[process, essay]

by Nancy S.M. Waldman

Hi everyone. Welcome to September. Summer here in North America is fast waning—even though where I am in Nova Scotia, September is one of the best weather months.

I’ve been feeling quite ambivalent about the PCQ over the summer. There are lots of new visitors and subscribers and readers which is wonderfully gratifying and fun for me—Welcome to all of you!!—but I haven’t posted frequently or sent out emails which made me feel a little guilty. On the other hand, I’ve had a great summer for creativity so I felt that I was working to recharge my batteries, build up my reserves and just change things up for a while. As we know, it’s easy to get in a rut. Even if it’s a creative one that works for us, it’s still a rut and ruts tend to get deeper and less roomy the longer we’re in them. Sooner or later, we have to climb out, stretch and look around for a renewed way of being.

Summer is the best time for me to do this.

My husband and I have an old Victorian-era house that we’re fixing up (the exterior), so we have a small window of opportunity for working outside. August is prime time. It felt really *right* to be outside doing physical work. I had spent so much time at my computer last year that I was beginning to have nerve pain from too much sitting! I thought the physical strain might be problematic for an old gal like me who’d been so sedentary of late, but not only did it feel great (okay, there were mornings when I woke up in considerable pain—but it was the *good* kind of pain that went away fast!), but it got rid of my sciatica almost immediately!

More than all that, it reminded me that as much as I love the computer—The PCQ, the writing, the digital photo work, the website design, the computer art—I also love other things that I’ve been neglecting. I haven’t been playing the piano and will soon loose what little ability I have if I don’t remember to practice. I love cooking, baking, yoga, gardening, reading, quilting, photography, painting and more. None of those can be done while sitting at the computer.

It’s all about balance, isn’t it? And balance, like most things in life, isn’t static. It requires constant adjustment. Think of a tight-rope walker. A short walk high above the ground requires untold numbers of constant muscular changes to negotiate the span. No matter how many times the acrobat has walked the rope, no matter how talented or experienced, his awareness of balance must be at the forefront of his mind every single time.

As we grow and evolve, we’re the same. We don’t get to a point where balance becomes automatic. Our lives will always be susceptible to being off-kilter. And, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If we come across some new passion, there’s not a thing wrong with throwing ourselves into it even if we neglect certain other things for that new activity! However, when we realize there are beginning to be negative side effects from our tilted world, (like nerve pain from sitting at a computer for hours a day!) we still and always have to stop, take stock and see what we can do to re-achieve balance.

What can get easier over time, is our awareness of the need for balance. For me, the seasons help. While I no longer have kids (in the house) who go back to school, September is a change nonetheless. I like to use the different seasons to trigger my awareness of how I’m spending my time in the context of ALL the things I love to do and want to accomplish.

What about you? What triggers your awareness that it’s time to readjust the balance in your life? Take care all and happy change of seasons wherever you are!

[-process, essay-]

by Nancy S.M. Waldman

As we create, we use up media, materials, tools, ideas, time, and our own creative energy. Working from abundance means having a well of resources—more than we need—to create what we want.

My son used this expression in a conversation about the new songs he had just recorded. I mentioned how much the phrase resonated with me and he said that he had heard it from a professor who used it in terms of writing. In both instances, they were talking about accumulating, creating, way more than is needed for a project and then winnowing it down later to a more refined level.

Not everyone creates this way. I have a friend who writes sparsely and then fleshes out the story after she has the skeleton of it constructed. I’m the opposite. I overwrite and then must be brutal with myself about taking out everything that isn’t necessary.

However, the crucial aspect of abundance isn’t the number of words we write or the collection of materials on our worktables or the amount of paint we have at our disposal. It’s not even about time.

Time is necessary and without it we can’t create. But, there are people with loads of time who don’t use it to record music, make art or write novels. So having the time will only work for us if we have an abundance of what will motivate us to work, to play, to innovate.

Working from abundance is more about a certain attitude. This attitude incorporates elements of openness, generosity, fearlessness, confidence. At times, whimsy and audacity. It involves letting go of negatives, so there can be no sparsity of spirit. It’s about not worrying that we will use up all our good ideas if we throw everything we’ve got at a project. It’s about having faith that creativity is a renewable and sustainable resource.

