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My dear readers,
I hope that for all of you this year has started on the right track, with enough energy to tackle any problem and challenge coming your way, with positive thoughts and enthusiasm to fulfill your writing and other creative plans.
Year 2016 was a great learning path giving me the opportunity to connect with many of you, get acquainted with your work, ideas and writing. It is very inspiring to be part of such community and simply have that opportunity to improve my own writing and creative skills.
As my small ‘thank you’ to all of you, I have developed and compiled an e-book, that is all about getting inspiration and creativity nudge for our writing and brainstorming. It consists of 31 daily prompts that you can use anyway you like. I know we all face lack of inspiration, doubt, discouragement and procrastination from time to time. This is my little way of helping you combat those situations and I hope you’ll like the exercises. Many of the challenges in the book you already know, but there are also some new additional ways to move in the creative flow, which you will also find in the book.
If you are signed up to Business in Rhyme newsletter, you already have the access to the book. For all of you who would like to receive the e-book directly, you can do that by following this link and signing up for newsletter. You can opt anytime.
I also encourage you to share this information as we can all work together to improve our writing and enjoy our creativity more. Your comments, feedback and ideas for improvement are all appreciated and welcomed.
Business in Rhyme also has a lot of plans for improvement and moving more into professional realm, so stay tune for novelties and makeover. 🙂
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Rejection. Bad review. Returned papers and manuscripts. All these essentially we consider as a bad news. And it’s not fun to experience it. You feel naked and exposed, your heart is pounding, probably you are blushing and even feel embarrassed. “How did this happen“, you might slur for a second, but the only thing you can actually think of is how hurt, disappointed and discouraged at the moment you are.
Today I want to share with you a different look at the criticism that might help you deal with these situations easier in the future.
I believe, the first and foremost thing we need to do is to accept that it is simply inevitable – there is very small likelihood that everybody will like and approve of your writing. As we are able to appreciate praise for our work so there is also the other side of the coin: we need to face there is always a chance that someone will not find our work suitable.
The second truth we often forget is that there is nothing personal about it. There is no conspiracy against you and your work. Nobody hates your poems and your stories are not boring. But the problem here is that we as writers always offer something that is part of us – thoughts, emotions or knowledge. Any criticism that comes our way, we might translate as a personal attack – to some point that many writers give up creating at all.
One simple thought that helped me a lot at the beginning of my academic career is that any professor, writer or reviewer of my work was also a beginner. He was also rejected and criticized. With years, I managed to write and work with many people I admired as a student. But it takes time and persistence.
Another thing I learned along the way is to differentiate constructive criticism and when someone is just plain rude. These are two completely opposite things: constructive criticism is oriented towards offering helpful insights and advice, while when someone just bashes your work to satisfy their own ego issues – well these type of people you want to avoid completely. These are all merely opinions and you always have the opportunity to explore the source – where is this criticism coming from, is it really applicable to your work, how reviewer /editor is really competent to analyze your type of work. And from that point decide how to accept or deal with criticism.
The third truth that will serve you the most is – take what you can from that experience and simply let go. In order to continue writing and creating, this is the crucial step. If you got honest feedback about your work, take a step back and think how it can help you in your future work; how you can use it to improve your writing and creativity.
Any negative situation is your chance to learn and grow. You are the only one in charge of your self-confidence, so keep writing.
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Any written poem –
just like language is ever-evolving,
changing, as each time
we can perceive it, experience it
differently.
Maja S. Todorovic
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How do you make writing a habit? By making room, time and prioritizing your writing, until it becomes habitual, just as breathing is – when you don’t have to think about you need to write – you just do it.
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Is made of tears,
No bricks, no wals
you spin, haunting
your own fear
and recklessly try to climb
But day retreats, cowardly, in guilt,
Quilted with shy stars and mourning moon.
And I say, restore and watch
How streets glitter instead
Like fireflies caught in the rain.
Distant, but intense,
Those closer are warmer.
Snow rolls in between breasts
Of this curvy city,
Snow dry and crumpling like fine
wheat flour.
