Tag: writing

7 tips for improving your creative writing skills

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Read, write, lead!, Writer's creative bites

budington kelland

As a writer, you don’t want to be just good or average. You want to be better; you want to improve your skills and you want to have your own recognizable style. Well, all that doesn’t happen overnight. It takes courage, perseverance, consistency in your writing attempts – no matter the rejections, lack of time or inspiration. Your writing can improve with practice and I will share here some tips you might find helpful:

1.Don’t find time – make time for your writing

As I said in the above introductory paragraph, it’s of great importance that you schedule regular time for your creativity, every day. When you have an idea, jot it down – don’t ignore it and let it flourish on your paper. You never know when inspiration will strike, so be prepared with little notebook by your side.

2. Don’t fear rejection

Show the world your creative power – maybe through blog, writing platforms or even through writing journals and open competitions. It’s a great way to practice your writing, refine your own style and maybe your story, poem, article gets published and recognized by editors – you don’t have anything to lose.

3.Join the community

There are many forums and other forms of networks where you can practice along with other fellow writers as response to different topics and prompts. It’s a great opportunity to get feedback about your writing and share your struggles and accomplishments.

4. Challenge yourself

As a poet you might try short story writing. It will provoke your thinking, channel your ideas in different directions. The more you step out of your comfort zone, the more your writing will mature and grow.

5.Read a lot; and then read some more!

Reading is a prerequisite to any good writing. It will not only enrich your vocabulary, but it will give you confidence that you can write too; that you can improve your writing skills and that there is experience and emotion residing inside of you, a story that needs to be told and shared with the world.

6.Feed your soul with some art

Visit museums, exhibitions, go to concerts and listen to music; dance and sing – enjoy other expressions of creativity as it can further inspire your writing. Diverse emotions that come from different senses can generate a feeling that we are creative beings and sometimes that is all you need for writing ideas to spark and come forth into your consciousnesses.

7.Don’t try to invent hot water – every time!

What I mean by this is that many writers are afraid that they are not original enough; that something similar already exists, that every story and poem is already written and told. But I want to remind you that you are unique person with unique points of view and unique experiences. No one can steal and copy that. As long as you are true to yourself it will be reflected in your writing.

How do you work on improving your writing? Please share your experiences in the comments below.

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Work with opposites (creativity exercise)

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Write, create, innovate: exercises

frost

 

Many of us get trapped in ordinary, routine thinking which makes it hard to get into a mood of generating fresh and innovative ideas. We routinely get up every morning, brush our teeth, drink coffee, go to work – mostly every day at a same time, using the same route…And to tell you the truth, it can be a creativity killer. What we need is to mix up things a little bit, challenge our habits, language and way of thinking.

We are also aware that we do live in the world comprised of opposites. In Chinese philosophy and especially in Taoism, Universe is seen through the lens of yin and yang energy, male and female, strong and weak, dark and bright, cold and warm. Perceiving reality from the opposite side can give us clue in which direction we need to move forward in order to sort things out.

So for this exercise, as a warm up I propose you pick some ordinary words, something you frequently use in your language and list the opposite meaning of that word; first that comes to your mind.

For example: sky – bottom, ground

                          water – dry, yellow, sand

                           coffee – tea, sweet, cold

                           work – vacation, free time, relaxation

Do this for a limited time, maybe five to ten minutes. The idea of this warming exercises is to somehow ‘flush out’ that ordinary thinking, and give room for more ideas to come and encourage creative problem solving.

As a next step you can pick your real problem/project you are working on and apply similar technique. If you repeatedly struggle with something, “turn over” your thinking: instead of trying to develop your best solution, think of the worst thing could happen. How can your project fail? What is the worst scenario? Write every detail of that, using some key words related to your project and answering questions when, how, who, why, how much ext. To make it more fun, write a poem about it.

From that vantage point it might be more clearer what you could do in order for your project to succeed. By being able to imagine what we would like to avoid, it may opens a clear path in our mind of right things we need to do: who to contact, when to do something, how to prioritize our time.

