C. McNair Wilson's Blog, page 4

"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one ...

"One of the advantages of being disorderly is

that one is constantly making exciting discoveries." 

~ A. A. Milne

 

:: what's brewing? ::  

TEA WITH McNAIR ...Recapturing Your Creative Spirit. Choosing to live a consciously creative life, again. Start by grabbing a copy my new book,HATCH! 
Download the FREE PDF of the fully-illustrated, complete first chapter of HATCH! here: HATCH-SAMPLE. 
The TWO best ways to get your own copy of HATCH! :: GIVINGTONS.com "The Generosity Shop" where a portion of every purchase will be donated to a charity YOU designate. (Get TWO copies: a friend will "borrow" it and you'll never see it again.) Click book cover (left) to enlarge. You can purchase autographed & personalized copies of HATCH! ($5 off Amazon price), for friends and co-workers HERE. (Buy 2 books and get a third copy "HALF OFF.")

WATCH my full, TED Talk"Recapturing Your Creative Spirit"TEDx Denver. 
And catch my three minute introductory video, "How a Trombone Can Change Your Life?"  HERE. 
 

 

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��� go into the arts ...

���Go into the arts ��� I���m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable.    

Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven���s sake.

Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem.

Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.���

���Kurt Vonnegut* from A Man Without a Country, (2005)

In ALL my seminars and workshsops, no matter the attendees, we give everyone 6-10 sheets of blank, unlined (photo copy) paper and a 3-5 small felt pens and say, "This is the only way you may (and can) take noyes today. No iPads, laptops, smart phones, nothing else ... unless you have brought your own SKETCHBOOK. (No journals with lined pages, please.)"

I've done this with college professors, medical doctors, law enforcement, educators, ministry professionals ... everyone. 92.1452% of them love it���eventially.

As a result, every week I recieve messages accross the electronic media-sphere: "McNair! Look what I did!" Everything from transformed employee breakroom bulletin boards, to church bulletin inserts that are BLANK and ushers hand out colorful felt pens (20 for $1 at Dollar Tree), and staff meetings where art supplies are distributed to all.

As a result of those many, many reactions I add the additional chapter, The Doodle Factor,  to my book HATCH!���at the last minute. (Literally as we were about to go to press. The second half of that chapter is my Fearless Field Guide To Doodling ... Many have said that that chapter was worth the price of the book ... "and I love the entire book, McNair." (This chapter, and the doodle guid is included in the ebook version, eHATCH! )

There is not enough "art" being expressed in our daily lives and there will never be too much art in our world. You can a art, creative expresion, color, play, dance, music, (every staff meet ddmust start with music). President Lincoln all his cabinet meetings with a joke or short story to lighten the mood and pull minds away from the anxieties of the day.

"Go into the arts!" Send me a note, a photo of what happens. I'll post them to inspire others. 

���   ���   ���   ���   ���

*On a personal note, if you have never read a Kurt Vonnegut novel or short story, get thee to the library, used book shop and grab any of his works and read a few pages. 

��� reflecting the eternal spark

We each have a chance to let the eternal spark shine through our lives as we grow into our true self. You, being you, encourages others to let their light shine.

Every day is a new beginning. Every year we imagine better ways to reboot our dreams, passions, and reset our goals. I have always felt fortunate that my reboot (my birthday) comes at the beginning of the year. This year���2016���mine begins a new year and a new week, today. 

I had no choice in my birth. In fact, I was born TWO WEEKS LATE. (I was scheduled to be born 15 December.) Instead, on the fourth day of the year, at 10:22 pm, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, I arrived ... in Northwestern Hospital's "C section". (Hence my first name, Craig.) 

When asked, "What sign are you?" I always reply, truthfully, "Caesarean ... on my mother's side." (Relax. My mom thought it was funny, too.)

SO, today I will ponder new and better ways in the coming months to "let my little light shine."

