A chat with my Writer’s Circle participants inspired today’s post. So often we wait for the right conditions before we write or start our other creative projects.

Although we’d like to imagine otherwise, waiting doesn’t get us very far.

Are you waiting for the right mood to strike before you work on your creative project?

Are you waiting until you have the right room to write or paint in?

Are you waiting until you have the right computer before you can start writing?

Are you waiting until you have the right “voice” or platform before you start sharing your message?

Are you waiting until you’ve picked the right project to start working on?

Are you waiting until you have more money before you pursue your art?

Are you waiting for big blocks of time before you write songs, start your novel, or get that screenplay off the shelf for a rewrite?

Are you waiting to be divinely inspired before you start your project?

Are you waiting for permission to create?

Wait no longer.

Your art will not happen unless you do it. And sometimes that means showing up and doing it even if you don’t know what you’re doing yet.

Besides, in a study by Robert Boice about academic writers, he found that writers who committed to writing daily were TWICE as likely to have a creative thought as writers who wrote when they “felt like it.”

The key here is consistency. Making the effort to show up every day to your creative passion will foster and spark your creativity, not the other way around.

Your Turn

So, what are you waiting for? (No, really, I want to know!)

And what are you ready to stop waiting for?

Warmly, Jenna

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More articles by Jenna Avery

The “Just Do The Writing” Accountability Circle, aka the Writer’s Circle, is “a powerful system to help writers like you – novelists, screenwriters, songwriters, poets, non-fiction writers, and creative writers – stay on track with your work so you can get your writing into the world.”

Learn more about Jenna’s other programs at her site JennaAvery.com

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“Gifted adults may be overwhelmed by the pressure of their own creativity. The gifted derive enormous satisfaction from the creative process.

Jacobsen notes, “Beyond producing objects of value, the gifted create for the sole purpose of creative expression. They need to create and are rejuvenated by it. They often do so whether someone asks them to or not, regardless of payment or recognition, chiefly because they enjoy solving their own puzzles independent of external influence.”

From The Gifted Adult: A Revolutionary Guide for Liberating Everyday Genius, by Mary-Elaine Jacobsen, PsyD.

David Lynch is one well-known example of a multitalented creator, and has commented about being a creative polymath: “I started out as a painter, and then painting led to cinema… Then cinema led to so many different areas—it led to still photography, music . . . Furniture is also a big love of mine…”

Continued: An Intense Inner Pressure to Create

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“It was just a story I wanted to tell. Writing it was an expression of my own coming out. Getting it out there was willpower, feeling this is a universal story about identity and it has to be told.”

Writer and director Dee Rees is referring to her movie “Pariah” – about a lesbian teenager struggling to keep her sexuality a secret from her family.

A review article explains that the lead character Alike (pronounced Ah-LEE-kah) “lives comfortably with both parents and a younger sister… gets great grades in school and is an avid writer.

Rees says, “It’s not even about coming out, it’s about how to be. She loves women, that’s clear, it’s about how to be that. We didn’t make the film to prove anybody wrong or spite anybody, it’s just a story that needs to be told.”

Continued: Dee Rees On Filming A Universal Story Of Identity

Trailer:

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In his new course Your Best Life in the Arts, he provides “real answers to the challenges that confront you” – whether you are “just beginning to write, paint or play an instrument” or have “logged in thousands of hours at your craft.”

Below the video interview with him are excerpts from summaries of the first seven topics of the course, and a link to a new page with the other seven topics.

The course was presented earlier as a live tele-conference – and is now available as an MP3 download.

Each topic – listed on the course website Your Best Life in the Arts – refers to key issues in creative expression, and I have added some related comments and references such as articles.

..
Week 1.   Your Life in the Arts
Get a clear picture of what it takes to deal with the emotional ups and downs and practical realities of a life in the arts. Learn how to make solid sense of the challenges of your own personality, the challenges inherent in the work of creating, and the challenges of culture and marketplace.

This brings to mind the subject of identity, how we think of ourselves, and the idea that many people claim (to themselves or others) that they “aren’t creative.”

My advice: Stop laboring under that self-limiting delusion. Yes, maybe you don’t have the specific talents or motivations to be a novelist or film director, rock star or whatever – but that doesn’t mean you lack creativity.

Week 2.   The Meaning Key
If you can’t convince yourself that your creative efforts matter—if you aren’t “existentially decisive”—you’ll lose motivation, block, and avoid your creative work and your performance tasks.

A related topic Maisel addresses is toxic criticism: “Until you decide that your path in life matters, that it is ultimately your responsibility to live by your cherished principles, and that you and only you can create a life worth living, you will have insufficient motivation to put criticism in its place.”

