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How to (not) Write a Blog: Biggest Blogging Mistakes

February 22, 2012 in advice, creativity, write 3

Blog Mistake Number One: Poor Title

The best way to keep readers from enjoying your awesome posts is to write a poor title.

Amancay Maahs (Creative Commons)

Your title should engage the reader, build value and provide them with a possible answer to a question they’ve always wanted to know. For instance, you’re reading this post (most likely) simply because of the title “How to (not) Write a Blog: Biggest Blogging Mistakes.”

For some great tips on writing engaging headlines, check this out.

Blog Mistake Number Two: Distracting Errors

If you wint your credibulit to be shot to the wall, make stupid errors just the ones’ in this sentence

Distracting aren’t they?

Tip: if you’re not great at catching grammatical errors, have someone who is gifted in that arena proofread your posts before hitting that publish button.

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The Ultimate Mistake Many Artists Make

February 20, 2012 in creativity 1

Today’s post can be found at The Wood Stove House along with a podcast interview I did with producer, musical and all around cool guy Jason Mundok.

Head on over there to see The Ultimate Mistake Many Artists Make and let me know what you think of the podcast.

What’s on Your Milestone

February 17, 2012 in creative exercises, creativity, inspiration 10

How do we know we’re moving if we don’t have milestones?

Every now and then, it’s fun (or challenging) to see where our creative life is going.

Ten minutes of reflection, strolling through some photos or just a ‘year in review’ with my wife will often reveal where we’re at and where we want to be.

 

Here’s a few recent milestones in pictures…

The Good: our ‘made out of a tomato tree stand’ Christmas Tree. Creative. Saved money on a real one. Looks interesting.

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Give it Away Now

February 15, 2012 in creativity 22

There’s a river born to be a giver
Keep you warm won’t let you shiver
His heart is never gonna wither
Come on everybody time to deliver.

“Give it Away” RHCP

You’ve got to give what’s in you.

Don’t know what’s in you? Think you have 100% nothing to give?

That’s a lie from hell.

And I’m 100% serious.

You’ve got something in you. It’s something that’s begging to get out.

The words you’re reading right now might make you itch. Not the scratchable kind. An itch in your gut. In that place where it aches when something sad or beautiful happens.

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The Seven Decrees to Better Storytelling: Storyshowing

February 13, 2012 in creativity 12

The Seven Decrees to Better Storytelling

1. Engage and connect.

If a storyteller is thinking about themselves, they’re most likely not connecting to their audience.

2. Show, don’t tell.

This phrase goes back a buh-gillion years. Good storytellers don’t tell us what someone did, they act it out and live it for their audience. 

Storytelling? Storyshowing.

3. Know Your Audience.

When a storyteller knows the audience as if they were characters in the story (it could be argued they are), he will tell a better story. 

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The Power of One Decision

February 10, 2012 in creativity, inspiration 17

Yes to joy. No to complaints. Reap contentment.

Yes to creating. No to excuses. Reap momentum.

 Yes to community. No to isolation. Reap connection.

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The Secret to Connecting with Your Creative Community

February 3, 2012 in advice, creative exercises, creativity 16

Side note… Today I’m guest posting on Michael Perkins’ amazingly creative blog The Handwritten. You’ll want to check out Michael’s take on simple, honest blogging. It’s like eating decadent desert without the calories.

There’s a secret to joining a creative community.

“I don’t like the word ‘community.’ Sounds needy and I’ve had enough of co-dependency,” you may say.

“I’m an artist, Andrew. I lock myself away in a room and think about my feelings for hours on end. I’m just fine without a creative community.”

“I’m not comfortable calling myself ‘creative,’ so how would I fit in with people who really are creative?”

Who is that talking?

What is keeping you from connecting?

Why do you feel the opposition to connecting with other creatives?

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Curate, Create, Klout and the Evils of Pinterest

January 30, 2012 in creativity 18

Create or curate?

***

Curate

When I think of a ‘curator’ I think of an intelligent (but bland) guy wearing his one and only Brooks Brothers suit to a museum to look at old things and make sure those old things are in tip top shape.

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The Artist’s Double Life: The Day Job

January 25, 2012 in creativity, inspiration 25

Feeling bifurcated? Jekyll and sometimes Hyde?

Creatives often live a life that mirrors our cell phone plans: we spend our ‘peak minutes’ at a day job while our ‘off peak minutes’ (nights and weekends) afford us little time to get our creativity fix.

"Schizofreakia" Creative Commons: -RobW-

As a creative do you ever feel like this pic to the right?

With my 9-5 as a corporate sales trainer, writing this growing blog, doing a video shoot in a few days and a play reading at the end of the month I make Sally Field’s Sybil look normal.

It’s Not the Day Job

A few months ago I had a breakthrough.

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Living a Better Creative Story

January 20, 2012 in creativity, write 16

I heard about a guy once who wrote a book about his journey and other things and a lot of his sentences started like I started this one.

***

The grammar, incomplete sentences and all the boring (but geekily important) stuff about writing correctly drove me nuts while reading Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.


But I cried a bit at the end.

Yeah, I cried.

All the rambling sentences aside. It’s a good story. It’s a great story. It’s a transformative story.

Here’s a bit of a new story. Told in his style.

Ala Donald Miller

Sometimes I wonder if all this spectating isn’t good for me. I watch TV. Go to a show. Read a book. Laugh at a movie. I’m enjoying it all. I’m relaxing. It’s great.

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