Knowing what you don’t want to, is a first step to achieving what you do want.

I am not ambitious at all:
I am not a poet, I know
(Though I do love to see a mere scrawl
To order and symmetry grow).
My muse is uncertain and slow,
I am not expert with my tools,
I lack the poetic argot:
But I hope I have kept to the rules.
When your brain is undoubtedly small,
‘Tis hard, sir, to write in a row,
Some five or six rhymes to Nepaul,
And more than a dozen to Joe:
The metre is easier though,
Three rhymes are sufficient for ‘ghouls,’
My lines are deficient in go,
But I hope I have kept to the rules.Dear Sir, though my language is low,
Let me dip in Pierian pools:
My verses are only so so,
But I hope I have kept to the rules.

J. K. Stephen

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Are you an introvert? Poetry can help you access your inner treasures

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Read, write, lead!, Write, create, innovate!

hawking

I presume I’ve always been an introvert. And when I was younger I looked at that as a drawback, a negative side. For many years I’ve silently longed to be one of those cool kids that easily steal affection, that with just small gesture or smile so quickly make new friends and become leaders of ‘ the pack’.

I was kind of opposite of all that: only having few friends at the time, never liked to talk about myself – instead I’ve become an ideal ‘shoulder for crying’. As a highly individualistic, books were my favorite company and I never had a problem to spend time alone, with myself. Also, as an introvert I’m somehow on the constant quest for deeper meanings, understandings and knowing. As a motivation, that can be a great advantage in any research profession for example, but somewhere along the way in the recent years, I’ve noticed my introvert side has even grown. That is something I didn’t expect to happen in my late thirties, but it did. And here is where poetry helped me a lot: to express my feelings, thoughts and experiences which I’m not comfortable to share in classical mundane communication.

Poetry can be that articulate tool that gives the voice to those hidden parts of us: sensitive, beautiful, vulnerable, brave, but weak, dark and frightening in the same time. Connection to poetry is always personal and deep that goes to the farthest roots of our being and helps us recognize, accept and communicate who we are: who we truly are. To anyone who is struggling with finding direction in life, self doubt and self acceptance, poetry can help reveal those hidden treasures, strengths that moves us forward; helps us discover our place in the world. In your writing and reading poetry you can find intimacy you might be lacking in an extroverted and often shallow world we are living in.

Having poetry in my life have certainly helped me to better communicate my needs and feelings and generally to cope with pressures of the fast paced world. If you do recognize yourself to be an introvert, introducing more poetry into your life can bring that sensation of nourished soul, that we are taking care of us; that we can find home where ever we are.

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
and before the street begins,
and there the grass grows soft and white,
and there the sun burns crimson bright,
and there the moon-bird rests from his flight
to cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
and the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
we shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow
and watch where the chalk-white arrows go
to the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
and we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
for the children, they mark, and the children, they know,
the place where the sidewalk ends. 

Shel Silverstein

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Why people don’t like poetry?

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Read, write, lead!, Write, create, innovate!

shelley

This essay is inspired by some of the recent comments in this post. And it made me think: why  people really don’t like poetry? What is it that keeps them away from maybe not writing, but from reading some really exquisite pieces by poets from all around the world?

The usual answer is something like “Poetry is boring”, “I don’t understand it”, “It’s a waste of time”. So I wanted to explore this topic a bit further.

If we look more deeply around us, we can notice that people have very little time to appreciate art in general. This fast paced, consumer oriented society has trained us to want everything now and here. An instant satisfaction, an instant thrill, an instant experience: not allowing our biological system to perceive with all its senses; truly absorb our emotions and simply feel.

Life usually demands of us high level of practicality, logical and factual thinking in order for us to be functional and productive on a day to day basis. It’s very noticeable in how we are doing business and science. But where are the boundaries? Have we lost our human touch? In our lives when everything is so exact and explicit we have erased some of the basic human traits: ability to feel and empathize. We cannot treat our most intimate relationships, families and ourselves like we are on a business meeting and signing a business contract.