Try link SPRINGSTEEN

Thanks to Facebook pal, Rodney Coe for sending me the above video, recorded in concert, in Dublin, Ireland, 2006.Turn up the volume to "11" !

��� the possibility is "open"

I have a new habit. I have been carrying a sketchbook, everyday for ...longer than I can remember.

When I was at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design we were told, first day of freshman year, "You must carry a sketchbook everyday." I had already been doing this for years. I was surprised how many of my 147 classmates were NOT regular sketchbook packers. I did not count, but it was a lot of them. Confusing. A mystery. I asked a couple of our teachers���all of them artists, designers, and the chairman of the department of architecture from the University of Minnesota (across town)���"How does some one come to an art school and not carry a sketchbook.?" They just shook their heads. One of them actually laughed, as if to say, How did they get past the guard shack without a sketchbook? [Photo: The first page in all my sketchbook says, "Anything worth remembering is worth writing down" This is the current book.]

Not only was the always-with-you-sketchbook required, but when a book was full we turned it in for faculty to see our journey, page-by-page. (We were not permitted to ever tear out a page.) They wanted to see every doodle, note, drawing, and thought.

Recently I realized that, although I had my sketchbook with me everyday, everywhere, it was often in my bag ... on the chair next to me. I would always pull out my MacBook, unzip the big leather "BookBook" cover, open my computer, and get to work. I couldn't get busy on my new book if the computer wasn't open. DUH>

If I needed to make a note, I knew my sketchbook was close by, less than arm's length away. Then it hit me, What if ... like my MacBook, I took my sketchbook out, opened it up, and grabbed a fistful of the few dozen felt pens in my bag, and laid them on my open sketchbook ... just in case.

I draw, doodle, and sketch much more these days since I developed the "always-open-sletchbook" habit. I've been doing this for a while now, but I did not always do it.

I don't always wait for the urge to hit, the muse to fly over head, or inspiration to spark. I will frequently just grab a felt pen, fountain pen, or pencil (yup, I love plain old soft lead pencils) and just start something. It's a great break from the writing-typing-storytelling hours of book HATCHing. 

Open it, all the time, and just put something (anything) on the page.

Repeat ... daily, or more f-f-f-frequently than that.

What, you don't have a sketchbook? GET ONE. And start with a simple, inexpensive one that you will never hesitate to use. It is not a test. There will be no grades. the only way to fail is to NOT carry, open, and use your sketchbook.

Do NOT tell me you can't draw. Chapter 14 of HATCH! has my Field Guide To Doodling. (It's even in the just-released ebook, "eHATCH!") Available here: https://CMcNairWilson.selz.com

��� If you you are new to the world of carrying a sketchbook (bound blank, UNLINED pages) start  inexpensive: a spiral bound sketchbook (see photo). Available everywhere: drug store, Walmart, Target, etc. DO NOT start with a nice book as you'll treat it like something special, precious, and NOT use it. You need to use it a LOT, daily. So start simple.

I suggest 5"x8' to 8"x10' page size. Smaller and you won't be free to doodle big. If it's TOO BIG, you won't take it with you. I'm an 8x10 person.

Let me know how it goes and maybe send me a shot of a few early pages.  

 

"eHATCH!" is here!

 

McNair Un-Plugged

Now HATCH! is available in pixels for those of you in Kindleville, Nook Nation, and the iPad provinces. I am delighted. HATCH! is the first book in my creativity series���a ���four-book trilogy.���

If eHATCH! Is your first time through this book, I hope you will be inspired to grab an old-world paper edition to add your own doodles. Especially after you've read Chapter 14, The Doodle Factor. I suggest reading Chapter 14 first. It will enhance your trip through HATCH!

If you���ve already read non-virtual HATCH! (the book) you have likely made notes, markings, highlights, and left sticky notes. (If I write ���Post-It��� ���  do I have to send a check to somebody in Minneapolis���or will they send me a check ... or maybe a crate of, ah, sticky notes?)

