Where do you get your best ideas? What inspires you? I get my best ideas while walking. Sometimes I get ideas while doing something else, but usually it’s walking. I was reading Austin Kleon’s book, Steal Like an Artist, last week and came upon the following quote that I just had to reproduce:

I love it. Have you ever gotten your best idea from your laptop? I haven’t. I spend hours on a computer for work, but my ideas don’t come from it. I learn things, but those flashes of insight and sparks that make me want to drop everything and pick up a pen don’t come from sitting in front of a screen.

So I hope you take some time to get away from your screen, be it a desktop, a laptop, or your cell phone. Take some time and get some fresh air, do something, make something with your hands. Doodle, sketch, write, create something–anything–away from your screens and wonder at the ideas that come.

I hope you have a lovely week full of new ideas, even if you don’t know where they’ve come from. 🙂

Does the end of the month give you wanderlust? Does it make you want to move? Do you get a creative burst of energy as you check off the days leading to the flip of calendar’s page? Or does the end of the month make you feel tired? Like you just want to curl up in bed because there really ought to be another day slipped in there in secrete just for rest? Whatever your feelings are about the end of the month, we should all remember:

Whether we feel energized or tired, ready to take on the world or ready for a break, making time to see friends is always a good thing (even for introverts!). We know this in our bones and science backs it up with more studies showing the importance of friends and connection. (Side note: I just read a great article on this in the latest print issue of Scientific American Mind, but it looks like it is behind a paywall so can’t link.)

So let’s use the end of spring, a time of growth and energy and change, to connect with our friends. Time flies by and without deliberate planning, we may find that while the road to our friend’s house isn’t long, we haven’t been there in a while. I look forward to using the longer days for connecting with my friends. Maybe we’ll inspire each other on top of chatting and eating good food!

I hope you have a wonderful week full of creativity and connection with your friends. 🙂

How is 2016 treating you? Has it been a good year, full of growth and discovery? Or, are you feeling like the year has gotten away from you? Or, perhaps it is a bit of both. The year has been flying by, but it’s still spring and there is still so much time left to make the year great. This quote speaks to this for me.

Sometimes I just want things to stay the same, so I can get my feet under me and feel like I know what I’m doing and where I’m going. It’s a common feeling, I think. But the world and life doesn’t work like that. Life is change, which we see especially in spring. But, unlike blooming flowers or hatching birds, we have a choice about what we do with the inevitable change. We can grow or we can choose not to grow.

I hope we all choose to grow and change for the better. That we stretch and reach for those dreams that we barely whisper to ourselves. That we share generously our new insights and creations. And, I hope, maybe just for a weekend, that we can slow down and enjoy instead of rushing around because in those small moments are when we can get our best ideas and truly break forth in a great growth spurt.

I hope you are having a lovely spring. For those doing Camp NaNoWriMo, how’s it going? I hope wonderfully well. 🙂

Spring is a wonderful time of year, isn’t it? Except for the allergies, of course. I love spring because it really does seem like a time of new beginnings and change.

I picked this quote because it seems like a good encapsulation of my feelings of spring (even though I’m well aware that this quote doesn’t mean that in context of the play, but I take my inspiration how I can). If we are self-reflective, we know who we are now. After all, we just have to look back over our history to see where we’ve come from and where we stand.

But it is an entirely different matter to know what we may become. No one knows that, which is either hopefully or scary or something in between, depending on your attitude and outlook. To me, it is hopeful and delightful and wonderful. We are still in the process of becoming, no matter who we are. Our art, our writing, our living, everything still has possibility. That makes me want to dance, then get back to creating.

I hope spring has blossomed in your part of the world. If it is still covered in snow, I hope you feel the hope of spring in your heart. I hope you are energized to create and to become what you’ve always wanted to be this spring. 🙂

How many times have you equated patience with power? It doesn’t seem like patience is powerful, or even considered a virtue, in today’s hyperlinked, mobile, always connected culture. But this quote reminds us that patience can be powerful.

I’m the first person to admit that sometimes it is difficult to be patient. It’s hard to be patient when traffic is horrendous. It’s hard to be patient when on hold on the phone. It’s hard to be patient when waiting in line. But it is hardest to be patient with ourselves. We want everything to be done now. We want success, however we define it, in our lives now. We find it unsatisfying to wait, to take a breath, to be patient.

