Outside Magazine has published some of my all-time favorite non-fiction. Years later, this piece about a guy building a hovercraft in his basement and this piece about a bunch of friends on a four-day road trip to climb the highest peaks in the Midwest (yep, you read that right), still hold up for me. In […]
Monday Motivation: Learning from Musicians
I’ve known my friend Brent Meyer since high school. We’ve always supported what the other is up to, even though Brent’s always been focused on music, and my focus has always been on writing. Being friends with Brent, I’ve seen that no matter what one’s creative obsession, there are many parallels about what works no […]
Hooray for Failure
It seems that failure’s received a good rap lately. While there are still those who are terrified to take a step toward the things they want to do for fear of things not working out perfectly, most people in the creative community have come to accept that getting better takes some failing along the way. […]
Merlin Mann Talks About Creativity
Erik Lundy is a very funny guy and one of the people in my closest circle of creative friends with whom I chat about anything and everything. I’ve never met Erik in real life, even though he lives in the same town in Missouri where my father lived. Still, that hasn’t stopped us from talking […]
The Influence of Movies
When I was a kid, my father took me to movies I shouldn’t have been seeing when I was 5 or 6. When The Enforcer came out, the theater ran the original Dirty Harry along with it. More than remembering the movie, I remember the theater — how it smelled like smoke, sweat, and the […]
Monday Motivation: Teetering on the Edge
In Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano, a character named Ed Finnerty expresses reservations about seeing a psychiatrist, saying: “He’d pull me back into the center, and I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the […]
How to Write Like a Small Business
Tomorrow is Small Business Saturday. While people lined up [in some cases, last night] for Black Friday deals at large chain retailers, there’s a movement planning to shop locally tomorrow. It’s not about getting the best deals on mass produced electronics; it’s about supporting the people who actually live in your neighborhood. I Understand Being […]
Monday Motivation: Do Your Own Thing
I have a couple empty Moleskine notebooks tucked away in my desk drawer. Within reach, though, I have an almost full Mead notebook. (And several small Mead notebooks scattered about–even in my car.) * * * I have a good friend who’s an artist. Years ago, when he read that Mark Schultz uses a Windsor […]
Building A Solid Writing Foundation
I’ve picked up books that floored me with the writing. I appreciated the way the authors put words together — going as far as wondering what it must be like to have a mind that can write such beautiful prose. Many times, though, about 40-50 pages in I stopped and thought: “Okay, this is nice […]
5 Ways To Get Out of a Creative Funk
On Monday, I wrote about a couple artists discussing their self doubts. Sometimes that self doubt can turn into something really bad: a full blown funk — even depression. I think almost everybody who sets out to do something creative experiences it at some point. At times, especially in the middle of a funk, it […]
Monday Motivation: What To Do When You Hit a Wall
There’s nothing worse than hitting a wall when things have been going well with your writing. One day the words flow, and then BOOM! your nose is flat, you’re on your butt, and you’re looking up at a challenge that seems impossible. Maybe you came flying out of the starting blocks for NaNoWriMo and hitting […]
The Little Things About Writing
When writing a novel, it’s typically a good practice to have each scene move the story forward. If you’re not moving the story forward, what is written should at least focus on the traits and motivations of characters. Sometimes, though, you just have to write that one little thing for no other reason than it’s […]
Monday Motivation: For the Love of Writing
My wife used to be a freelance artist. And then one day she came to no longer love what she did… It got old dealing with clients who approved preliminary sketches for finished art, only to not want to pay her for work because they changed their minds and wanted something else (and felt like […]