There’s also energy to consider. Creative energy doesn’t have to be about being upbeat and feeling energetic. Many depressed people, who didn’t have the energy to bathe, have created masterpieces. It’s about using what we have to put into the process of creating.

While it’s true there are those instances when the more we create, the more energized we feel, it does have a limit. We have to always be aware of when we begin to feel like a worn-out battery. At that point, the idea is to get away from what is depleting us and re-charge ourselves. Working from an abundance of creative spirit will always result in a more effective creation.

And perhaps, that’s all we need to remember about abundance. If we can accumulate a deep pool of the attitude of abundance, then we will have what we need to create what we want.

[-commentary, writing, process-]

by Nancy S.M. Waldman

When I was a
child, going to the library was about third on the ‘as good as it gets’ list for an activity that had the chance of coming along often. Only swimming and playing outside after dark could beat the joy of coming home with an armload of new books.

Libraries gave away so much for free: hours of entertainment, play, knowledge, excitement, and discovery. And, if that weren’t enough, there was a bonus. Any book, or even the full armload could be renewed. Simply by asking, it was possible to hold onto any of the books that held special interest or needed further study or enjoyment or hadn’t been fully appreciated yet.

Renewal is a wonderful concept to bring into our creative lives. Creativity doesn’t have to mean conjuring up something original from start to finish. Sometimes we can take what is already done, either something we once made or something made by someone else, and use it as the not-so-raw material.

This last weekend, I went on a Writer’s Retreat with six women from my writing group. This was a first-of-its- kind, home-grown affair, planned and nurtured by all of us as a short time away from our daily lives in order to focus on writing.

Arriving on Friday evening and home by early Sunday afternoon, we packed in several long walks in the country, lots of eating, carefree conversation and writing time plus no less than seven excellent presentations on various aspects of writing. We learned about Beginnings and Endings, Personal Essays, Journaling, Autobiography, Character development, Poetry and Narrative Voice. We did a role-playing exercise where we interviewed for a job in the persona of one of our developing characters. We made a collage to flesh out characters. We explored and practiced the concept of found poems.

We came home after less than 48 hours with a renewed sense of ourselves and our creative reach. We did this simply by using the resources we had at hand. The bonus is that this renewal will continue to reap benefits for weeks and months to come.

As you go through your day today, think about reNEWals - ways in which you can use what you have at hand to create something you love and what kinds of renewals you need to keep your creative energies at full level.

All the best !

See all our posts about Alterations
See all our posts about Inspiration
Need some Writing Tips and Tutorials? Click here.
Here are our articles on Journaling.

Originally published in the April 2006 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: alterations

[-photo essay, art, process-]

Paint is commonly used to alter things, but Cynthia’s sense of color and her freedom about what and how she paints, take it into a new and fantastic realm. Here are some of her thoughts on the transformative power of color:

Painting is about color.
A friend of mine once told me that the easiest way to transform a home’s look is with paint.

Keep everything that you have but just change its color. It’s true. I’ve painted my walls, my chairs, my sofa. I’ve even painted curtains on my windows. In the past I’ve even painted my clothes, my purses, my shoes. I feel that as long as I have a can of paint and a brush, I can transform anything I want into something I want.

Color creates a state of mind.
Color is a state of mind.

Cynthia Korzekwa has an incredibly playful but also interesting and deep creativity. She’s been nice enough to share more of her work with us so click on the links below:
Art begins at home - Cynthia’s thoughts on the domestic side of art and her fantastically inspiring recycled art

Cynthia says of herself:

Visit Cynthia’s sites:
korzekwa | flickr site: los ojos | art for housewives | blog: paros - see more of her painted interiors | blog: ikastikos | email: cynthiak at tin dot it

Originally published in the January 2006 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: alterations

[-photography, digital images, photo essay-]

words and images by Maureen Shaughnessy

“cloud ice earth dancers”

Life is filled with mundane happenings and objects we take for granted.