From his article The Existential Key.

Another article of his: Meaningful Life, Meaningful Work, Meaningful Days.

Week 3.   The Mind Key
Creating depends on having a mind quiet enough to allow ideas to bubble up…Learn the important skills of quieting your mind and extinguishing negative self-talk.

Writer Dean Koontz has commented about “ceaseless self-doubt that sits like a demonic imp on my shoulder from the moment I begin the first sentence until long after I finish the last…”

From my post Managing Creative Anxiety: Change Your Thinking.

Quieting this negative self-talk is one of the values of meditation.

See list of Meditation and mindfulness articles, and information about Holosync technology on my Personal Growth Information site.

Week 4.   The Confidence Key
You may feel quite confident in some areas of your life—and then find yourself weaker than you would like when you get to the canvas or computer screen or when you need to talk to a gallery owner, literary agent or booking agent…you need to feel confident as an artist in order to succeed as an artist.

Creating can take courage and confidence even if you aren’t (yet) a professional. One of the key ways we can undermine our confidence is self-talk based on limiting beliefs.

Morty Lefkoe has developed programs to deal with self-limiting beliefs. In his article How to build confidence, he notes, “Confidence actually exists on a continuum, ranging from a very low to a very high belief in our own abilities, a sense we can handle whatever life throws at us. Very few people are totally lacking in confidence and very few feel confident that they can handle almost anything.”

Week 5.   The Stress Key
Life produces stress, the artistic personality produces additional stress, creating produces even more stress, and living the artist’s life is the topper! Learn how to identify the stressors in your life and how to implement stress management techniques…

Dr. Maisel notes, “For someone who’s self-identified as a writer, painter, composer, scientist, inventor, and so on, his identity and ego are wrapped up in how well he creates—and when what we do matters that much, we naturally get anxious.” From my post Creative Anxiety – So Much On The Line.

Week 6.   The Freedom Key
Most people are unaware of how self-censorship and other self-imposed constraints hamper their ability to flourish as an artist. They’re also unaware of how cultural constraints add to that felt lack of freedom…

In my post How Much Do You Censor Your Creative Expression?, I noted that just labeling or categorizing ideas is a kind of censorship – especially if we do it too early on, before allowing them to percolate both consciously and unconsciously. The attitudes we have about our creative ideas and projects can have a huge impact on what we actually invest energy in – or how much.

Week 7.   The Passion Key
Passion—and synonyms like love, curiosity, enthusiasm, excitement and energy—is vital to the creative process. It is possible to create without passion but your art will suffer and the likelihood of you continuing over the long haul is greatly reduced…

This is another central issue for enjoying a creative and meaningful life.

Director Julie Taymor made a comment about her work: “Whatever it is, I have to really love it…When you approach it that way, you come at it with all your soul and intelligence.”

Her director for their film “The Holiday,” Nancy Meyers, commented about Kate Winslet, ”People do love her. The only other person I’ve ever seen love acting that much is Jack Nicholson.”

From my post Passion Fuels Creative Expression.

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• Read more about the course in Your Life in the Arts – Part 2.

Here are a couple of testimonials:

“Without Eric Maisel’s guidance I would never have successfully negotiated the publishing process. With his help, I completed a substantial proposal, landed a good agent, and just signed my first book contract!”
— Nancy Pine, author and educator

“It’s been an unexpected joy to find someone as creatively supportive and encouraging as Eric. I didn’t know what to expect out of our sessions and each one is fresh and interesting. Eric’s inspirational!”
— Christine Collister, international recording artist

“Eric’s insights have helped me with every aspect of my painting career, from the evolution of my market vision to strategies for self-promotion. I also found his help invaluable in feeding my creator’s soul!”
— Jonathan Herbert, painter and photographer

Learn more and buy the course: Your Best Life in the Arts.

Books by Eric Maisel, PhD:

A Life in the Arts: Practical Guidance and Inspiration for Creative and Performing Artists

Creativity for Life: Practical Advice on the Artist’s Personality, and Career from America’s Foremost Creativity Coach

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Photo at top from post: Ginny Ruffner: “That bad time made me more creative.”

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Here is more from their post:

Creativity is not a “you have it” or “you don’t” kind of thing.

It isn’t a personality trait. It’s not a “one size fits all” habit of mind. It’s not, simply, a set of skills to test for or a roster of art classes.

Creativity is a response to a particular problem in a distinct context at a particular time. It involves the surprising combination of previously unconnected ideas or materials in novel and effective ways.

