Cynthia Morris's Blog, page 28

Cutting up my table of contents

Organizing the contents of a book is a challenge! I seek to make The Busy Woman’s Guide to Writing a World-Changing Book super useful. I hate to waste people’s time, so I want to make sure everything I’m including is necessary and useful. Cutting up the chapter titles and moving them around is helping sort things out. Patience at the point is required!

 

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What’s your creative focus for autumn?

It’s that back-to-school feeling where I get the urge to settle in with books and notebooks and plans. The lifelong learner in me loves to engage with a project or course of study.

What are you studying? What is your creative focus for autumn? 

Say you are starting back at school now, and you want to end the year feeling like a creative champ. What would you focus on for the final quarter of the year? Choose one or two projects that are important to you.

I am focusing on the next draft of my book, The Busy Woman’s Guide to Writing a World-Changing Book. My secondary focus is developing programs to celebrate my 20-year anniversary next year. I can’t wait!

Steve and I are going to upstate New York for Christmas. It’s always been my dream to be on a tropical island, far away from Christmas. I’ll take this! My plan is to have the book completely done and to the designers.

I know it’s early to be thinking about Christmas. (Crikey!) But I am still in long-term planning mode. I have a full and exciting fall planned, so Christmas dreams are my carrot.

For me, it feels good to have this kind of focus. Just two major projects alongside The Devoted Writer and my coaching work. That seems doable. There are other projects begging for my attention, but I am able to keep them at bay when I know what I want to feel most satisfied about when I get on the plane on December 26th.

Make your own creative focus for the fall, keeping it to two major projects at most. See how it feels to enjoy this focus!

Write your heart out with us!

If writing is part of your fall focus, consider joining me and other writers in The Devoted Writer. This class helps you set up a writing practice that makes your heart sing. Join us in October to write your heart out. Get your spot now and start warming up your writing fingers!

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Summer watercolor class starts soon

Want to play with watercolor this summer? I’m part of 21 Secrets Just Add Water online watercolor class. It begins July 9th and lasts 10 short, beautiful summer days. Each day hosts a different teacher, so you’ll get a variety of processes and perspectives to help you enjoy creative play this summer.

My class is called Garden of Values, and it brings together my coaching and art. I love helping my clients identify their values, and in this class I bring the process alive in full color.

Join us here for a fun, easy approach to watercolor play!

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Set up a home writing retreat

I recently checked my calendar and noticed something exciting. In the first week of July, there are zero appointments on my calendar! Now, I love coaching the 60-some clients I am working with this year. I love getting on Zoom calls and helping professional artists and budding writers build lives around their creativity. And…I love the weeks when I have space to do my own creative work.

With all that space next week, and it being an American holiday, I decided to take the first week of July as an at-home writing retreat. My time will be focused on making serious headway on my book, The Busy Woman’s Guide to Writing a World-Changing Book. My birthday is smack in the middle of it, so I may take some time for a massage and dinner with my sweetie.

How to design an at-home writing or art retreat? With all the roles we play and things we do, it’s not easy. But it’s possible. I have written about this before, but I’ll share the current practices I use to structure an at-home retreat.

Set an intention. Mine is: I am deeply and happily immersed in the work of writing this book. While I may work on other things too, my focus is my book.

Set a goal. My goal is to complete the revisions on this draft and to go over the whole book to make sure it’s organized in a way that is most useful for the reader. This is an ambitious goal, but I find it helpful to set goals that really engage my focus and energy.

Set aside other things. I have a lot of other projects on the docket for the fall and for 2019. (I can’t wait to share with you!) But this week’s focus is on making as much progress on the book as I can. Its next step is giving it to a few beta readers, and I want to get it in shape as soon as I can.

Set space. I will set aside cooking and cleaning by making a giant salad and making sure I have other food for the week prepared or delegated. The studio will be clean and ready to work. My writing space will be in my office, at the Botanic Gardens, and as a treat, a cafe nearby.

Set up physical support. Walking and exercise benefits my creativity enormously, so I will make sure I have that on the calendar. There are some new aqua classes at the rec center that I am eager to plunge into.

Set focus. I am always challenged by doing my work simultaneous to posting on social media. Shots of me working on my book in the Botanic Gardens are fun and hopefully inspiring. But do they help me hold my focus? I will decide next week if sharing my progress helps me or detracts from my focus on writing. Sometimes it’s good to go into the writing cave solo.

Set boundaries. This one seems obvious but it’s rare that we actually set up boundaries to serve our focus. My boundaries for the week include letting my husband know that I am focused on the book, and that I will be diving into it first thing during the day, taking time midday to work in my art studio, and then resuming work in the afternoon. Other boundaries include not checking email until midday, after a solid writing session.

Set up fun. When we’re working in a focused way, we also need to give ourselves a break with some delight and fun. I will have time each day to continue with the 100 Day Project – about 15 days left! Spending time making art always calms and replenishes me. I will also plan to go to a movie one night.

What about you? How can you set yourself up for an at-home retreat? It could be a day, or two, or three days. Make it yours and make it work for you and your project.

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Ten ways chilling feeds our creativity

What does it mean to chill? To step out of the fray, the urgent drive of efficiency and doing. To relax, to play, to respond to your own inner rhythms instead of the demands of the world.

Chilling is vital to our creativity. I’ve seen this with myself and my clients. We like getting things done, but without relaxing time, our victories are hollow.

Here are ten ways I see chilling as vital to creativity.