Feel the moment with your palm
As enters your nostrils, pinches and itches
Rub it with your index finger.
I am a slug and I leave trails
For those lost among vowels
Sincerely meant but never fulfilled.
It’s not a broken promise, just
A miss, mismatch of right colors and
Puzzled shapes.
You’ll grow your own tale
When night falls
A tale you’ll trim with each coming dawn
And sew yourself in the mouth of the world.
Maja S. Todorovic
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Grey marble dissipates in the sky,
With stoned shadows, astoundingly monolithic
Stack of matches pretends to be a bridge
One that will burn itself, in time, in song.
My neck is giraffic periscope thriving to the sky
In a minute an eyeball, in a second a curled hedgehog
Leaning like a head on the door.
So close to me, you are so close to me.
Whisper you can’t catch, it only comes to the privileged.
Soft, yearning and albatross of wind stuck in my hair
Thinner than paper cut but red and burning just as
Blood skirting of its edges.
My name searches for meaning among other women
Who knew of their existence
Probability was lost in the variety of choices,
Misled by a reckless afternoon.
As I drink this butterfly offered to me so many times
I won’t choke. A siren of lust is not forgotten, just postponed
For better….something. In stillness, question becomes
always northerly oriented moss
With wet dreams and I sneeze and sneeze
Like a puppy accidentally inhaling ground pepper.
Sometimes I pray for numbness, the numbness of darkness.
With soft whisper, today maybe blue, cobalt blue like
eggplant sky above me.
Blue is cold, but promising just as this winter,
Where leaves become ice drones and roots
beg for new cracks in soil.
In the mouth of tomorrow shaky and sweet like pudding
while swimming in acidic uncertainty
I’ll play with distance and squeeze the nearness so inviting.
Until it drops – drop by drop in a rainy puddle:
Until I bleed again.
Maja S. Todorovic
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If we consider creativity as a purely mental process, its simplest definition would be coming up with new, applicable and valuable ideas. But does that make us creative persons? Or it requires more than that, like maintaining fertile conditions where these ideas can naturally flourish and are easily implemented? Now things are getting a bit complex and interesting.
How does it look like when we apply the aforementioned principle in our daily lives? What constitutes a creative life? Is there a recipe or formula we can follow in order to live more creatively?
If you ask an artist or scientist how their creativity looks like and what do they except, probably we will get different answers. An artist might wish for painting more attractive or expressive pieces and scientist would like to recognize new ways of finding solutions to a problem. As their approaches and work differ a lot, there is one common denominator: going beyond yourself, exploring your own boundaries and capabilities.
In our everyday lives that would mean giving our best in almost any activity we do, in any situation, but also being open to trying new things, experimenting – detached from desired outcome.
In other words, taking risks – being that in crucial moments or in simple decisions we make every day. Being able to take risks develops our ability to deal with uncertainty, ambiguous situations we find ourselves in and learn from them.
Of course, by taking risks I don’t mean being reckless in our decision making, but being open to different approaches, solutions and not being afraid of change – as change in one way or another governs life.
So how you can bring more creativity to your every day life?
Experiment. Try new things – being that food, hobby or just your hairstyle. Move your body – as you move, everything else is moving in you and you are stirring up those creative juices. You are learning about yourself and there is so much more for you to discover. In this post I suggest how being proactively creative you are training your creativity – which is your goal: to easier and faster come up with valuable ideas.
I’m very loud prominent of reading and writing poetry for fostering creativity, as through that process you are getting accustomed to new perspectives, previously unknown connections or unfamiliar realities.
So my recipe for today’s creativity? I’ll just grab a poem for lunch. 🙂
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense
Rumi
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I never manage to escape a good book,
as I’m often lost in the labyrinth of its
captivating pages.
Maja S. Todorovic
If you liked this post and you are interested in getting more inspiration for your creativity, sign up for our free monthly newsletter. For additional tips, follow us on twitter and connect with us on facebook.
If you liked this post and you are interested in getting more inspiration for your creativity, writing and personal growth, sign up for our free monthly newsletter. For additional tips, follow us on twitter and connect with us on facebook.
Business in Rhyme 