While an individual can rediscover or re-experience the creative insights of others, each original creative act is a unique occurrence.  True, the best predictor of future creativity is past creativity, but there is no guarantee that a person who responds creatively to one task may do so with others.

So what’s a society to do? Especially one committed to constant innovation?

Foster imaginative thinking? Check. Nurture can-do attitude and audacity of vision? Check.

But most important of all, we can immerse our students in recreating creative process. In other words, we can teach them how artists, scientists, technologists and others have made discoveries and inventions as well as new ways of being in the world.

Every discipline is full of examples of how the most influential individuals and groups produced their most significant innovations. Surprisingly, these are absent from curriculum guidelines and textbooks.

Though we cram students with facts and ideas, we fail to teach them how that knowledge is forged by people like themselves.

By and large, teaching has dehumanized knowledge and in dehumanizing it, eliminated its creative spark.

We know this for a sorry fact.

Bob teaches college level physiology.

Some fifteen years ago he was talking with a group of seniors going off to medical school.

He asked them if they could tell him what insulin was and how it worked. All could do so.

He asked them who had discovered insulin. None could answer.

He asked them how insulin had been discovered. None could answer.

He asked them how they would go about isolating and characterizing insulin today. None could answer.

He asked them how insulin is manufactured. None could answer.

In sum, the knowledge these students possessed was passive. They had no conception of the wonderful, sad, surprising, infuriating, and amazing process that ushers new science into the world.

They had no models to guide them on similar paths of discovery, innovation and implementation.

Bob has since developed a course for graduating Physiology majors on the nature of biomedical discovery. …

Continued: Teaching the Creative Process

Photo: Shannon Lewis, left, Michelle Giron and Haluna Gunterman constitute half of Caltech’s all-female chemical engineering class of 2005.

(Photo by Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times June 20 2005.)

Book: Sparks of Genius, The 13 Thinking Tools of the World’s Most Creative People, by Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein

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“There is creative reading as well as creative writing.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Here is a brief list of books that will hopefully keep you thinking creatively and help develop creativity personally, as well as in educational and business settings.

[Photo: Marilyn Monroe reading "Death of a Salesman" - from my article The Writer As Entrepreneur.]

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The Creative Life: True Tales of Inspiration, by Julia Cameron

In The Creative Life, Cameron shows readers how to use their creative hearts and minds to cultivate lives that nourish and sustain their art. Through beautifully drawn scenes from her own life, as well as the lives of the many artists around her, Cameron reveals that creativity flourishes during the quiet pauses in our lives-and that it is only when we allow ourselves to slow down and savor life that we discover ways to depict it sensitively and poetically in our art.

By opening the curtain on her own life and the lives of the artists who surround her, Cameron reveals a world rich with creative possibility.

{{ Review from Amazon.com, like the others below. }}

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Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know About How Artists Work, by Robert Austin, Lee Devin, Eric Schmidt (Foreword)

Artful Making offers the first proven, research-based framework for engineering ingenuity and innovation. This book is the result of a multi-year collaboration between Harvard Business School professor Robert Austin and leading theatre director and playwright Lee Devin.

Together, they demonstrate striking structural similarities between theatre artistry and production and today’s business projects–and show how collaborative artists have mastered the art of delivering innovation “on cue,” on immovable deadlines and budgets.

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Orchestrating Collaboration at Work: Using Music, Improv, Storytelling, and Other Arts to Improve Teamwork, by Arthur VanGundy, Linda Naiman

Orchestrating Collaboration at Work is an activity book for trainers, coaches, mediators and facilitators, who want to use the arts to create transformative learning experiences in organizations. All 70 activities are crafted using arts-based principles that offer new insights and skills development in creativity, communication, teamwork, and collaborative leadership.

Painting, poetry, storytelling, music, and improvisational theater offer innovative and transformative learning experiences. You can use them as quick icebreakers or brainjuicers at meetings or training sessions, and as a means of mediating dialogue to stimulate employee engagement. You do NOT have to be an artist to use this book’s offerings.

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A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, by Daniel H. Pink.

Lawyers. Accountants. Radiologists. Software engineers. That’s what our parents encouraged us to become when we grew up. But Mom and Dad were wrong. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind. The era of “left brain” dominance, and the Information Age that it engendered, are giving way to a new world in which “right brain” qualities-inventiveness, empathy, meaning-predominate.

That’s the argument at the center of this provocative and original book, which uses the two sides of our brains as a metaphor for understanding the contours of our times.

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The Art of Business: Make All Your Work a Work of Art, by David McIntosh.

