Yesterday, I wrote about four ways I’d like to start living a more creative life in order to help me generate ideas for writing projects. Today, I give you four more I’ve been thinking on that I feel would help broaden my mind as a writer and creative thinker.
5. Read, Watch, Listen, and Write
This is kind of a multi-purpose bullet point. I was reading a post by one of my favorite bloggers, Ashley of Writing to Reach You, the other day where she reviewed 27 (pop) culture events/books/podcasts/etc. she’d recently attended, read, watched, or listened to. It got me thinking that reading more non-fiction works, listening to interesting podcasts, attending/watching more artistic events/films could help me creatively. So, I subscribed to some podcasts that seemed like they would be insightful, fun, or just plain interesting (MuggleCast, Nerdist, Professor Blastoff, NPR Books, TED Talk, The New Yorker: Fiction, True Story, and more). I also saw where Mumford & Sons is coming to the East Coast in February (huzzah!), and the closest they will get to me is Virginia. Obviously, I’ve already started rounding up people (so far, one friend), who would drive to the VA with me to see the Mumfords. I’ve also been reading more of my writing magazines over the past few days — The Writer Magazine, Writer’s Digest, and Poets & Writers. Some other magazine-style writing websites that feature good content are She Writes, Writer’s Brunch, Fiction Writer’s Review, and LitReactor.
6. Keep more response journals.
Last month, I wrote a post for Writer’s Brunch about keeping a response journal. Response journals are what I refer to as notebooks you write in while reading books that contain exercises, such as the one I’m working on now, Susan M. Tiberghien’s, One Year to a Writing Life: Twelve Lessons to Deepen Every Writer’s Art and Craft. I have several books that use exercises to strengthen your writing. I love these books, even though I’ve been working on Tiberghien’s book for over a year now. My goal will be to do one a month, that way I’m writing and crafting and strengthening my words on a regular basis. You could also keep response journals for any book; it doesn’t have to be one with exercises. If you’re reading a book that makes you think a lot about the content, what’s going on in the work, and how that affects you, then it is definitely a book for recording your thoughts.
7. Watch less TV; write more.
I’d really like to start forcing myself to get up and write Morning Pages, something I’ve written about here before. I’ve been in a nasty habit of staying up late to watch cop shows and then be useless the next morning. I’d also like to use some of those TV nights to work on writing projects. I’d really like to do some guest posting still around other blogs, so if you’d be up for having me on your blog one day, just let me know. I have no problem letting you take over my place for a day to make an even trade. :)
8. Take little travels.
Not too long ago, I wrote about wanting to travel more, even if it was just down the street by foot or to a new bookstore I’ve just discovered or out to the beach on a day off. I haven’t really been doing that too much. However, in the last couple of weeks, I have gone to my favorite sandwich shop during lunch to respond to a good blog friend’s email, perused a used and new bookstore where I bought five books for $22, and vigorously wrote a blog post at a Starbucks after a heart-aching realization. While all of these little travels incited me in some way, I want to use them to focus more on seeing things. I want to work on my observational skills, put myself in other people’s shoes so I can understand how they’re feeling.
In so many words, I want to open myself up more. I’m a naturally guarded person, and while I’m not necessarily looking to change my reserved nature (although, I will admit it wouldn’t hurt me to put myself out there and be more assertive), I want to glean things from the world. I want to be more in the here-and-now rather than off in the future so much. However, there is no getting around festering inside my head, I am a writer after all.
I could probably come up with a lot more ways to make my life more stimulant and creative, but for now I will leave it at these. I have no idea if I will be able to make all of these little projects work (essentially, I just want to write), but I think they could do nothing but help me better pursuit creative pieces, and to generate more ideas for them. If you’re looking to make your life more creative, I hope some of these suggestions work for you. I’m going to spend the remainder of the year putting these little projects in motion, and hopefully my creative energies will stimulate a slew of good writing projects!
Have any other ideas for living a creative life?