That's Not In the Book

Possibly the biggest surprise in reader reactions to HATCH! has been that so many have said how inspired they were personally to access their own creativity. That is my paramount goal in all I do: to encourage and enable others to rediscover and engage their ���factory-installed��� creative spirit. Even so, I thought I had mostly avoided addressing that subject directly in HATCH! I knew, before writing a single sentence, that HATCH! would be the first in a series I planned to write on human creativity. (As opposed to squirrel creativity.) 

I���ve always intended for the second book to make the case that every person has a creative spirit. Seeing that possibility, accepting it, and moving forward to ���recapture your creative spirit������and engage it for all areas of life���would be the focus of Book ��� 2 (NOT the title.)

But first ... a book showing people an effective, long-proven method of group problem-solving, planning, and creating���brainstorming���with a do-able set of principles. Another book that makes the case, shows the evidence, and convinces a person that they actually have a natural, creative spirit of their own is a different challenge. 

Because I believed that brainstorming would be a more readily accepted message (and valuable tool for a broad array of people and organizations), I chose that subject to launch this series. That���s the book I thought I had crafted with HATCH!���focused on one subject, brainstorming.

How?

To begin, I separated in my mind, outline, and storyboard (Chapter 9) the two distinct subjects: brainstorming and personal creativity. Next I charted a course for the how-to of powerful group creativity. So if any group wants to invent, create, solve, design (or RE-design), and plan world-class products, services, places, and programs ... HERE���S HOW.

In developing HATCH! I wrote long sections on creativity as a personal expression of the human spirit. (I can���t help myself.) When I re-read those passages, I knew they had to be held aside for the next book. Good as those passages might be, they did not fit my objective for HATCH!

In all communications: articles, books, speeches, videos, seminars, and sermons, it is essential to establish a clear objective���to provide only material that answers the question ���Why this message?��� What do you want your reader (or listener) to do as a result your presentation? Without a specific, straightforward, and announced objective, you will deliver multiple messages. That confuses the audience, reader. All those mini-messages stuffed into one place (book, article, live presentation) can be interesting, but lack clarity. The objective is your purpose? WHY deliver this material to this audience?

Once you have identified and are committed to your objective, this will force you to include in your outline only information that supports your message. I learned this ���objective��� technique from my friend Ken Davis in his Dynamic Communicators Workshop. The objective is the ���O��� in his S.C.O.R.R.E. method of outlining any presentation. I began teaching for Ken in 1992, and I continue to use SCORRE to develop every keynote and seminar, and as an outlining tool for my past three books. 

Without SCORRE (especially a clear objective), I���d just be Alice chasing another tardy leporidae down a hole in Wonderland. But I���m getting ahead of myself ... at least a book or two ahead.

I Tried, Really ��� I Did 

Writing about the creative spirit in each of us is always in my frontal lobes (like a blinking light outside the window of a cheap hotel, flashing through the night ... ALL���NITE DONUTS, ALL���NITE DONUTS ... day and night ��� EVERYONE IS CREATIVE. Just wait. Lots more coming on that in Book No. ... you know.

As much as I tried to keep the you are creative message out of HACTH! it sneaked in when I wasn���t looking. (I���m having my locks changed.) I did not realize how strong and obvious it was���all through the book���until it showed up in so many reviews, e-mails, and interview questions. Almost every interviewer asked, ���Do you really think everyone has some creativity in them?���

���No,��� I said, which shocked more than a few interviewers. ���I think everyone has a LOT of creativity in them. ���Some��� creativity is for dogs and dolphins.��� 

Before starting school, we all were endlessly curious and creative. Life really was an adventure. We discovered and learned new stuff every day. Seventy-five percent of all learning happens visually. Our curiosity was set at full-wonder as children, and we went about learning. We danced, doodled, painted, sang, made up stories, and built forts and castles with anything that wasn���t out of reach or nailed down.

We were discovering ... everything. 
Every day there���s lots more to discover, and creativity is our map���throughout our life.

