Clik here to view.
The Delicacy of Providing (and Receiving) Criticism
All of us creatives can learn from others, but engaging in the critique process can be like navigating a mine field. The explosive damage resulting from an innocent misstep can be as mild as hurt...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A One-Week Social Media Withdrawal
Consider this post a “closed for business” sign for one week. I have before learned the value to my creative process of occasionally going off-grid. A week ago I received my memoir manuscript back from...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Creativity Lesson from Albert Einstein
Think with your entire brain and you’ll be as creative as Albert Einstein. That is perhaps an oversimplification of the latest scientific research on the brain of one of the greatest minds of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Two Steps to Being the Top Google Search Result
A headline like that is sure to draw traffic, right? I do actually list two steps to being the top Google search result below, but will then emphasize how what a blogger really wants is not a high...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Elusive Nexus of Creativity and Mental Illness
She insisted she killed people with her mind. She was a creator and destroyer of worlds. She also found new ways to comprehend the wisdom of Aristotle and earned four prestigious academic degrees...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why the Arts Matter in STEM Education
My tour of a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) grade school in Akron, Ohio, serves as my launching point for a look at arts education–and the effort to add an A for arts to make...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How I Failed to Avoid the Post-MFA Slump
I have a confession to make. It has been six weeks since my last serious effort at creative writing. One thing I’ve learned from interviewing artists is that even the best of them sometimes find...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Creativity and the Aging Brain
“Don’t imagine you’ll have it forever. Use it while you’ve got it because it’ll go; it’s sliding away like water down a plug hole.” So said Nobel Prize-winning novelist Doris Lessing of creativity. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Living a Creative Double Life
I am in an intimate relationship with two different muses. I never allow them to meet. What do I mean by that? I’m referring to the two worlds in which I apply creative thinking as well as my writing...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What To Expect from the Artist’s Road in 2014
Perhaps a 2014 resolution for me should be to gain readers in Africa and South America. I say that because among the dozens of responses to my survey requesting feedback on what to write about in 2014...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What is Your Ten-Year Plan?
My read on today’s society is that it is no longer “cool” to set New Year’s resolutions. Not helping the resolutions’ case is that we rarely keep them; there’s a reason gyms require you to buy a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why I Left my Literary Agent
It was the hardest professional decision I ever made. Harder than leaving a stable think-tank job to join a start-up as its CEO. Harder than walking away from that successful start-up four years later...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Turning Your To-Do List Upside Down
It’s looming behind me as I speak, mocking me. It’s my whiteboard wall, which as I noted on this blog the other day is filled with dozens of bullets of short-term tasks to advance myself as a writer...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Linguistic Legacies of Technological Change
It is an annual obsession of ours: What new technological words have been added to the dictionary? When did “email” make it in? How about “tweet”? Of course, making the dictionary may insure a word...
View ArticleClik here to view.
No Writing Today, I’ve Gotta Watch Curling
I covered the sheet cake in white frosting. Squeeze tubes of red and blue icing were used to make the rings on both ends. Yellow and red gumdrops became stones, and some of my son’s Lego men posed as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Envy, Narcissism, Depression and Creativity
Two weeks ago Facebook celebrated 10 years of making us depressed and envious by creating for each user a personalized video not unlike what you see in an Oscars “in memoriam” telecast. It was a wise...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Separating Curiosity from Creativity
Can you be creative without being curious? I find myself curious to learn the answer to this question. On some level it seems like asking if you can enjoy peanut butter without peanuts. Loads of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why I am Obsessed with Artists
“Patrick, why are you so obsessed with artists and their creativity?” I’ve been asked that question a fair amount during my years as an artist’s advocate and a creativity and writing instructor. There...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Forgiving Yourself for Not-Done To-Do’s
“Congratulations,” a colleague told me yesterday. “For what?” He smiled and pointed at the cloudless blue sky through the window behind him. “For surviving the winter.” His statement implied two...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Creative Control in the Age of Kickstarter
How much creative control do we cede when other people’s money is involved? Before I get to Kickstarter, let me throw in a historical anecdote. Galilee Galileo was not only the Father of Modern...
View Article