Creativity & Writing Life

The imagery and symbolism in a tarot deck can help an author achieve clarity on character and story arcs, internal and external journeys.

One author considers the power that writing conferences have to inspire—and to discourage—their audiences.

In this excerpt from her book The Joy of Writing Journal, Lisa Tener offers three prompts to help you see story ideas all around.

This choice has nothing to do with the act of writing, but everything to do with how you talk to yourself about your vocation.

It’s impossible to fire on all cylinders all the time, so dedicate some of your writing time to stoke the flames of creativity.

Despite our best efforts, artistic jealousy affects us all at times. But how we perceive another’s success is never the whole picture.

Your calendar will never be suddenly free of urgent distractions. To finish that book on the back burner, you must actively bring it forward.

From Franz Kafka to Bob Dylan, history shows that letter writing can be a portal to discovery that benefits a wide variety of projects.

In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the top rung is where creativity happens—after our sustenance and security are met. Many of us are just not there, yet.

Research shows that most people reach peak cognitive performance under moderately noisy conditions—roughly the sound of a coffee shop on a busy day.

At times when reading seems like a chore and writing every day is like squeezing blood from a stone, try nurturing your creativity in different ways.

Loss can make fiction feel like an obnoxious waste of time. And maybe it is. But what if all of this loss is the exact reason to read? To write?

When stuck in the doldrums, writing coach Mathina Calliope recommends "writer candy"—literary distractions that nourish the muse.

Sometimes a story demands more than just a plot. You may want to create a context, a descriptive background that sheds light on a story's meaning.

You've probably heard writing advice such as “Ass in chair” and “Write every day.” While the advice has its limitations, there's a good reason it's mentioned so often.

You're intimately familiar with the nature of your writer's block, right? In this guest post, creativity coach and author Julia Roberts pinpoints specific tools, and how they helped her, to clarify and solve the real issue.

Which approach is right? Write only for yourself and in service of your vision OR write with an intended readership in mind.

In working on your craft, it's one thing to find the right critique group. It's quite another to know when to fly. Writer and librarian Lisa Bubert shares her experience, outlines her formula, and offers tips on leaving the nest.

There's a legendary joke about the writing life, often attributed to Margaret Atwood. It goes like this: A brain surgeon and a writer meet at a party.

Rejection is painful, and there's no avoiding it as a writer. But you don't have to submit before you're ready to deal with it. Writer and blogger Shana Scott offers some perspective on the conventional "publish or perish" advice.

The writers who visit you in class, when you're still a student—especially if you're young and impressionable—these writers stick with you for a lifetime.

You don’t have to choose between planning and "simply writing." Do both, at different times, all the way through the novel writing process.

Voice: It's either there in the writing or it's not. And some writers haven't developed or "found" their voice yet.

Writer Anthony Doerr once told me something his father told him, and I'll paraphrase it poorly here: You're going to get your neck sunburned looking up all the time.

Focusing on the smallest thing you can accomplish: this is the magic trick to making progress or getting unstuck.