I believe our creative spirit is still in us, in a big, covered pot set on ���simmer��� ���not even slow boil. If we knew the signs of creativity, the possibilities to expand it (turn up the heat) are boundless.

In every copy of HATCH! that I sign, I inscribe, ���The sky is NOT the limit!��� (In HATCH! you���ll find a list of the only twelve men who have walked on the moon ... so far. They broke the sky limit.) Breaking that sky limit will be the objective of the next book in this series���the book I���m working on every day, everywhere. In that book we will tackle head-on the opportunity, the journey, the adventure of Recapturing Your Creative Spirit. That book will be your guide ... your map. Bring a compass ... or your pocket astrolabe.

Ready For Fun?

If you have not yetread HATCH! you are in for a fun, fast-paced, story-filled read���with plenty of playful doodles and illustrations throughout to keep the pages turning. All those illustrations from the paper version are here in eHATCH! Most of the HATCH! drawings are escapees, rescued from more than one-hundred fifty of my personal sketchbooks.

I hope you will consider a live HATCH! event, where I will teach your team, organization, or non-profit powerful brainstorming ... or keynote your convention on how to move not just from good to great, but beyond great. Whatever is next for your organization, why not make it the best you can imagine���together?

Thanks for grabbing HATCH! ... in any form. A special bow to everyone who has given HATCH! to a friend, coworker, or boss���a hearty Kungaloosh.

If you enjoy HATCH! please DO post your thoughts in the reader review area of Amazon.com, HERE. When you post your review, recommendation, or other thoughts on your own website or blog, please post the link on www.Facebook.com/Hatch���by���McNair���Wilson.

If you do not enjoy HATCH!, feel free to rest quietly at home, with some hot, Pu-erh tea���honey optional.

Onward,

 

 

Sipping a latte

at ���The Principal���s Office���

Ivywild School, Colorado Springs

July 2015

eHATCH! is here

The long-awaited eBook version of my book "HATCH! : Brainstorming Secrets of A Theme Park Designer" is now e-vailable for all e-reader platforms. It is up on my online store (along with the "book-book of HATCH!���cheaper than Amazon and signed to YOU by the author (me.)

"eHATCH!" is the complete book, every word, and ALL the art. BUT WAIT, there's more. I have written a BIG new chapter that is available ONLY in the eBook edition: Chapt. 16, No Doodling In the Margins is a post script that looks at the reactions to HATCH!, responds to the "brainstorming doesn't work" movement, expands on the hidden power of team building in the 7 Agreements of Brainstorming, and explores the enormously popular secret message that I tried to keep OUT of HATCH!

There's also NEW art (some of it in LIVING COLOR) and several new endorsements from some big name author/artists. 

I am honored and delighted as I am inspired by their work: Nick Bantock creator of the Griffin & Sabine books and Danny Gregory Art Before Breakfast.

"(HATCH!) generates bucket loads of creative energy.

 - Nick Bantock

"eHATCH" is e-vailable IMMEDIATELY from my online store at a special introductory price���coming to Amazon soon, likely at a few bucks more.

HERE's the LINK: https://cmcnairwilson.selz.com GO NOW! (Before we run out.)

��� creative discipline

If you have NOT yet read the book: The Creative Habit by our greatest living choreographer, Twyla Tharp, GRAB it (+ a few highlighters and small colored pens to doodle in the margins.)

In her practical, insightful, enjoyable to read book, Twyla Tharp shares 29 creative habits she has developed over a long and productive career.She continues to create (in her seventies)  with the current (on tour now in the U.S.) of her 50th anniversary tour of her dance company. If you were to read The Creative Habit one-habit- a-day, you could  make August a transformative month. I love this book and I am still RE-READING it ...every week.

More quotes from Twyla Tharp, here: http://www.buzzquotes.com/twyla-tharp-quotes

And do something creative & defiant today.

You will inspire others���maybe yourself.

*  Order The Creative Habit NOW ...click on book cover in column right --->

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