And there is this soft spot where poetry likes to ‘poke’ you. It demands something different from you. It demands your whole being to respond: if you try logically to analyze a poem, it will take you nowhere; if you search for shortcuts, you will be lost; if you need answers, probably you will be disappointed.

A poem is a journey that allows you to escape from typical factual thinking and forces you to question everything: instead of searching for answers on the outside, you need to look deep inside of you.

There lies the true value of poetry – especially for business leaders, as it can be seen as an antidote to typical business interpretations:

  • poem is associative rather than factual thinking;
  • poem enforces abstract thinking in comparison to deductive thinking.

Like Clare Morgan implies in “What poetry brings to business”:

reading poetry generates conceptual spaces that maybe different from the spaces usually approached in business and life in general.

As poetry is letting yourself to get familiar with the unknown – it shouldn’t instill fear of ambiguity and uncertainty, but rather to be seen as a vehicle, attractive mystical longing that can transcend us across those conceptual spaces and offer different modes of interpretation: a sure way to enrich our creativity in all aspects of our lives.

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Billy Collins

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Want to improve your writing? Practice receptivity and allowing

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Write, create, innovate: exercises, Writer's creative bites

holzer

Being receptive and allowing creative flow are somehow two basic modalities that we have to work with in order to engage in creative process. Today’s post is intentionally dedicated to this topic since if we manage to divert these two modalities  to “work for us” – it’s a sure way to combat any type of creative blockage. It might be more suitable for writers beginners, but I think that we all need from time to time to remind ourselves of some basic approaches.

What does it mean being receptive? You probably have noticed that in my writing I often use term ‘tune in with your inner self, inner being’. And that what it exactly means being receptive. You can consciously prepare yourself for receptivity by having faith and trust in that moment, that very second that your mind already knows everything that it needs to know to be fully creative, open and expressive. To sink in to your deep creative core you can practice meditative, rhythmic breathing that is connecting your awareness to what is flowing to you in each moment. Engage your senses, don’t shut down that feelings, let them freely find their space and meaning in your blank page – in that very moment. In order to keep that initial spark, in the quietness of your mind you can ask yourself: what is it that I need/want to say? What did I want to write about?

Ideas will come and start to accumulate and your task is only to write, without hesitation or any type of editing on the go. Something that was bugging you about your creative project, piece your were working on months ago might resolve and just what you needed can appear. Never waste your writing because that just might be the missing puzzle in your future work.

The second part of the process is something I call allowing. Allow yourself, give permission to yourself to write, create – no matter how many disapprovals, rejections, judgments you might received in the past. That negative voice in the back of our mind can block us from engaging in creative work and that’t the last thing you want to do.

You create and write for your own sake, for your own being to feel alive, attuned with creative force around us. You are in charge of your motivation, actions and willingness. And next time, when negative voice speak from nowhere all of a sudden, write everything the opposite.

That negative voice can say something like:

“Nobody is interested in anything I have to say.”

And you can write your affirmation:

‘I’m interested in what I have to say. I want to say. I need to say. I write because I want to say!’

‘There is no money in writing. It’s a wasted time.’

and your affirmation:

‘If I write more I will get better in this craft; being better means more opportunities to be published; being published opens possibilities to get a new source of income.’

or

‘I write because I love to write. I don’t need money from writing.’

This is one way to respond to that negative self-talk. Allow yourself just to be creative and you’ll be amazed how your writing improves.

Poetry to us is given
As stars beautify the heaven,
Or, as the sunbeams when they gleam,
Sparkling so bright upon the stream ;
And the poetry of motion
Is ship sailing o’er the ocean
Or, when the bird doth graceful fly,
Seeming to float upon the sky;
For poetry is the pure cream
And essence of the common theme.

Poetic thoughts the mind doth fill,
When on broad plain to view a hill ;
On barren heath how it doth cheer
To see in distance herd of deer.
And poetry breathes in each flower
Nourished by the gentle shower,
In song of birds upon the trees
And humming of busy bees.
‘Tis solace for the ills of life,
A soothing of the jars and strife;
For poets feel it a duty
To sing of both worth and beauty.

James McIntyre

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