writing – Page 9 – Business in Rhyme

The Poem Strikes Back! (creative writing exercise)

January 18, 2017January 18, 2017 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Write, create, innovate: exercises, Writer's creative bites

It’s a bit strange title for the blog post, isn’t it? This is a different approach to writing prompts and exercises that you are accustomed to on this blog, but the last thing we want is to be boring and monotonous.

And before you dismiss whole idea, because it sounds silly – actually it is all about being aware of different perspectives. This is a sort of continuation of blog posts related to mindfulness and why not taking a role play as a foundation for writing prompt? To go even step further, let’s imagine that you are a poem. What would poem have to say? We use our writing as a tool to release our anger, love, passion, depression, fears, admiration, secrets, desires…Is your poem tired of you? Are you whining all the time? Are you always concentrated on what’s going on inside yourself that you missed a beautiful, strong and passionate winter storm? The birch outside your window doesn’t have any leaves, have you noticed that?

Or you are trying to please everybody all day and you forgot to smile. Can you count how many times you smiled today?

Do you remember your latest dream? And when was the last time you danced to your favorite song?

Let your poem tell you all that. Imagine your writing is a mirror, what is it reflecting? What is missing out of your life? What is too much?

This is something I like to call reversed mindfulness. You are observing, noticing, listening…but instead of what is, we can focus on what isn’t. Our poem can tell us that story, a sort of self-reflection that shows us where our life is at, right now and what we can change.

It doesn’t matter if its humorous, boring, exaggerating – nobody is perfect, so neither is your poem. It’s about the understanding how we can enjoy life more.

So here’s the setting: It’s time for your writing. You are about to sit at your table but there is already a piece of paper waiting for you. It’s a poem, addressed to you and it says: “Dear_______

So, this is my take on the exercise:

Dear Maja,

how are you today?

Another grey Tuesday in the sunny Hague?

That rainy hat you are teasingly pressing on your head

Forget it…let it blow

like a wild bat…

Feel the wind through your hair,

that boring despair – leave at home

(there’s no such thing “a graceful yawning”

I can tell you that!)

And why there are only two crossed lines

on your forehead?

Smile with your face,

you don’t have to know everything just yet.

Life unfolds, there is a reason I’m saying you this.

Stay close to me, my dearest friend.

You are not alone – like the Moon follows Earth,

I’m behind you, invisible, most delicate thread

you’ll understand, close your eyes, jump over that doorstep.

What your poem has to tell you?

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Poetic inspiration: writing is breathing

January 13, 2017January 13, 2017 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Poetic inspiration

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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Lighthouse

January 11, 2017 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, My personal rhyme - from time to time

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

Albatross

January 9, 2017 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme

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

Is there a recipe for leading a creative life?

January 7, 2017 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Read, write, lead!, Write, create, innovate!

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

Poetic inspiration: Forever slaved by a good book

January 6, 2017January 6, 2017 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Poetic inspiration

I never manage to escape a good book,

as I’m often lost in the labyrinth of its

captivating pages.

Maja S. Todorovic

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To The New Year

January 1, 2017December 30, 2016 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Read, write, lead!

Poetic inspiration: Simply enjoy…

December 29, 2016 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Poetic inspiration

As a writer, enjoy your

creative process and

you will be amazed with

the end result.

Maja S. Todorovic

10 ways to break through writer’s block instantly

December 26, 2016December 26, 2016 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Write, create, innovate!, Writer's creative bites

Writer’s block: a detrimental feeling that many of us encounter at least once in our writing life when you simply can’t pull yourself together and produce some satisfying work – at least in your own eyes. You feel lack of inspiration, like you have nothing to say and your imagination simply doesn’t exist.

But let’s think about it for a second – who is actually ‘blocking’ us in writing? Is there a concrete block standing on your keyboard, preventing you to type? Who is making us feel that our ideas are not worthy, that we are not creative? We are. We are the only ones standing as an obstacle to our creating.

And though this term is very popular, a modern notion coined in 1947 by Dr Edmund Bergler, a famous Austrian psychiatrist, I don’t truly believe in writer’s block.

I believe that we often fall in monotony, where we are caught by inertia – just like in a river stream. We might find ourselves in yellow, muddy waters and if we long for fresh, clear flow of ideas – we need to swim, move, get out of or change the conditions that clog our thinking.

One thing that years of writing taught me is that you can’t force it. It’s like pedaling upstream – you soon get tired, out of breath and strength, but you haven’t actually made any progress.

Better way than forcing your writing is provoking your writing. This is where your power and control lies. There are many ways you can stir up your imagination and here I will share some of the practices I use to find my way to writing:

1.When you struggle with writing, do something completely the opposite.

I have noticed when I’m not completely in my ‘writing mode’, leaving that aside and doing other activities that are on my TO DO list can be enough to jumpstart my inspiration. This maybe due to subconscious feeling of worry are we going to do everything planed for that day: simply giving us time again for writing when you have the feeling you’ve accomplished your objectives for the day, can be enough for a productive writing session.

2.Free write for 10 minutes to get rid of monotony

Just write without thinking. How you progress, new and exciting ideas will start to appear. Give yourself a chance to play with words and enjoy – you will much more appreciate your writing and the creative process. Here on the blog are many creative exercises you use can as a prompts and inspiration pointers to instantly break any writing barrier.

3.Research

This might be more applicable to non-fiction writing, but anytime I’m not focused or I have maybe to many ideas, I perform a research on the similar subject. I find this to be very beneficial in terms that similar work I encounter can serve as a guidance on which topic to write or not – or give my own opinion on something that is stereotyped and could use a new input. Getting insight on what other people are doing on similar topic is always helpful.

4.Indulge in some art

Listen to some music or visit art exhibition – I have found this to be one of the most helpful ways for me. By listening to my favorite bands or just looking at some of the De Chirico paintings as an instant recentering for me. On Pinterest I have even a board ‘Surrealism’ which I often use as my favorite muse.

5.Limit yourself

Set some rules: Start with what if clause or focus on using specific words. It has been shown that limited creative freedom can have a positive impact on generating new ideas as it provokes you to think differently.

6.Leave unfinished sentence

This is fun and clever thing to do. You just leave out there a word to linger and next time you have to deal with it – it will hang on the tip of your tongue, tickle until you figure out what to write!

7.Return to your favorite authors, phrases, quotes that you like

Lately I have been writing, by hand in separate notebook poems and quotes that I like. It helps me with that feeling of insecurity sometimes I have about my writing. A simple encouragement that you can give yourself and easily destroys doubts is reading and believing in words of your favorite authors.

8.Go on a date with yourself

As said in the beginning, we are the only ones blocking ourselves in doing what we love. And why does it happen? Maybe it’s a message, a sign that we need rest, that we need more attention and time to be kind towards ourselves, destress and restore creative energy. So make room in your schedule to spend time with yourself, doing what makes you feel good -pamper yourself. Your creativity will come rushing back to your arms, making you eager to write again.

9.Do some squats or go for a walk

Physical exercise makes your heart beat faster, supplying your brain with oxygen. It helps with brain fog we sometimes experiences and your thinking becomes clearer. Going for a walk helps with your senses where change of scenery offers insights to new possibilities and opportunities.

10.If nothing else works – eat some chocolate!

But not any chocolate – with at least of 75% of cocoa, as some researches have found that consumption of cocoa flavanols results in an acute improvement in visual and cognitive function, giving your brain more power to deal with difficult tasks. So eat your way through writer’s block 😉