For many, work is the ultimate four-letter word, the embodiment of all that is mundane. For respected business writers Stan Davis and David McIntosh, work is an opportunity to find beauty, meaning, enjoyment, balance, and longevity.

How? By treating one’s work or business as art. According to The Art of Business, people get more satisfaction from creating something than from doing something. Purpose, mastery, and permanence are hallmarks of good work, whether in the arts or in business.

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Your Creative Brain: Seven Steps to Maximize Imagination, Productivity, and Innovation in Your Life, by Shelley Carson, PhD

This provocative book reveals why sitting in front of a light box can increase your creativity more than listening to a Bach concerto as example. The author Shelley H. Carson, a Harvard psychologist, explains that creativity isn’t something only scientists, investors, artists, writers, and musicians enjoy; in fact, all of us use our creative brains every day at home and at work.

Each of us has the ability to increase our mental functioning and creativity by learning to move flexibly among several brain states.

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The Psychology of Creative Writing, by Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD, James C. Kaufman, PhD.

The Psychology of Creative Writing takes a scholarly, psychological look at multiple aspects of creative writing, including the creative writer as a person, the text itself, the creative process, the writer’s development, the link between creative writing and mental illness, the personality traits of comedy and screen writers, and how to teach creative writing.

This book will appeal to psychologists interested in creativity, writers who want to understand more about the magic behind their talents, and educated laypeople who enjoy reading, writing, or both.

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My Teeming Brain: Creativity in Creative Writers, by Jane Piirto, PhD.

This book considers the psychology of the creative writer. Chapters on the personality, the creative process, and the practical knowledge required in writers are set within a talent development framework. The book includes a study of 160 contemporary U.S. writers that explores the themes in their lives. Written in readable prose, this book is a must for those who want to be creative writers and for those who teach them.

Hundreds of books have been written about how to write, but few have bee written about what writers are like. [Review by publisher, Hampton Press.]

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Understanding Creativity, by Jane Piirto, PhD

“Understanding Creativity” offers advice on how to plan adventures, value work without “evaluation”, set a creative tone, and incorporate creativity values into one’s own family or classroom culture.

Readers will learn how to spot talent through a child’s behaviors and how to encourage practice. Real-life examples of artists, musicians, dancers, entrepreneurs, architects, and authors are included.

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Creativity for 21st Century Skills: How to Embed Creativity into the Curriculum, by Jane Piirto, PhD

Describes what many creative people really do when they create. It focuses on the practical applications of a theoretical approach to creativity training the author has developed. Many suggestions for enhancing creativity focus on ideas that are over 60 years old.

This new approach may be helpful for those seeking to develop 21st Century Skills of creativity. Five core attitudes (Naiveté, Risk-taking, Self-Discipline, Tolerance for Ambiguity, and Group Trust), Seven I’s (Inspiration, Intuition, Improvisation, Imagination, Imagery, Incubation, and Insight), and several General Practices-the use of ritual, meditation, solitude, exercise, silence, and a creative attitude to the process of life, with corresponding activities, are described, discussed, and illustrated.

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The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, by Steven Pressfield

Drawing on his many years’ experience as a writer, Pressfield (The Legend of Bagger Vance) presents his first nonfiction work, which aims to inspire other writers, artists, musicians, or anyone else attempting to channel his or her creative energies. The focus is on combating resistance and living the destiny that Pressfield believes is gifted to each person by an all-powerful deity.

While certainly of great value to frustrated writers struggling with writer’s block, Pressfield’s highly personal philosophy, soundly rooted in his own significant life challenges, has merit for anyone frustrated in fulfilling his or her life purpose. [Library Journal]

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Writing from the Inside Out: Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within, by Dennis Palumbo, M.A., MFT

“Dennis Palumbo provides a sense of community in the isolation of writing, of knowing that we are not alone on this uncharted and privileged journey. He shows us that our shared struggles, fears, and triumphs are the very soul of the art and craft of writing.” – Bruce Joel Rubin, screenwriter, “Ghost” and “Deep Impact.” /

Writer’s block. Procrastination. Loneliness. Doubt. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Just plain…fear. What does it mean if you struggle with these feelings on a daily basis?It means you re a writer. Written with a unique empathy and deep insight by someone who is both a fellow writer and a noted psychotherapist, Writing from the Inside Out sheds light on the inner life of the writer and shows you positive new ways of thinking about your art and yourself.

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Creative Recovery: A Complete Addiction Treatment Program That Uses Your Natural Creativity, by Eric Maisel, PhD and Susan Raeburn, PhD.