Read the rest of this entry »

[-photo essay-]

by Nancy S.M. Waldman

“Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.” ~ Joseph Campbell

If you had your own personal goddess to inspire you, what would she look like? How would she dress? Would she be young? Playful? Beautiful? Old? Wise? Wacky? What symbols or emblems might she carry with her? Or, would she even be a goddess? Might your Muse be a god instead?

Let’s create our own personal mythology, our private dreams, by manifesting our Muses.

Myths are legends that become beliefs. Stories that explain the why of something we wouldn’t otherwise understand. Imagine for a moment what our lives would be like if we had no personal or public stories or beliefs to explain what cannot be proven or easily understood.

Why are we here? What or who made us? How did the Earth come to be here? How did life begin? What happens to us after we die? These are the biggest questions human beings ever ask and our ability to answer these questions by use of science can only take us so far. As individuals we seek something that makes sense to us. A belief we can believe in.

Myths are important. And more important still, for The PCQ and its readers, is the fact that myth and creativity are inextricably intertwined. There could be no myths without creativity. Myths are born out of the imagination. They are spread through the art of storytelling and song. They are maintained through writing. They are illustrated, conveyed, made evident and inspirational through art - sculpture, painting, tapestry, music.

Muse, in the classical sense, refers to goddesses who were water nymphs. They were daughters of Zeus, lord of all Greek gods and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory. We usually think of The Nine Muses, but predating these nine were an original three. Aiode, muse of song and voice, Melete, muse of practice or occasion and Mneme, the muse of memory.

The more familiar nine Muses, with their associated arts and sciences, and their traditional emblems or poses are :

Euterpe - music
Her emblem is the flute and, as all you musicians out there will understand, she is known as “the Giver of Pleasure.”

Calliope - epic poetry (no image)
The eldest muse is crowned in gold, known as “the Fair-Voiced” and holds a writing tablet.

Clio - history
She is called “the Proclaimer” and is usually seen with a scroll and a chest of books.

Erato - lyric poetry
Erato, “the Lovely” wears a crown of roses and holds a lyre. When was the last time you thought about setting your poetry to music?

Melpomene - tragedy
She is also known as “the Songstress,” but she must be singing the blues with her everpresent tragic mask. Her other emblems are a crown of cypress, a garland, a club and a sword. She is often seen wearing cothurnes, which are boots traditionally worn by tragic actors. Wouldn’t we all be more fabulous and creative if we only had cothurnes to wear?

Polyhymnia - sacred poetry(no image)
She of Many Hymns has no emblem but is always seen with a serious expression or with her face veiled. She’s also associated with geometry, mime, meditation and agriculture.

Terpsichore - dancing
The “Whirler” is usually seen dancing, holding a lyre, and sometimes, a plectrum, which is an instrument used for plucking stringed instruments. By the river god Achelous, Terpsichore bore the Sirens. As a mom, she must have had her hands full.

Thalia - comedy
She wears a crown of ivy and is known as the “Flourisher.” Her emblems are a comic mask and sometimes a crook. Flourish … now there’s a word we should resurrect!

Urania - astronomy
Urania, “the Heavenly,” holds a staff pointing toward a celestial globe and foretells the future in the stars. Perhaps The PCQ should make Urania the official Muse of our next issue, since the theme is Space!

Here’s a soft doll I made as a manifestation of my muse. She’s meant to be elderly and therefore, wise, but still beautiful, vibrant and (very important) eccentric! A real Grande Dame.

It was fun to make and she’s a real presence in my studio. Try making your own.

You’ll want to see our Studio Muse Experiment article by Suze Corte.

Photo credits:
The muse signs at the beginning of the article were taken by Jaqi Pascoe (blue muse), a self-described, “real-life working muse.” You can see more of her photos and art at www.flickr.com/photos/illuminata [note: some adult content] and “luvmusekey” (coke and lego muse) at www.flickr.com/photos/luvmusekey. The photo of three muses was taken by P.J. Beck at the Hearst Castle in California. Her work/play is also at www.flicker.com/photos/freakydeak. Our Roman Muse photos were taken by Bill Jennings. Bill is a Latin teacher in San Francisco. He took these photos while attending a 2004 summer institute for Latin teachers sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. He’s going back to Italy this summer; visit Postcards from Italy for his trip blog.