But patience is powerful, if we are intentional about slowing down and taking the time to be patient. How wonderful is it to simply enjoy a conversation over a cup of tea with a friend or loved one without hurry? This is when we truly connect. How joyful is it to write, to bake, to paint, to print without worrying about what anyone else thinks about what we make? This is when we truly create. How peaceful is it to listen to the rain without interruption? This is when we truly have time to imagine.

Patience, like all good parents say, is a virtue. It is also a power that we can all cultivate that helps us in life and in art. I wish you a day of patient work and talk and wonder. May it lead you to new insights and success. 🙂

Happy Friday! Another week is coming to a close. It is amazing how quickly the time is flying by this year. Though, in fairness, it feels like that every year.  Today’s inspiration is from Gertrude Stein on the importance of harmony, which seems appropriate at the end of the week.

Harmony is essential to life and to art, at least it feels that way to me. In writing, tension, conflict, and suspense are all necessary for compelling story. We know this in our fingers when typing and in our brains when editing. But there is also an element of harmony that is necessary. This doesn’t mean we get rid of tension or obstacles, but  if everything in the story is going well, then the writing itself is in harmony. All the parts are working together to create a story that we don’t want to leave. That, to me, is harmony on the page, but we also need harmony in our lives.

As we create  writing, calligraphy, letterpress, doodles, or something else, we have to have some part of our being and life that is in harmony with our art. I don’t buy into the idea that we need to suffer in our lives in order to create. I take solace in positive psychology research (and I love this talk by Shawn Achor on the happiness advantage) that shows our brains are more creative when we are happy. And, happiness is easier to achieve when there is harmony.

I hope you find harmony in your work and have a wonderful weekend full of moments that make you smile. 🙂

What is home to you? Is it a place? A person? Is it somewhere you feel deep in your bones that you belong? For me and for my writing, the where and what of home is very important. Everyone wants a home and a place to belong and, on this gloomy day when I want nothing more than to be curled up at home, this quote sums it up for me.

Stephen King wrote this in his novel, Revival, and the quote feels like home to me. Having people want you to stay longer is a wonderful thing. To not wear out your welcome, to be somewhere you can belong, to be content with staying, are all wonderful things.

So as you create and live and love I hope you find a place to call home, in art and in life. Adventures and travels are wonderful things, but there is something magical, too, in coming home. 🙂

Spring fever has come early where I live. Flowers are blooming, new leaves are budding on the trees, and the birds are singing. We’ve even broken some records for hottest days in February. With this strange turn in the weather, it can be hard to focus inside on work when the outdoors are so beautiful and lovely.

I love this quote because it reminds me that sometimes the best way forward is to take a break. I’m rather bad at taking breaks when I’m working on a project, whether it is writing or editing a story, researching copy for a new exhibit, or cleaning the house. If there is something that needs doing, then I should be doing it now. Except, sometimes this can cause exhaustion and a too-narrow vision of what it looks like to be productive or successful at the end of the day.

Sometimes, we need (I need) to take a deep breath and walk in the sunshine. We need to listen to the chickadees and juncos chirp and feel the breeze on our faces. We need to be distracted, diverted, so that we can be more creative and wise when we return to our work.

I hope you have something lovely to be a diversion for a while today before you get back to thinking big thoughts, dreaming big dreams, and creating big visions. 🙂

I was at a writers conference (the lovely San Francisco Writers Conference) this last weekend and learned a lot from the agents, editors, writers, and published authors in attendance. It was amazing to hear about all the different paths people have taken to become writers and to become published authors. So this quote by Eddie Cantor seems especially appropriate after listening to many authors talk about their long journeys to publication.

Sometimes in the thick of writing and rejection, when others seem to be having overnight success, it can be hard to remember that success usually comes after a lot of time and effort. It is comforting to know that there is rarely an overnight success and most likely there is a lot of hard work that we never see behind that “overnight” success.

It motivates me to keep writing and creating. These things I can control and the rest I try not to let bog me down. I hope you have a lovely week of creating things that give you joy in the process and that you find success sweet when you get there. 🙂