Wake Up By Looking In

"Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.
Who looks outside, dreams - who looks inside, awakes."
~ Carl Jung

Mitch Ditkoff says "Find A Collaborator!"

Mitch Ditkoff sent a message to the members of Create! Innovate! Get Out of the
Cave!
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Subject: Find a collaborator!

You are very close to a breakthough. Your ideas are inspired, your commitment is
commendable, and your timing is right on. All that's missing is a collaborator.
Give up the notion that you have to do it all yourself. You don't. Since we're
all one, anyway, finding a collaborator makes perfect sense. Your collaborator
is really just another aspect of you -- the part of you that may, indeed, be
the missing piece for your project. So go ahead! Invite someone in! Let go of
the reigns of control. What would Lennon have been without McCartney? Hewlett
without Packard? Crick without Watson? Sonny without Cher? Penn without Teller?
Barnum with out Bailey?

WHO CAN YOU INVITE INTO YOUR MOST COMPELLING PROJECT THIS WEEK? What's your next
step?

Anne Lamont On Writing

Apply this to anything creative you want to do.

“I used to not be able to work if there were dishes in the sink.
Then I had a child and now I can work if there is a corpse in the sink.
Because you’re always on borrowed time. None of your favorite writers,
let alone your own personal self, sits down in the morning and just
feels great about the work ahead of them. No one sits down and feels
like a million dollars. People sit down and go into either fugue states
or into this highly aerobicized sort of up-down thing.

During the O.J. [Simpson] trial all hell broke loose ‘cause I work
downstairs in this office; some people might call it a garage. And the
TV is upstairs and so I’d sit down, get up, sit down, get up, sit down,
get up, say my little prayer. I’d pray, Please, God, help me get out of the way so I can write what wants to be written.
And then I’d sit down and I would do a little bribe and I would say,
‘If you stay here for half an hour and you write that one tiny little
moment where the uncle sees the shores of Inverness, California for the
first time in his life then we will get up and watch a little O.J.’”

Visualize Tremendous Success

Stop Picturing Failure. Instead, Visualize Tremendous Success...

How Bad Do You Want It?

To increase your motivation for any project, increase what you believe will be the reward for your effort. The bigger, brighter, more immediate and more personal you can imagine the payoff, the greater will be your desire to put forth the necessary effort to succeed.

Increase your enthusiasm by imagining inspiring, magnificent, stupendous even ASTRONOMICAL rewards.

"There is great treasure there behind our skull and this is true about all of us. This little treasure has great, great powers, and I would say we only have learnt a very, very small part of what it can do."~ Isaac Bashevis Singer

Seek Some Form Of Completion

Seek Some Form of Completion
Before Moving On...

How Many Unfinished Projects
Do You Have Lying Around?

Action directed toward a single focused outcome is always preferred to going in a hundred directions at the same time.

Completing some stage of each project before moving on helps you give all your attention to the next one.

"Delegating work works, provided the one delegating works, too."~ Robert Half

Create Highly Compelling Visions

Create Highly Compelling Visions. Clarify. Evaluate. Commit...

Do You Have A Vision For Your Life?

A vision is your picture of an activity, setting or situation which manifests your deepest values. Don't hold back. Anything's possible when there's enough commitment to your dream.

A vision is a picture of the future you intend to create. Create a perfect vision for each of your major interests, and roles.

"If, before going to bed every night, you will tear a page from the calendar, and remark, "there goes another day of my life, never to return," you will become time conscious."~ A. B. Zu Tavern

Jill Badonsky Tells How to Make the Most Out of Your Rebelliousnes

Making the Most of Your Rebelliousness: A Quick Tip

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." ~ George Bernard Shaw

"Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who had read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion that progress has been made." ~ Oscar Wilde

Thanks, Oscar and George for those thoughts. But what happens when man AND woman rebel against themselves?
Being creative, in a sense, means rebelling because we are inventing something new rather than just accepting what's already out there.
As a creativity coach I frequently see the creative person set up time and intention to do something creative and then rebel against themselves by aimlessly surfing the Internet or watching TV passively for hours.

Here's a tip that works for me:
Take your calendar and actually write in it:
9-11 am Aimlessly Scan the Internet Googling such things as Chicken Mole', Edible Journals, How old Holly Hunter is, and the History of Safety Pins
6- 10 pm Have My Brains Sucked Out by Watching TV

and then... REBEL!!!! Instead of doing those things, spend some time, EVEN IF IT'S JUST 5 MINUTES, working on your creative passion. Rebel in the right direction. Tell yourself not to do something creative.. and DO IT ANYWAY.

Creativity Prompt:
May 6, 1851 Dr. John Gorrie patented a 'refrigerator machine'
What if you had to limit your subject for writing, art, photography, or music to your refrigerator? What refrigerator adventure would you write about? What photos would you take? What sketch would you make? What poem would you channel? What butter would you sculpt? Can you Photoshop something into your fridge.. like a landscape? space? or the family reunion?

Links for Fun
Creative Advertising from The Netherlands
The Voca People... Yikes!
Spread Random Laugher!
More Laughter

Visit The Awe-manac Blog for regular prompts

Robert Genn on "The Lonliness of Creating"

Are you lonesome this morning?

July 14, 2009

Dear Sherrie,

Yesterday, Mary Catherine Jorgensen of the East Bay in northern California wrote: "A side effect of being a self-employed artist is occasional loneliness. Not everyone works alongside other artists, and many of us work alone. The privilege of being able to choose between music, radio news, or silence, and between working early in the morning or starting at noon--in short, being one's own boss--has a downside. It's lonely. Any suggestions? I'd love your input."

Thanks, Mary. When art students are welcomed here for a second opinion on their work or future, I often ask them how much they like working alone. Used to being in busy, stimulating environments like art schools, they sometimes look at me as if I'm out to lunch. Fact is, with the exception of various forms of team art, most of the functioning professional artists I know have come to terms with the strengths and weaknesses of keeping their own company. Although less of a problem for introverts, this art can be learned.

The art of effective aloneness includes the understanding that solitude is necessary for creative gain. "Most progress," said self-improvement guru Bruce Barton, "comes out of loneliness." Creative people need to dream and contrive on their own. "Dreams," said Erma Bombeck, "have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely."

At the same time there are human connections to be won. Connections with like-minded fellow travellers are best. The right companionship, at appropriate times, can actually give courage to solitude as well as sharpen creativity. Just knowing that others of the brotherhood and sisterhood are out there is part of it, but sharing on a one-to-one basis--both the good stuff and the nasty--is best of all. Fortunate are those who train up to exemplary friendship.

Companionship, for many of us, takes the form of a spouse or significant other. Generational relationships are also particularly rewarding--father-son, grandmother-granddaughter, that sort of thing. Professional associations, occasional clubs, informal gatherings, crit groups and coffee klatches can further the illusion we are not doing this on our own. "We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone," said Orson Welles, "Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone."

Best regards,

Robert

PS: "An artist is always alone--if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness." (Henry Miller)

Esoterica: Another source of equanimity and joy of solitude comes with an appreciation of nature. Even the most crowded cities evidence other forms of life. Animals and birds, as well as tiny, struggling plants, provide a rich metaphor that can sustain a thoughtful loner. Needless to say, the heart soars in wildness and in wilderness, and the great cosmos is both comfort and inspiration. Like a close and intimate friend, it speaks to you. "Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life." (Rachel Carson)