flash of inspiration that pilots us through the next difficult chapter or short story. Yet our Muse is not the kind of creature to clock in at a regular schedule. Nor will it perform on an empty stomach. The care and feeding of your muse is essential if you want to cultivate your creative side.
Your Brain is Built to Forget
Memory aids and brain boosts are available by the truckload. Apps advertise how to retain more and keep your brain fit. However, it turns out that your brain is built to forget. In fact, the natural state of many animals is to forget.
Map Your Thoughts onto Paper to Boost Creativity and Memory
Our brains only have a limited amount of thinking space. Researchers have discovered that sketching allows you to map your thoughts onto paper.
Make Creative Mistakes and Seek Your Own True North
We learn early in life that the results are more important than the process. But the reverse is more correct.
Creativity is Like Pulling Teeth: 6 Ideas to Write Your First Draft
If you never get started, your ideas will only exist in your head. You need to start somewhere. Here are six ideas to write your first draft.
