10 Creative Block Breakers That Actually Work
Doesn't matter what you call it: writer's block or creative block or simply "Where is my inspiration when I need it?!" All creative individuals find their work coming less easily at some times than others. That's when you need strategies, and plenty of them. There are at least 90 such tips, tools, and techniques in , edited by Alex Cornell, with a foreword by Erik Spiekermann. is a fresh compilation of practical, real world solutions offered by a range of creative individuals, including graphic designers, artists, writers, and photographers. These are people who are employed in jobs where they are required to be creative, regularly (brief bios are in the back of the book).
Writing Empathetically vs. Sympathetically and Sentimentally
Several weeks ago, I read a story that had a passage like this: "My parents never really cared about me," Allie said. "All my life they saw me as a disappointment, a waste of space. I was always the butt of their jokes. And no one really noticed. I was always last place, as far as they were concerned.
Gamify Your Life: A Guide to Incentivizing Everything
There's few things you enjoy doing for it's own sake, there's eating, having sex, socializing maybe. Everything else is enjoyable because it has been previously or currently reinforced either by positive or negative reinforcement, like playing games, eating spicy food, doing sports, watching tv, doing art, science, studying, competing, etc. The rewards you get for doing stuff you like doesn't have to be something primary like food, can be something associated to something primary, like food, and it still works. Like someone said, this is basic behavioral psychology and learning theory stuff and i wish the article would elaborate it like that. I don't have the reference handy right now, but I know that rewarding behavior that has it's own built-in pleasurable component tends to decrease the behavior. That's the thing, "built-in pleasurable component" of things is called intrinsic motivation to do something, behavioral science challenges this notion.
Best Creative Writing Exercises (PHOTOS)
Writers block, oh, writers block ...please go away! Even though it's the bane of all writers' existence, there are a bevy of ways to bypass the darn thing. From writing prompts to writing exercises, there are thousands of ways to get the creative juices flowing. Here are just a few of our favorites. Trust us, they work!
25 Insights on Becoming a Better Writer
When George Plimpton asked Ernest Hemingway what the best training for an aspiring writer would be in a 1954 interview, Hem replied, “Let’s say that he should go out and hang himself because he finds that writing well is impossibly difficult. Then he should be cut down without mercy and forced by his own self to write as well as he can for the rest of his life. At least he will have the story of the hanging to commence with.” Today, writing well is more important than ever. Far from being the province of a select few as it was in Hemingway’s day, writing is a daily occupation for all of us — in email, on blogs, and through social media.
Top 10 Ways to Disregard Authority and Stick It to the Man
It's not a misguided notion. While watching porn in public may seem distasteful, censoring it is a slippery slope, and probably illegal. Obviously the problem with a "porn filter" is the filter doesn't know what is porn and what isn't. You may have a pretty good idea of what is porn yourself, but your idea might differ from that of someone else. The filter just works on some fairly arbitrary rules, and will always fail to block all pornography as well as block content that is not pornographic.
How To Make An Animated GIF In Photoshop - 2014 Style
Hello There! Angie here from Angie Makes. With the New Year right around the corner I thought it would be fun to go over how to make some festive Happy New Years- 2014 animated GIF images. Here's the end product we'll be making. These GIFs are fun, can liven up your blog posts, and are pretty easy to make with Photoshop's animation panel and a few handy Creative Market resources. Let's dive in.
How to Write Better: 7 Instant Fixes
Does your writing stand out? Do you worry whether your writing is good enough? I can see you nodding your head.
Operators and more search help - Web Search Help
You can use symbols or words in your search to make your search results more precise. Google Search usually ignores punctuation that isn’t part of a search operator. Don’t put spaces between the symbol or word and your search term. A search for site:nytimes.com will work, but site: nytimes.com won’t. Search social media
The Ultimate Towel Folding Guide
The practice and study of origami involve various topics relevant to the mathematical field, but you don’t need to be any expert to fold some towels in a nice and different way. Terrys Fabrics shows us how in the following infographic. [Click here for full size version] Embed This Image On Your Site (copy code below): <div style="clear:both"><a href=" src=" title="The Ultimate Towel Folding Guide" alt="The Ultimate Towel Folding Guide" border="0" /></a></div><div>Courtesy of: <a href=" Journal</a></div>
Salvaging a Book + GIVEAWAY- Guest Post from Mou Saha
Hi everyone, Mou Saha here from Creating Keepsakes magazine. In spirit of green crafting, I had been salvaging an old book into my current art journal. Here’s a spread from that book. Here are my steps in visuals and captions. Hope you enjoyed my little process tutorial and would give it a try.
Beeminder Tracks Your Goals, Motivates You by Charging You Money When Your Fall Behind
Because nothing motivates me more than depriving charities of my hard-earned money! Seriously, Beeminder sounds like a brilliant racket. No one ever went broke underestimating the laziness of the American public.
25 DIY Handmade Gift Tutorials Part 2
I love handmade gifts! I love to give them, I love to receive them, I love to make them. In our home May is a crazy month! We have Mother’s Day, our Anniversary and not just one but 2 birthdays. Gifts are in my mind!
PaperHaus Magazine: 30 Ways to add texture to your art journal pages by Lynn.
Hi everyone, Lynn here with some mixed media tips. If there is one thing I love, it's adding texture to my art journal pages (and mixed media canvases, and scrapbook pages...) For this technique, I wanted to show you as many ways to add texture as I could think of! For items that needed to be glued down, I put the type of glue I used in parentheses.
