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So, You’re a Creative Genius… Now What?: A review

“I contend that if you’re not actively creating something, you’re not entirely alive.” ~Carl King

You’re inspired, you’ve released your creative genius. What do you do with it? This is where Carl King’s book, So, You’re a Creative Genius… Now What?, comes into power.

I first tuned into this book by following links about introverts, ending up on Carl King’s blog post 10 Myths About Introverts (a good read, but another topic). I liked King’s way of thinking, and saw that he had a book. The publisher, MWP, has a sample from the book on their website. I devoured all seventeen sample pages, and filled up a page in my bliss book with quotes and inspirations from that alone. I was sold, and bought the book next chance I got.

King doesn’t mince words. Every sentence, every page, has impact. You won’t find repetition or filler here. He has a quirky humor, and tells it straight.

This book covers so many topics relating to creativity. From your personal workspace (spacestation), to social interactions, the business, and daily routines. It’s a survival guide for the creative soul. About making the most of that wonderful brain you’ve got, not wasting your imagination and creativity.

As I’ve traveled the path of submitting my writing, both fiction and poetry, in the hopes for publication, I really liked how King compared us to salesman. The salesman gets fired every day. “And at the end of the day, even if you do a great job, you get fired. Because you’re paid to wake up and look for work each and every day.” Definitely something I can relate to. But then he turns it around, shows how we can learn from this state of being. “The flip side of this paradox is that a salesman is never unemployed, because he creates his own destiny.”

I recommend this book for anyone whose hobby or work is creative.

Next time on Mary’s Expression: writers groups.

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Book Review, Creative Writing, Inspiration, Mary's Expression

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Zen in the Art of Writing: A Review

“You fail only if you stop writing.” ~Ray Bradbury

The above quote has long been my mantra for writing. I keep it at the top of my daily writing document. So, as inspired as I am by this one statement of Bradbury’s, I was delighted to come across an entire book of such words. Zen in the Art of Writing is a collection of essays that Ray Bradbury has written, ranging in publication date from 1961 to 1986. The collection, published in 1990, is still relevant today. The messages just as true.

The essays are as follows:

  • The Joy of Writing
  • Run Fast, Stand Still, Or, The Thing at the Top of the Stairs, Or, New Ghosts from Old Minds
  • How to Keep and Feed a Muse
  • Drunk, and in Charge of a Bicycle
  • Investing Dimes: Fahrenheit 451
  • Just This Side of Byzantium: Dandelion Wine
  • On the Shoulders of Giants
  • The Secret Mind
  • Zen in the Art of Writing
  • … On Creativity

In these, Bradbury shares his experiences with life and writing, and shows how entwined the two are. He takes inspiration from his own life, his own passions.

When I picked up this book and started reading, it was impossible to put down. It spoke to my own passions, reignited my zest for writing. A reminder of why I do what I do. He does share advice, some how-to for writers, but what I took most was the underlying celebration of the art. The book’s subtitle is Releasing the Creative Genius Within You, and it lives up to that task.

“When honest love speaks, when true admiration begins, when excitement rises, when hate curls like smoke, you need never doubt that creativity will stay with you for a lifetime.”

~Ray Bradbury, from How to Keep and Feed a Muse

I definitely recommend this book, both for aspiring writers and those who’ve been long in the trenches. It is a joy to read, and will take you back to the roots of not just the how-to write, but the why. If you’ve lost that love, found the passion dimming, rediscover it here.

Next time on Mary’s Expression: More on the Creative Genius.

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Book Review, Creative Writing, Inspiration, Mary's Expression

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An Exercise in Imagery

Dreigiebelhaus (three-gables-house) Am Laien i...

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. As my gift to you, I’d like to share a fun exercise to create unique imagery.

Sometimes I find myself getting stuck using the same descriptions and phrases in my writing. Especially in poetry, it loses that pop. One of my favorite exercises to get out of this rut is one I learned in high school.

1. Come up with a list of common adjective/noun combinations. Since it’s the day after Christmas, I’m going to choose some season appropriate terms. The more you come up with, the better a chance you’ll get an awesome description out of this. I like to come up with 10-12, but for teaching purposes I’ll do six. Adjectives in green, nouns in red:

white Christmas
evergreen tree
falling snow
slick roads
gold rings
hot cocoa

2. English: Six dice of various colours. 4-sided ... Now choose a number. Any will do as long as it’s not a multiple of the list you have. Since I have six items, I would not use the number six. You can use virtual dice to give a random number, or roll an actual die. Since I have six phrases, I’ll use a regular die and re-roll if I get a 6. I rolled a 4.