Research links:
The Muses from Greek Mythology - a website devoted to the Muses with lots of classic paintings (edit: 2007 web address out of date)
What is a myth? an article by Laurie Chandler (edit: 2007 web address out of date)
The Encyclopedia Mythica
The Wikipedia

Here’s a good link:
The Big Myth - a flash animation educational website about Creation Myths from all over the world

Originally published in the Practically Creative blog, February 2005 (slightly edited for re-publication)

[-writing fiction-]

by contributor, Russ Kremer

In Elements of Style we’re warned that unnecessary words are as useless as extra parts on a machine. While food processors come with a multitude of dubious attachments and socket sets contain sizes we mostly lose and never miss, remote controls don’t have buttons that don’t work and the handles and knobs on almost everything else serve some purpose.

Unnecessary words don’t add anything. Consider: he stood on a round circle; she shouted loudly. On a larger scale, unneeded scenes add nothing to a story except the time it takes the reader to wade through them.

That’s why they’re a problem. It’s not that there’s anything inherently wrong with them, or that the writing is poor. We should get rid of them because they don’t add to the story but instead, divert attention. They detract. They dilute what’s there, what you need to say, and weaken your attempt to weave a spell.

I’ve developed — but not invented — a process that gives me a clear-cut way to see what scenes should stay and which need to go.

I use index cards, sometimes colored ones if I’m in that sort of mood.

I read through my draft and make a card for each scene, much like a movie-maker might do. Each card lists at the top its place in the story (Chapter Three, scene two), where it occurs (Chester’s apartment), when it takes place, and who’s there. Below that I list each important plot point that is introduced, resolved, or moved along.

For the purposes of this breakdown I consider a “scene” to be any time I’d need to move the “camera” and shoot from a new place. Most of my scenes have two to five plot points (Chester decides to have a party; Theft of Lotty’s laundry; Chester dances with Sheila), so there’s plenty of room. A few times I’ve had to use more than one card, but usually after something is introduced or concluded, my characters want to move anyway, and the story moves to the next place. And, onto the next card.

Once I’ve created my cards I study them, one by one. I ask myself what would be lost without this scene. If I remove the card, what happens to my story?

If, when I remove a card from the stack, the whole story unravels, it has to be left in. If the story holds together just fine without that scene card then I have to admit it isn’t necessary. It isn’t adding anything critical and isn’t doing its part to move the story along. If it isn’t pulling its weight, my story doesn’t need it.

Frequently, the scene includes something which needs to be brought out. It’s important, but does it need to be here? While it’s true that suspense is necessary, many things can be explained immediately after they’re introduced (”Where were you last night?” “With Joe, at his house”) and don’t benefit by being postponed to a later time.

If I would need to make whole-scale changes without a scene, it passes my test of being a working part of the story. If removing it just means I need to mention elsewhere that Ann has a crush on Bill, I can think about where else I could mention that. But, if it doesn’t affect the story at all, I need to either remove it or else use that scene to bring up something the story does need.

My greatest obstacle to removing scenes is my defense that they expose something about the character that’s necessary or interesting. I have to recognize when I’m making that argument and discover if it’s just an excuse. Most things that reveal character can be moved to other, established and necessary scenes. Often, they can be left out entirely. If the author knows the character and how he or she will react, it will permeate the whole story and shouldn’t have to be explicitly stated. If Frank is afraid of spiders, we don’t always need a chapter of backstory to show how that’s come about. Sometimes it’s better just to have him react to spiders once or twice, so the reader gets the idea.

Is this a perfect way to see what to delete? Nope. It’s easy though, and does let me see how the story unfolds. I get a pretty good idea of what adds to the story and what’s simply there, plus I get to use index cards, which I love. And at the end, I know what’s on those index cards and in my story are all necessary things.

© 2005 - 2007 Russ Kremer all rights reserved

Check out another of Russ’s writing articles, What’s Missing?

