168 hours: Getting a handle on what occupies it (3 graffs x2)

By On May 21, 2013 · Leave a Comment

I’m going to cheat here. This is a little more than 3 paragraphs this time. But it’ll be useful stuff anyway. Bear with me …

My biggest juggling act involves those 168 hours I’m given per week. Yeah, that same number you and everyone else gets; this is one of the few aspects of life [...]

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168 hours: Does life expand to fill it? (3 graffs)

By On May 20, 2013 · Leave a Comment

(This is really two posts in one. How cool is that?)

One of the reasons people give about why they don’t pursue their creativity is that there’s never enough time to do it.

Which makes sense. But we’re all allotted the same 168 hours per week. Unless I croak in mid-stream, I get the same [...]

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Hot Links: How Dan Brown deals with writer’s block

By On May 16, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Well, that’s one way to do it.

Here’s the story: Dan Brown deals with writer’s block by hanging himself upside down

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ThePassiveVoice/~3/KCJNbWXPESs/

Caution: Do not try this at home.

# # #

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burning paper

First look, first draft: Can’t I just burn the USB drive? (@ work)

By On May 13, 2013 · Leave a Comment

[intro] You can’t tell by looking, but this creative&dangerous blog has been wildly successful in the year I’ve had it up.

OK, so you won’t see that in the usual metrics. Readership and ad revenue (what’s that) are flat, and sometimes I can even hear the joint echoing when I post new material. [...]

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On writing: It’s sometimes an exhausting business

By On May 12, 2013 · Leave a Comment

You wouldn’t think so at first glance, but the whole creative process will drain you.

I have no idea why. From a scientific/medical standpoint you’re using tons of glucose in the brain for writing, playing music, painting, flat-out creating. Glucose equals energy, so maybe that whole thing makes sense after all.

Sometimes I think doing [...]

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I’m still here — doing it instead of talking about it

By On May 9, 2013 · Leave a Comment

For my readers who may have noticed my absence lately, I’m working on my upcoming ebook.

Titled “Will Work For Exposure,” it’s in the home stretch of the first draft. It now checks in at 22,925 words. My target is 25,000, meaning I’ll complete the first draft sometime tomorrow.

From there, here’s my production [...]

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Wish I knew: No one really cares about the process (3 graffs)

By On May 1, 2013 · Leave a Comment

It doesn’t matter how I do something or how many hours I put in, the proof is in the finished product.

While it’s cool to talk with other creatives about the number of times I rewrote a final draft, all the fast-moving chord changes I had to learn to play a song or the number [...]

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Wish I knew: Working hard, or hardly working? (3 graffs)

By On April 30, 2013 · Leave a Comment

I can’t be working. I’m doing this thing I love, not even sweating, no straw boss to bother me and not a pair of steel-toed boots in sight. How can I call this working?

Ask me again in a couple of hours when my brain fuzzes over, my face melts, my fingers feel about this [...]

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Wish I knew: Waiting to be picked doesn’t work (3 graffs)

By On April 29, 2013 · Leave a Comment

[Backgrounder: It's been a few years since I was 25. OK, let's be honest. Decades. But at 25 I was in college, taking my first journalism classes, had an 18-year-old girlfriend, still had hair. And at that point I wasn't published yet. Maybe I've become hardened over the years, but I sure learned a lot [...]

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sledgehammer

Underwhelmed … and the crowd goes mild

By On April 19, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Sometimes being underwhelmed can be overwhelming.

I know, that sounds like one of those ooo-eee-ooo Zen statements in that it makes no sense (what is the sound of one hand clapping?) but think about it for a minute. Not only does it make sense, but it’s also true. 

While the obvious scenario is the guy [...]

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