For writers, artists, musicians, and creators in every field, this book offers a complete addiction recovery program specifically designed for the creative person. Full of explanations and exercises, this book presents ways to use your own innate creative abilities in service of your recovery and at each stage of the recovery process.

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Mastering Creative Anxiety: 24 Lessons for Writers, Painters, Musicians, and Actors from America’s Foremost Creativity Coach, by Eric Maisel, PhD

In his decades as a psychotherapist and creativity coach, Eric Maisel has found a common thread behind what often gets labeled “writer’s block,” “procrastination,” or “stage fright.” It’s the particular anxiety that, paradoxically, keeps creators from doing, completing, or sharing the work they are driven toward. This “creative anxiety” can take the form of avoiding the work, declaring it not good enough, or failing to market it — and it can cripple creators for decades, even lifetimes.

But Maisel has learned what sets successful creators apart. He shares these strategies here, including artist-specific stress management; how to work despite bruised egos, day jobs, and other inevitable frustrations; and what not to do to deal with anxiety. Implementing these 24 lessons replaces the pain of not creating with the profound rewards of free artistic self-expression.

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Brainstorm: Harnessing the Power of Productive Obsessions
by Eric Maisel, PhD and Ann Maisel

It’s true: a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Yet that’s what we do when we spend our weekend — and neurons — reliving a workplace squabble, spend a family visit chewing over childhood issues, or spend hours beating ourselves up when someone brings one of our own long-held (but never worked on) ideas to fruition.

This kind of obsessing gets us, like a hamster on a wheel, nowhere. But as noted creativity expert Eric Maisel asserts, obsessing productively leads to fulfillment rather than frustration. A productive obsession, whether an idea for a novel, a business, or a vaccine, is chosen deliberately and pursued with determination. In this provocative, practical guide, Maisel coaches you to use the tendency to obsess to your creative advantage, fulfilling both your promise and your promises to yourself.

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Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.

Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology.

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• Understanding Creativity by Jane Piirto
• Your creative brain : seven steps to maximize imagination,… by Shelley Carson
• The Sensitive Person’s Survival Guide: An Alternative Health… by Kyra Mesich Psy.D.

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“Would I have to settle on a “practical job” and pursue my various passions on the side or choose among my interests and just commit to one thing? Both options made me my heart ache… I knew I could be doing more – that I had more to offer the world. Renaissance Business is the story of how I brought all of my interests together, and how you can do the same.” Emilie Wapnick

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> My books:

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Being Highly Sensitive and Creative
A mini report for Kindle

Many creative people recognize they are unusually sensitive to temperature, sound, touch, color and other sensations, as well as to emotional experiences, both within themselves and in others. Psychologists and neuroscience researchers are finding more confirmation for this trait of sensory processing sensitivity, present in at least fifteen percent of us, and are defining how it relates to creative ability. People can learn to thrive with the personality trait, take better care of themselves, and make use of its positive aspects for creative expression.

And, to read ebooks, get the new Kindle Fire tablet.

Part of the Amazon description:
* Movies, apps, games, music, reading and more, plus Amazon’s revolutionary, cloud-accelerated web browser
* 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books
* Thousands of popular apps and games, including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora, and more
* Free cloud storage for all your Amazon content
* Vibrant color touchscreen with extra-wide viewing angle – same as an iPad
* Fast, powerful dual-core processor
* Favorite children’s books, graphic novels, and magazines in rich color

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See many more titles in the Developing Talent Bookstore

Also see Highly Sensitive Books

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“And still it is not enough to have memories. One must be able to forget them when they are many, and one must have the great patience to wait until they come again. For it is not yet the memories themselves. Not until they have turned to blood within us, to glance, to gesture, nameless and no longer to be distinguished from ourselves-not until then can it happen that in a most rare hour the first word of a verse arises in their midst and goes forth from them.”
- Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

“Patience is a somewhat devalued commodity. Particularly among those who ought to know better – writers themselves.” – Dennis Palumbo

Formerly a Hollywood screenwriter, Dennis Palumbo is now a licensed psychotherapist in private practice, specializing in creative issues.

He comments: “Rather than thinking of it as the quality that enables a writer to explore his or her material, growing more competent by small, even measures, patience has taken on the attributes of a necessary evil.” …

Photo: J. K. Rowling in 1997 at a table in Nicholson’s Cafe in Edinburgh. She conceived the idea for the ‘Harry Potter’ series while on a train trip in 1990, and finished typing the first manuscript in 1995. She often worked at pubs and cafes during her lunch breaks.