3. This number is the shift number. Leave the adjectives where they are, and shift the nouns down the number rolled. Christmas would shift down 4 to match with gold. My resulting list:

white snow
evergreen roads
falling rings
slick cocoa
gold Christmas
hot tree

4. These are now your prompts! Use any that inspire you in a poem or story. As you can see, some combos are definitely better than others. White snow isn’t very original, but evergreen roads excites me. If you get a dud, and none of the results speak to you, pick a new shift number.

Another variant: write a bunch of adjectives and nouns on pieces of paper, and put them in separate bowls or bags. Mix them up, and grab one from each. A grab bag of inspirational imagery.

Here’s my poem inspired by the above. I have the start of an evergreen poem, but ended up on a tangent and wrote this one instead.

What color is your Christmas?

White with snow
and frosted branches?

Blue with longing
for romances?

Mine is one of gold
as I snuggle down with slick cocoa
and listen to the joy around me.

A child’s laughter making
all those purchases worthwhile

The Carol of the Bells
echoing like falling rings

And at the end of the day
the family gathers round
to watch a movie

As a child I never could have known
Mothers have the best Christmas,
with memories of gold.

 

For another example, see my very first poem written using this technique.

I’d love to see the poems you come up with, using either my list or one of your own.

Next time on Mary’s Expression: A book review.

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Creative Writing, Inspiration, Mary's Expression, Poetry

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The Poetry of Pink

A Young Mary

Mary, two years old

I don’t consider myself very girly. I fancy comfort over style, don’t wear make-up, and for much of my life avoided the color pink. When I was a little girl, I LOVED the color. That soft, carnation pink reminiscent of pebbles and cherry blossoms. Last year I let both the little girl and the color back into my life.

Pink won’t make me a spoiled princess. It can be fun and flirty. It’s not about wearing the color, but embracing the essence.

I love to rock out the vocals in the Rock Band video game series, so honored that expression by naming my in-game band Pink Ink.

Pink ink is also a reference to my writing. I often type up rough drafts in pink text. On a mental level, it keeps me in a more playful, creative mood. On a physical level, it’s harder to read the text so I can focus more on new words than the quality of what’s already written.

Once I decided that being associated with pink wouldn’t label me or put me in a box, it freed me to use it as inspiration, a tool of my own expression. I have an entire page in my bliss book dedicated to pink. A reminder to own pink, what the color means to me, and some fun pink stickers like a pig and a butterfly. Here’s a poem I wrote as I delved into the heart (and letters) of pink.

A palace for my soul–
where I am pampered,
feel pretty;
a safe place to play,
my power and passion
come through.

Ink flows from inspiration,
introspection brings illumination,
revealing my true identity,

leaving me nude–
a natural nymph,
wild and new
as I live in the Now.

Knowledge gained
is the key to self,
to the fragile case
protecting my keepsakes.
Unlock the door.
Kiss fate
create Karma.

Do you have a color that inspires you? Or a color that you avoid?

Don’t forget to enter our contest to win a copy of Lifelines.

Next time on Mary’s Expression: A fun exercise to create unique imagery.

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Creative Writing, Inspiration, Mary's Expression, Poetry

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Bliss and Gratitude

I first learned about a bliss book from Sylvia van Bruggen during a workshop at the Muse Online Writers Conference.

What is bliss? Complete happiness, undisturbed by gain or loss.

What is a Bliss Book? In simplicity: a book that makes you happy.

Whenever I feel my writing sucks, or am generally depressed, I can open my bliss book and bring on a smile. I have words of encouragement about my writing, quotes, lists of favorite things, and I’m always on the lookout for pictures to clip from magazines.

The most important rule is no negativity allowed.

Creating Your Own Bliss Book

  1. Make or buy a pretty journal or notebook. I use a lovely illustrated fairy journal.
  2. Write up a purpose page. What do you want from this book? Here’s what I wrote in mine: Fears have no power here. My bliss book is my quiet place. A way to center myself and find my muse. Smile. Play Be Free. Free my muse; free my writing; free me from doubt and fear; free me from burdens that I may fly.
  3. Add something regularly. Anything that makes you happy. Ideas: lists, pictures, doodles, quotes, stickers, poems, mantras
  4. Open your book! When you’re in a slump, or forget your motivations for doing what you love (whether that be writing, or parenting, or running). Read it front to back, or open to a random page. Let it inspire you once more.

