I get many of my best ideas in the shower, don’t you? But there you are, knuckle-deep in lathering shampoo, and all you can do is repeat the idea over and over until you can dry off and reach for something on which to write it down. Recently, I thought I’d found the answer...
Your company brings in a motivational speaker. The speaker goes on and on about how to improve yourself and your life and your work. Your coworkers are grinning and nodding and applauding, but you just don’t get it. There’s nothing more annoying than listening to someone tell you how easy it is to reinvent...
I’ve been thinking lately about all the messages I received as a child, all the things society wanted us to believe that never felt totally right to me, yet I accepted them. Why? For example, when I was a kid, my mom loved the Doris Day song, “Que Sera Sera.” In the lyrics, the...
Having worked for years as a writer’s coach, webinar presenter, and speaker, I often run into people who’ve taken a class from me or heard me speak about the importance of making time for their art. They often seem happy to see me, yet can’t quite look me in the eye. And then comes...
I hear the weather has been really nice the past couple of days. I wouldn’t know. I’ve been holed up in my basement office working feverishly on two writing projects with deadlines. These are projects that mean a lot to me, and though I worked to the point of making my arms ache and...
When my daughter was in college, we took her and her childhood friend to lunch. At the end of the meal, we grabbed the check. Her friend offered to pay for his food, but we told him not to worry about it. We knew his funds were low. He said he didn’t feel right...
Brené Brown made it okay for us to talk about shame, both men and women. So, let’s go there. Because it seems to me artists deal with more than our fair share of shame. And it comes at us from opposing angles, to the point where sometimes we feel we can’t win: “You spent...
This year, it’s really simple: I’m grateful for all the art in my life. The art I produce, the art you produce, the art we love, and the art that challenges us. The art that spurs conversation and the art that settles the soul. The art that comes from our hands and our voices,...
It’s almost Halloween, my least favorite holiday of the year. It’s not the dressing up in costumes or the handing out candy or the parties that bother me, it’s the dark, scary, ugly, gory images and stories, and the fascination with evil and cruelty they sometimes encourage. I’ve always been easily scared. I can’t...
The other day, a group of writer friends and I were talking. It seems for weeks now, none of us have felt very motivated. We’re not behaving like our usual prolific, proactive, hard-working selves. That’s not to say we’re missing deadlines or shrugging off obligations – Heaven forbid – but we haven’t felt especially...