Julia Cameron

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Thoughts/Words/Reviews:
This hilarious look at creative blockage and blunder is a laugh-out-loud tribute to artist procrastination.

In How to Avoid Making Art, the bestselling author of The Artist’s Way delivers a (tongue-in-cheek!) guide to doing anything and everything you possibly can to avoid making art. Anyone who is engaged in a creative pursuit will no doubt identify with these wonderful cartoons by award-winning artist Elizabeth Cameron of creative wannabes doing everything except actually getting down to work.

“For most people creativity is a serious business,” says Julia Cameron. “They forget the telling phrase ‘the play of ideas’ and think that they need to knuckle down and work more. Often, the reverse is true. They need to play.” Ultimately, the characters in this book show us how we can turn our procrastination into play and our play into great work. With this delightful volume, Julia Cameron once again hits the nail on the head on the subject of creativity.

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Brad’s Reader has a good post on creativity: What Can John Lennon Teach Us About Creativity. He talks about John Lennon’s struggle to write a song and how he come up with Nowhere Man.



My takeaway is this:

• Do exercises to brainstorm and “just write” or whatever. They’re good. Gems can come out of this sort of thing.
• But sometimes you’ve got to stop and let your subconscious do your work for you. Rest or do a mundane task that needs to be done like the dishes or mowing the lawn. That’s when the great ideas often come.
• But then, it’s time to get to real work and make the idea a reality! Work it! Work it! Work it!

So, check out: What Can John Lennon Teach Us About Creativity

Copyblogger has posted three nice free resources today: Three Great Resources That
Won’t Cost You a Dime

Of particular note is the book “The Lonely Writer”, which helps writers get un-stuck, maintain focus and get the words out and down on paper. Download “The Lonely Writer” Directly Here.

Enjoy.

photo credit: badjonni

Some dude John Hoff posted a decent article on training yourself to be creative. You ARE creative! Expand your horizons! Read the post!

Michael Michalko

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THINKERTOYS will teach you how to generate new ideas for businesses, markets, sales techniques, and products and product extensions. Packed with fun and practical tools and exercises, it outlines 30 practical linear and intuitive techniques that can be used by individuals or groups to tackle and solve business problems in fresh, creative ways.

An updated edition of the best-selling business creativity book, with more than 30 brainstorming techniques and hundreds of creative-thinking tips and tricks. Revision includes new techniques, examples, and sections on group brainstorming and endgames.

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Chic Thompson

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Martha Beck

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Put the telescope away; the North Star mentioned here is a human body, not a heavenly one. And like Polaris, which has guided sailors for centuries, the human body’s gut feelings and emotions can help guide a wayward soul back to his or her “essential self.” In this absorbing combination of detailed self-awareness exercises and true stories from her own counseling experience (equal parts sobering and hysterically entertaining), Harvard-trained sociologist Martha Beck invites readers to explore their heart’s desires and the vast social webs that keep such desires in check. The goal is not to forsake the “social self” and indulge every emotional impulse of the “essential self.” Rather, Beck gives readers the tools and the encouragement to achieve maximum happiness by harmonizing these typically divergent voices.

Beck (author of Expecting Adam) admits that repairing a damaged emotional compass and setting out on such a vital journey–which often involves painful realizations and changes–”has all the combined attractions of suicide and childbirth.” But the payoff, she concludes, is a love affair with real life. To that end, she walks readers through a lengthy exercise to evaluate their current lifestyle’s pleasures and pains, teaches the process of listening to the body for directional cues, describes how to extract “soul shrapnel” (healing all those nasty, self-defeating emotional wounds), and provides an intriguing “Map of Change” to achieve an authentic life. Beck’s impressive knowledge, her engaging (if somewhat irreverent) voice, and her ability to parse this scary process into achievable steps make her a new champion in the self-help arena. –Liane Thomas

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Lewis Hyde

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acidfreeink.com says: A modern classic on creativity!

By now a modern classic, The Gift is a brilliantly orchestrated defense of the value of creativity and of its importance in a culture increasingly governed by money and overrun with commodities. Widely available again after twenty-five years, this book is even more necessary today than when it first appeared. An illuminating and transformative book, and completely original in its view of the world, The Gift is cherished by artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers. It is in itself a gift to all who discover the classic wisdom found in its pages.

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Gordon D. Kaufman

Thoughts/Words/Reviews:
The lively interest today in the historical figure of Jesus is rarely matched by theological advances in understanding his person and significance for our own time and worldview. Gordon Kaufman takes up this challenge in this bold, speculative work.

Despite the fabled difficulties of traditional Christological terms, few theologians since Tillich and Teilhard have sought to re-envision the symbol of Jesus within the contemporary scientific worldview. Building on his notion of God as simply creativity, Kaufman here locates the meaning of Jesus’ salvific story within an evolving universe and a threatened planet.

Outside the dualistic categories of the biblical worldview, he finds, the enormously creative and influential figure of the historic Jesus can have a vital role in the emergence and development of the cosmos and human history. Within that role, he argues, Jesus, his relation to God, and his centrality to Christian faith become clearer and our own lives

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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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Creativity is about capturing those moments that make life worth living. The author’s objective is to offer an understanding of what leads to these moments, be it the excitement of the artist at the easel or the scientist in the lab, so that knowledge can be used to enrich people’s lives. Drawing on 100 interviews with exceptional people, from biologists and physicists to politicians and business leaders, poets and artists, as well as his 30 years of research on the subject, Csikszentmihalyi uses his famous theory to explore the creative process. He discusses such ideas as why creative individuals are often seen as selfish and arrogant, and why the tortured genius is largely a myth. Most important, he clearly explains why creativity needs to be cultivated and is necessary for the future of our country, if not the world.

View More about Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention