Strike a match, spark a conversation, have a lightbulb moment. There are so many ways to describe the lightning flash of inspiration, and most of them are about fire and light. But in the end, all that really matters is what we do after our world has been so suddenly Read more…
Inspiration, now there’s a big ol’ beast of a word to spark a conversation. How many times have we been mocked or mocked others for waiting for inspiration, for the muse to show up? How many people are already out there talking about it and trying to find the best way to tame it or embrace it or “just” have it on standby for whenever they’re ready?
(more…)The first time I ever argued semantics was with my mother when I was about five. I’d done something I wasn’t supposed to do — like any other five-year-old in the history of everything ever — and when things had gone sideways (surprise, surprise) I got in trouble. The argument Read more…
I am not nor have I ever been a very big fan of Aesop. What I mean to say is that too many of our long-held misperceptions of various animals, and by extension our fellow man, are stupid-harmful. So many of his fables would progress and end in ways very different from the originals if a creature’s behavior were based in what we know now.
If a boy continued to cry wolf when there was no wolf, he would be replaced as shepherd by someone the villagers could trust. If a talking lion is willing to file down his teeth for the sake of love, essentially disabling himself, it’s because he knows something about his bride we don’t. Aesop’s fables have spent a lot of time being admired for how — in his day — he was able to so succinctly portray societal ills which continue to pervade in today’s landscape.
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Some people have an unnecessary aversion to luck. I met a woman who works in a gorgeous library, writes adolescent literature in her spare time, and was planning on attending an upcoming conference of the Society of Children’s Books Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI). I said she was lucky and she was immediately up in arms.
(more…)I am not lucky. I have worked very hard for a very long time and made smart decisions to get where I wanted to be. Luck had nothing to do with it.
Inner critics are noisy buggers that don’t know how to let up, but are crazy-good at learning. Any time anyone says anything critical of you or someone you consider to be similar to yourself, your inner critic is listening in and building up their artillery. The more artillery we let our inner critics hold on to, the less art we tend to make.
Our experiences are huge in influencing who we are, how we stand in the world, and what we say to ourselves. Think back to being a kid and how — sometimes — not being able to color inside the lines made you feel like the biggest jerk in the world. You weren’t really, but childhood makes everything bigger like that.
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