creativity

My writing process often begins with a question. I write down ideas and let them stew for about a year. Then, when I sit down to write, I make a list of characters and try to see how they fit. Cynthia Voigt

New blog post by Rachel McCarron The Untidy Desk In an effort to repossess the poet’s soul I sold to Reality thirty years ago, I decided to tackle a form with some constraint. Like a penance for my neglect all these years. So, here’s a Villanelle, initially as perplexing to me as her...

Inspired by a conversation with a friend of mine, your April challenge is to complete the following to create One Perfect Sentence: The split second before I hit . . . The rules are simple: Each entry must be ONE sentence only, as defined by the basic rules of English grammar. We will...

I could not agree more with the sentiments expressed here by Led Zeppelin icon, Jimmy Page. And not just concerning music but in all endeavours artistic. The UK government needs a quick rethink here regarding its proposals...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/25/grand-theft-ai-ministers-behind-it-work-stolen-copyright View image in fullscreen We are father and son: one has written 16 musicals and counting, the other cofounded The Other Songs, a leading independent record and publishing company. Our...

"If we allow our ‘high creativity’ to remain alive, we will never be bored. We can pray, standing in line at the super market. Or we can be lost in awe at all the people around us, their lives full of glory and tragedy, and suddenly we will have the beginnings of a painting, a story, a song."...

New blog post by Jake E Dems the rulez Once again, I find myself writing about an argument I stumbled upon on X (Can’t they agree on anything over there?) and I just had to offer my thoughts on it in case anyone was interested. The argument in question? Writing rules, do they have a point...

“The future is uncertain… but this uncertainty is at the very heart of human creativity.” Ilya Prigogine

If you’d like to receive my blog in your in-box each week, click here. Every single evening for the past week, as my husband and I walk our dogs, we’ve encountered one of our neighbors sitting outside in her front yard hunched over her computer working on her complex system of Halloween decor...

I think every novel is a rite of passage . . . there seems to be a karmic force in my imagination where even if I threw something away, it would just come back. Like maybe I wanna try to throw this away and not write this, but it would just resurrect itself in a new form. I can’t really get...

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/2024/12/12/festive-frights-around-a-blazing-fire-its-time-to-revive-the-christmas-ghost-story/ Most popular modern Christmas traditions – tree decorations, festive feasts, holiday cards, carols – can be traced back to the Victorian era. There was also...

“Imagination is like a muscle. I found out that the more I wrote, the bigger it got.”

New blog post by Claire G – discussions in this thread, please --- The Good There’s so much to love about writing – the excitement of that initial spark of an idea; the stimulation of the challenge to make it work; that feeling you get when you find the perfect word/phrase/sentence/paragraph...

New blog post by Rachel McCarron – discussions in this thread, please --- There has long been an association between mental illness and creativity with seemingly endless examples of successful creatives affected by anxiety, depression, bipolar and other mental disorders: F. Scott Fitzgerald...

New blog post by Jake E – discussions in this thread, please --- I’ve been avoiding the subject of AI for a long time. I’ve tried to ignore it, tried to pretend it won’t be as big a deal as people are making out, and that it will find its place somewhere and make life a little less cumbersome...

Without a function, we cease to be. So, I will write till I die. Farley Mowat

They always come for those who create art, because art sustains the soul of all people, whether they know it or not, just as food sustains the body. And totalitarianism cannot survive where the soul of a people is uncrushed. Tom Hirons