Things that feel like a waste of time, like taking a shower or exercising or folding the laundry, can be put to good use as times of creative incubation. Try This Don’t waste your shower by taking it first thing in the morning. Instead, get to work on your creative project right away. Your decision-tank …
Tag Archives: try this
Accept the Magic of Imagination
Ringing the Bell When I was a kid at Saint Lucy’s Catholic Church, the altar boys used to ring a little golden bell when the priest raised the host. I watched from my wooden pew and wondered if that was the moment when the miracle happened, when the host changed from bread to flesh. …
“I want these but don’t know how.”
What do you do with the pieces you don’t yet have the skill to finish? I used to leave them around in notebooks and never finish them. Half-abandoned, half-forgotten, they were a source of nebulous anxiety, though I vaguely planned to get back to them someday. Sometimes I’d remember one and think, “Hey, I know what …
Get Great Titles from Shakespeare, Yeats, and Paul Simon
Here’s a fun way to get titles. You can use this method to title a piece you’ve already written, or you can use the titles as prompts and re-title later if you write something that doesn’t fit. Titles from Poems: The Method Find the text of a song or poem you like. Prose doesn’t usually …
Continue reading “Get Great Titles from Shakespeare, Yeats, and Paul Simon”
Then
Will you try an experiment with me? Read this excerpt from a short story I’m working on: “A pleasure,” I said, and he must have heard me, for he bowed his head. Then he turned and walked down the stairs. Now compare: “A pleasure,” I said, and he must have heard me, for he bowed …