You can expand this idea of bliss into other forms. A bliss box, a bliss room. Anything or anywhere filled with things that inspire and lift you up.

In honor of the recently celebrated Thanksgiving here in the U.S.A., I’m starting a new page in my bliss book. A Gratitude Page. Anytime I lose sight of the good things in life, sucked down in negativity, I can search for something to add to this page. There is ALWAYS something to be grateful for, even in our darkest hours.

Next time on Mary’s Expression: The Poetry of Pink.

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Inspiration, Mary's Expression

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My Expression

birch trees and some sunlight

Image by gato-gato-gato via Flickr

I mentioned a quote in the poem of my introduction post:

“The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I truly believe that quote. If we do not express ourselves, we are not complete. I exist for my art, my writing, as much as it exists for me. If you have not read any of  my writing, then you can not truly know me. In fact, sometimes I feel I am more honest, more alive, in my writing than in reality.

Being a writer is a crucial part to my identity, whether it be writing poetry, journaling in a diary or blog, or working on a novel. All these are expressions of my soul and in turn shape me as the person I am. My writing allows me to stand out to the world as I never could any other way. It is the only way for an introspective person such as I am to be bold and confident. I let people see me through my writing. Betsy Lerner says it well, “Indeed, the great paradox of the writer’s life is how much time he spends alone trying to connect with other people.”

I want to share that poetic, whimsical side with you. So run with me through a forest of birch trees, while butterflies and fairies dance around us.

As I am the first in our rotation, here’s what you can expect from our schedule. The six of us will be blogging in rotation, in the order of our introductions, on alternating weeks.

 

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Mary's Expression

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Six Minds as One

It’s been a long road, giving us a new appreciation for what it takes to put together a collection of poetry, especially an anthology from six very different poets.

When we did decide to put together an anthology, our initial theme was the Greek Muses. We brought together existing poems, and wrote some new ones, each attributed to a muse.

We used Google Documents to share our work and make commenting and organization easier. If we’d had to rely on exchanging email, well, we’d still be sending poems back and forth. We used a spreadsheet to make voting for top poems straightforward and hassle-free. Margaret was our tech goddess in all of this.

Our first draft version didn’t work, so we came back together to figure out what to do instead. It simply didn’t have the overlying narrative arc that is the key to a really good poetry collection.

We looked for a new theme that could tie this eclectic group of poems together. Water came up a couple of times, and Michele mentioned the ebb and flow. With that, Mary began to have a vision. The ebb and tide of life, the heart, the world. She wanted to explore this further, so volunteered to take control and see what she could do in the matter of organizing. Once Mary split everything into different stages of life, she was inspired with the theme poem, the tide’s effects as it comes and goes in our lives. Finally our poems had a story, a flow that felt right. The others agreed.

Throughout this entire process, Michele kept us together. It was her bull-headedness that kept us pushing forward even when we struggled. Michele who got our wonderful mentors involved, and had the connections to pitch our project to InkSpotter.

So now the anthology is about to “go live.” It’s been three years since the day that Lisa Gentile couldn’t connect to the internet, leaving moderator Michele Graf to organize a spontaneous chat.

A collection of poetry is more than the sum of its parts. It’s the cumulative effect of each poem, one after the other, leading the reader from one to the other to create a unified whole. Without the unifying principle we have a stack of paper. With it we have an anthology.

 

by Mary W. Jensen and Margaret Fieland

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Meeting Mary

More Than What You See

“The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am only half what you see –
you can’t learn all from a picture;
yes, you see my hair is blonde,
my eyes are blue,
perhaps estimate my height…
but my fair skin and features are not all
that make me who I am.

I am thoughts, ideas,
creations, emotions,
memories.

I am tears –
let loose so easily
but making me strong not soft.

I am survivor –
wrought in the fire
to strengthen my faith.

I am chiaroscuro –
not all light or dark alone
but the contrast and shadows they create.

I am love –
wrapped gently
around my husband and my son.

I am seeds –
blown from a dandelion
swept up by the air in flight.

I am words –
brewing inside of me
are ideas that will form poems and stories.

I am me –
take me or reject me,
but you cannot change me.

 

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Introductions, Mary's Expression

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