Continued: Developing Creativity: Writing With Patience

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“Developed by The Creative Group in partnership with the AAF, The Creative Team of the Future is a joint research project that highlights trends affecting the role of the creative professional and shares insights from leaders in the advertising industry.”

By The Creative Group, “a division of specialized staffing leader Robert Half International Inc., specializes in placing highly skilled creative, advertising, marketing, web and public relations professionals with a variety of firms.”

The Secret Life of a Freelancer
an interview with Kristen Fischer – by The Creative Group

Want to know what it’s really like to fly solo?

Started freelancing and having doubts? If you have ever been curious about consulting or are distressed by the unpredictability of this career path, check out Creatively Self-Employed: How Writers and Artists Deal With Career Ups and Downs, by freelance writer Kristen Fischer.

In her first book, Kristen shares intimate snippets of her journey to becoming a full-time freelancer – from her decision to quit her 9-to-5 job to her traipse to Starbucks for her first day of work as a self-employed creative.

But this book is not only for writers; it includes a collection of stories from other established freelancers, from a Wisconsin-based fiber artist to a graphic artist and illustrator in the Netherlands.

And while there are plenty of warm, fuzzy “feel-good moments” scattered throughout the book, Kristen’s not afraid to reveal the day-to-day challenges of freelancing. Her words are encouraging yet candid, and the advice she offers is relevant to anyone considering – or in the midst of – a freelancing career.

We sat down with Kristen to talk about her book, her experiences and greatest lessons learned as a self-employed creative:

The Creative Group: “What made you write Creatively Self-Employed?”

Kristen Fischer: “I was always told to ‘write what you know.’ So when I was looking to write a book, I was intrigued by what I was going through at the time – that was dealing with everything related to freelancing. I was feeling lonely, coping with rejection and trying to run a business. There were no other books on this topic that didn’t preach on what to do. I didn’t think every problem deserved a cookie-cutter answer.

“I liked the idea of letting people speak out and having that support get to others, which is why I chose to interview people and highlight their experiences.”

TCG: “You include an interesting montage of professionals who successfully become ‘creatively self-employed.’ How and why did you choose these individuals?”

KF: “The people featured were either those I approached or those who answered my online ads for input. I only knew a handful of creatives in the book. I wanted to have a fresh perspective from freelancers globally, and I wanted to feature those from a wide range of industries. The cross-section of creatives came together perfectly.”

TCG: “In the first chapter of your book, you explain that you knew you could handle being self-employed: ‘I was an independent worker … I had the drive to succeed and the willingness to do whatever it took to get there.’ Can those who are less self-assured or self-disciplined thrive as full-time freelancers?”

KF: “It’s totally normal for others to be less confident starting out. I knew that I was someone who got things done when I started and I do think freelancers need to have that foundation. But people can always improve, and there’s a natural progression that happens as your business builds.

“I think to be successful [as a freelancer] you have to love what you do. You also need to have a strong business sense and be open, knowing that you’ll have things to do that you don’t like (accounting and marketing, for example). If you love what you do, you’ll excel at your work. But you can’t just rely on your craft – you have to be able to get projects in and you’ll need to have some business development and sales skills to do that.”

> Continued: The Secret Life of a Freelancer

Book: Creatively Self-Employed: How Writers and Artists Deal with Career Ups and Downs, by Kristen Fischer.

> Photo: Google office, Zurich – also used in articles:
Giftedness in the work environment, by Noks Nauta, Sieuwke Ronner
Career Planning for Gifted Adults, by Cathy Goodwin
Work that Works for Sensitive Souls, by Jenna Avery

More resources:

The Renaissance Business system for the Multi-Passionate Entrepreneur

How Passion Can Interfere with a Just-Right Business, by Molly Gordon

Book by Molly Gordon: The Way of the Accidental Entrepreneur, The Practical Path to a Business that Fits Just-Right.

Podcast interview: Susan Kirkland: Designer and Creative Services Entrepreneur – author of the book Start & Run A Creative Services Business.

Sites:
The Inner Entrepreneur
The Inner Entrepreneur / Facebook

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Here are a few.

Creativity at Work: Developing creativity and innovation in organizations

Founder: Linda Naiman – a creativity and innovation consultant. “Our focus is on leadership and team development, creativity, collaboration, and cultivating environments that foster innovation.”

And All That Jazz – “A creativity researcher’s take on the highs and lows of pop culture and the arts.”

By James C. Kaufman, Ph.D., a creativity researcher and Associate Professor of Psychology at California State University, San Bernardino.