About the author: Russ lives and writes in LA. He has had several works of short fiction and non-fiction published. He is a yearly participant and winner of NaNoWriMo where he’s well-known by newbies as a guy who knows a lot about writing. He began the “older, but not the official, NaNoEdMo website” - a group for all year ’round editing support, writerly exchanges and feedback which can be found at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nanoedmo/.
Russ’s website: half-dozen.net. Russ’s blog: crenallated flotsam

Originally published in the October 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: collecting

[-photo essay & interview-]

Some collections happen because we are engaged in creative practices that require materials. The more we create, the more we love our materials, the more we need and want to acquire more. Often we acquire so many that we couldn’t possibly use all that we’ve gathered. The materials themselves becomes a collection. Here we have an interview with and photographs of the studios of Teesha Moore, founder of artfest and artFIBERfest.

Read the rest of this entry »

[-photo essay-]

compiled and written by Nancy S.M. Waldman

[-essay, process-]

by guest essayist, Paula Gregorowicz

When I first started in the sport of cycling about 9 years ago, I was very nervous about hitting things I didn’t want to – trees, holes, rocks, drainage grates, or pillars depending on whether I was riding on the road or on a trail. The thing I noticed was that if I focused on the obstacle by looking down at it, more often than not I hit it. Of course, this convinced me even more that I needed to be ultra safe or I’d be doomed (much like the mother in A Christmas Story who is convinced Ralphie will “shoot his eye out” if he gets the BB Gun), I continued to concentrate even harder on the obstacle.

You can guess what happened. I hit more rocks, holes, and tree roots while narrowly avoiding the really painful obstacles like poles, trees, and cars (thank goodness). It didn’t take me long to figure out both by trial and error and by reading bicycling magazines that you need to look where you want to go, not where you don’t want to go. Alas, the moment I started looking ahead of the obstacle and envisioning a clear, clean line to ride past the obstacle, miraculously I breezed by without incident. As I got more experienced I not only could do this consistently, I could do it effortlessly without a death grip and body tension fueled by fear.

While you may not want to ever put your behind on a saddle and pedal along on two wheels, you probably do want to move through your life in a manner that makes it easier to move past the inevitable obstacles along the way. And, when you find yourself in an unwanted situation where you’re temporarily in a bowl of pits instead of a bowl full of cherries, you can use this skill to keep the faith and move up and out of the hole.

As you can see from the bicycling example, your energy flows to the very thing on which you are focused. As a result, you get more of that particular thing; in the case of riding the bike, you get impact with a physical obstacle and an unpleasant ride. Conversely, if you look where you want to go and focus your energies there, you give more power to the very thing you desire resulting in a more effortless and enjoyable ride.

How this concept translates to your life and business is very similar. If you stay focused on your vision and goals while taking action to move forward, you are far more likely to make them a reality. Even when you find yourself where you don’t want to be and feel like you’re stuck in a black hole, the ability to focus on where you want to go versus obsessing about being stuck in the hole can mean the difference between progress and a dead end.

Since so many of the thoughts we think each day are unconscious and our minds are filled with chatter, it can sometimes be elusive to determine where our focus really lies at any given moment. Considering the fact that our focus possesses so much power, it really pays to become aware of our thoughts and where our sights are set at any given moment.

Consider the following questions:

• * What do I think about most often?
• * What is the ongoing chatter and broken record that keeps playing in my head?
• * What do I spend my time talking about when I interact with others?
• * Am I talking about what’s not working or am I talking about what’s right in a situation?
• * Am I where I want to be with my relationships, business, career, physical health, etc.?
• * If not, am I focusing on the problem or working to reveal the source and explore solutions?
• * Am I looking where I want to go or where I don’t want to go?

© 2005 - 2007 Paula Gregorowicz all rights reserved
About the author:
Paula Gregorowicz is a business and life coach, writer, and owner of The Paula G Company. She specializes in helping women and business owners tap into their authenticity so they can design a life they love. Visit her website at http://www.thepaulagcompany.com for more articles, free resources, and to learn more.

Published with the permission of the author in the April 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: inspiration