One of his articles:
Too much novelty, not enough appropriateness

Cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D.

Articles on creativity (listed on his site)

Also see his blog on The Huffington Post
> Current articles:

• What Happens When the IQ Test Taker Becomes the IQ Test Constructor?
• The Need to Believe in the Ability of Disability
• Confidence Matters Just as Much as Ability
• Who Is Currently Identified as Gifted in the United States?
• The Will and Ways of Hope

His Psychology Today blog: Beautiful Minds
> Current articles:

• How Convergent and Divergent Thinking Foster Creativity
  What happens when the IQ test taker becomes the IQ test constructor? read more
• The Need to Believe in the Ability of Disability
  Our society has clear expectations regarding students who don’t fit the norm.read more
• Must One Risk Madness to Achieve Genius?
  Must one risk getting lost in the sea of madness in order to reach the lone island of genius?read more
• Educational Psychologist Kevin McGrew: An IQ Test Maker Who Goes Beyond IQ
  IQ test maker Kevin McGrew on IQ testing and the need to go beyond IQ.read more
• Who Is Currently Identified as Gifted in the United States?
  A recent national survey of state policies and practices reveals how the United States defines giftedness, identifies giftedness, and accommodates gifted minority students.read more

The Creativity Post – “a non-profit web platform committed to sharing the very best content on creativity, in all of its forms: from scientific discovery to philosophical debate, from entrepreneurial ventures to educational reform, from artistic expression to technological innovation – in short, to all the varieties of the human experience that creativity brings to life.

Milena Z. Fisher, PhD, Co-founder / President; Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD, Co-founder / Executive Director.

> Three sample posts:

Why Daydreamers are More Creative
By Scott Barry Kaufman

Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking
By Michael Michalko

3 Ideas to Prevent Schools from Killing Creativity, Curiosity, and Critical Thinking
By Dr. Todd B. Kashdan

> Current posts:

• 21 Ways to Kill Your Creativity
  21 suggestions, recommendations and habits that will guarantee you will never come up with a good idea.
• You Know What It Is: Learning Words through Listening to Hip-Hop
  Can music influence language learning?
• Time to Overcome Our Fears and Kill Subscription Journals
  The scientific community could decide tomorrow to eliminate restrictions on access to the research literature.
• Mediums & Muses
  A discussion of Patience Worth and Plato.
• What Does an Innovator Look Like?
  Ageless characteristics of innovators and entrepreneurs.

Life as Art – “How our world shapes who we are and how who we are shapes our world”

Psychology Today blog by Shelley Carson, Ph.D., “an instructor and researcher at Harvard University, where she teaches creativity and abnormal psychology.”

Two of her articles:
The New Year, Time Travel, and the Essence of Creativity
Plagiarism and Its Effect on Creative Work

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Mindbloggling – “Current ideas about cultural evolution and the creative processes that power it.”

Psychology Today blog by Liane Gabora, Ph.D.

Two of her articles:
How Creative Ideas Take Shape by Liane Gabora, Ph.D.
Are Effective Leaders Creative?

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Finding the Next Einstein: Why Smart is Relative – “discusses research findings in areas such as intelligence, creativity, psychology and education, touches upon multiple issues surrounding the identification and development of intellectual and creative talent, and explores how these issues might be relevant to what’s going on in the world.”

Psychology Today blog by Jonathan Wai, Ph.D., a psychologist, writer, and research scientist at Duke University.

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Psychology Today blogs on creativity

About twenty writers, including some of the above.

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Creativity enhancement articles – “Perspectives and strategies to increase creative ideas and expression.”

This is part of my own articles database, with hundreds of titles by multiple authors.

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Neural network image from article “The Biology of Learning,” by Gregory Kellett, on the blog of Lumosity brain training. For more about it, see my post Better Thinking: Brain Games For Cognitive Training.

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Your Creative Brain: Seven Steps to Maximize Imagination, Productivity, and Innovation in Your Life

Harvard Health Publications. “This provocative book reveals why sitting in front of a light box can increase your creativity more than listening to a Bach concerto as example. The author Shelley H. Carson, a Harvard psychologist, explains that creativity isn’t something only scientists, investors, artists, writers, and musicians enjoy; in fact, all of us use our creative brains every day at home and at work. Each of us has the ability to increase our mental functioning and creativity by learning to move flexibly among several brain states related to creativity, productivity, and innovation.”

[NOTE - reviews are by Amazon.com, unless noted otherwise.]

Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being
by Martin E. P. Seligman

“This book will help you flourish.” With this unprecedented promise, internationally esteemed psychologist Martin Seligman begins Flourish, his first book in ten years—and the first to present his dynamic new concept of what well-being really is. Traditionally, the goal of psychology has been to relieve human suffering, but the goal of the Positive Psychology movement, which Dr. Seligman has led for fifteen years, is different—it’s about actually raising the bar for the human condition.

Writing from the Inside Out: Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within
by Dennis Palumbo, M.A., MFT

“Dennis Palumbo provides a sense of community in the isolation of writing, of knowing that we are not alone on this uncharted and privileged journey. He shows us that our shared struggles, fears, and triumphs are the very soul of the art and craft of writing.”
—Bruce Joel Rubin, screenwriter, GhostandDeepImpact

How to Think like Leonardo Da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day
by Michael J. Gelb.

Acclaimed author Michael J. Gelb, who has helped thousands of people expand their minds to accomplish more than they ever thought possible, shows you how. Drawing on Da Vinci’s notebooks, inventions, and legendary works of art, Gelb introduces Seven Da Vincian Principles—the essential elements of genius—from curiosità, the insatiably curious approach to life to connessione, the appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things.

Renaissance Business
By Emilie Wapnick

“Would I have to settle on a “practical job” and pursue my various passions on the side or choose among my interests and just commit to one thing? Both options made me my heart ache… I knew I could be doing more – that I had more to offer the world. Renaissance Business is the story of how I brought all of my interests together, and how you can do the same.”

Mastering Creative Anxiety: 24 Lessons for Writers, Painters, Musicians, and Actors from America’s Foremost Creativity Coach
by Eric Maisel, PhD

In his decades as a psychotherapist and creativity coach, Eric Maisel has found a common thread behind what often gets labeled “writer’s block,” “procrastination,” or “stage fright.” It’s the particular anxiety that, paradoxically, keeps creators from doing, completing, or sharing the work they are driven toward. This “creative anxiety” can take the form of avoiding the work, declaring it not good enough, or failing to market it — and it can cripple creators for decades, even lifetimes. But Maisel has learned what sets successful creators apart. He shares these strategies here, including artist-specific stress management; how to work despite bruised egos, day jobs, and other inevitable frustrations; and what not to do to deal with anxiety. Implementing these 24 lessons replaces the pain of not creating with the profound rewards of free artistic self-expression.

Brainstorm: Harnessing the Power of Productive Obsessions
by Eric Maisel, PhD and Ann Maisel

It’s true: a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Yet that’s what we do when we spend our weekend — and neurons — reliving a workplace squabble, spend a family visit chewing over childhood issues, or spend hours beating ourselves up when someone brings one of our own long-held (but never worked on) ideas to fruition. This kind of obsessing gets us, like a hamster on a wheel, nowhere. But as noted creativity expert Eric Maisel asserts, obsessing productively leads to fulfillment rather than frustration. A productive obsession, whether an idea for a novel, a business, or a vaccine, is chosen deliberately and pursued with determination. In this provocative, practical guide, Maisel coaches you to use the tendency to obsess to your creative advantage, fulfilling both your promise and your promises to yourself.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.

Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology.

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My own books:

Developing Multiple Talents – The personal side of creative expression
[paperback, PDF, Kindle, Nook]

“Part book about creativity, part compendium of useful tidbits, quotations and research, and part annotated bibliography, this is a wildly useful and highly entertaining resource.” – Stephanie S. Tolan, fiction writer and consultant on the needs of the gifted.

“Packed full of insights and resources for the creative life, this book offers new ways to thrive as a creative person. I highly recommend it as a resource for anyone who wants to understand the psychology behind our creative drive.” – Cynthia Morris, Writing and creativity coach

Being Highly Sensitive and Creative
A mini report for Kindle

Many creative people recognize they are unusually sensitive to temperature, sound, touch, color and other sensations, as well as to emotional experiences, both within themselves and in others. Psychologists and neuroscience researchers are finding more confirmation for this trait of sensory processing sensitivity, present in at least fifteen percent of us, and are defining how it relates to creative ability. People can learn to thrive with the personality trait, take better care of themselves, and make use of its positive aspects for creative expression.

And, to read ebooks, get the new Kindle Fire tablet.

Part of the Amazon description:
Movies, apps, games, music, reading and more, plus Amazon’s revolutionary, cloud-accelerated web browser
18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books
Thousands of popular apps and games, including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora, and more
Free cloud storage for all your Amazon content
Vibrant color touchscreen with extra-wide viewing angle – same as an iPad
Fast, powerful dual-core processor
Favorite children’s books, graphic novels, and magazines in rich color

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