1 Our health drives everything! Nothing is made on an empty tank. Chilling helps us stay healthy.

2 Some of the best art is made from ‘happy accidents’. (Champagne!) When we chill, we open the door for surprises that can inform our art.

3 Space breeds originality. Filling ourselves constantly with others’ work supplants our original impulse.

4 Laughter and joy lighten us up. Returning to play and innocence refreshes our spirit in difficult times.

5 Insights have a landing pad when we’re open and ready. Valuable new perspectives can alight on the open fields of space in our days. Receptivity is vital to our creativity.

6 When we chill, we connect with the world around us. It’s vital for our work to be attuned to our senses.

7 Our imagination is our superpower. Daydreaming, visioning, and imagining only happen when we have space to chill.

8 Chilling feels good and nourishes our nervous systems. We need that in these stressful times.

9 Chilling often connects us with others. We almost always get new insights for our work, or at least a desire to get back to it after being with others.

10 How have you seen chilling as vital to your creative process? Share in a comment below.

Join the Original Impulse Summer Chillenge! It’s free and fun and will exuberate your summer!

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Join the Chillenge!

Maybe it’s because I was born in summer (July 3rd!) but it’s my favorite season. If you’ve been reading Impulses for awhile, you know I love the abundant sensuality and the chance to swim (skinny dip even!) outdoors.

Summer feels like a season of creative exuberance. I always want to enjoy every single drop of lemonade, garden time, picnics in the park and road trips around Colorado. The chance to get away from the computer and out of the office fills my creative self with joy and possibility. I often take my work projects to my summer ‘offices’ – the park and the Botanic Gardens.

Does summer light up your creative spirit, too?

What’s really great about summer is the chance to chill a little. We relax, we lower our expectations, we perhaps remove some projects from our already-laden work load to let life in more. Summer is the season of the child, released from school and given space to explore, play and discover.

Beyond the obvious fun, why is this so important to me? I believe that play and relaxation are vital to our creativity. When we are in busy mode all the time, there is no room for serendipity. We don’t leave a landing pad for insights and new ideas. Mental, emotional and physical space are essential to make new connections. We need room to let our insights and thoughts develop to their richness.

I want this for you – a season of play. A season where your creativity thrives and expands and fuels you deeply.

In the past I have hosted summer challenges like the Summer Thrills Scavenger Hunt and the Capture the Wow Summer Scavenger Hunt. Earlier this year, I asked myself what I wanted to host
for you this year. What kind of community challenge would help you enjoy summer more than ever?

Then I thought, hell no. The last thing we need is another challenge. We already pile so much onto our plates that it’s impossible to get everything done. What we really need is a chillenge.

That’s right. A Chillenge.

What if your summer had chiling as a priority? Time to relax without agenda. Time to play. Time to wander, to explore, to get lost and to discover. Time to doodle and sketch in your journal. To capture your dreams and ideas and to glean insights about how you want to live your life even more fully – without doing more.

This seemed like a good idea to me, to not incite you to do more but to chill more. Who’s in with me?

The Summer Chillenge 2018 begins officially on June 4th. It’s totally F*R*E*E to join and you can do it anyway, anytime. If you want to receive my Summer Chillenge Leap In Guide and get weekly Chill Tips from me,

jump in here.

The post Join the Chillenge! appeared first on Original Impulse .

Maybe it’s because I was born in summer (July 3rd!) but i...

Maybe it’s because I was born in summer (July 3rd!) but it’s my favorite season. If you’ve been reading Impulses for awhile, you know I love the abundant sensuality and the chance to swim (skinny dip even!) outdoors.

Summer feels like a season of creative exuberance. I always want to enjoy every single drop of lemonade, garden time, picnics in the park and road trips around Colorado. The chance to get away from the computer and out of the office fills my creative self with joy and possibility. I often take my work projects to my summer ‘offices’ – the park and the Botanic Gardens.

Does summer light up your creative spirit, too?

What’s really great about summer is the chance to chill a little. We relax, we lower our expectations, we perhaps remove some projects from our already-laden work load to let life in more. Summer is the season of the child, released from school and given space to explore, play and discover.

Beyond the obvious fun, why is this so important to me? I believe that play and relaxation are vital to our creativity. When we are in busy mode all the time, there is no room for serendipity. We don’t leave a landing pad for insights and new ideas. Mental, emotional and physical space are essential to make new connections. We need room to let our insights and thoughts develop to their richness.

I want this for you – a season of play. A season where your creativity thrives and expands and fuels you deeply.

In the past I have hosted summer challenges like the Summer Thrills Scavenger Hunt and the Capture the Wow Summer Scavenger Hunt. Earlier this year, I asked myself what I wanted to host
for you this year. What kind of community challenge would help you enjoy summer more than ever?

Then I thought, hell no. The last thing we need is another challenge. We already pile so much onto our plates that it’s impossible to get everything done. What we really need is a chillenge.

That’s right. A Chillenge.

What if your summer had chiling as a priority? Time to relax without agenda. Time to play. Time to wander, to explore, to get lost and to discover. Time to doodle and sketch in your journal. To capture your dreams and ideas and to glean insights about how you want to live your life even more fully – without doing more.

This seemed like a good idea to me, to not incite you to do more but to chill more. Who’s in with me?

The Summer Chillenge 2018 begins officially on June 4th. It’s totally F*R*E*E to join and you can do it anyway, anytime. If you want to receive my Summer Chillenge Leap In Guide and get weekly Chill Tips from me,

jump in here.

The post appeared first on Original Impulse .

Chill with us this summer – join the CHILLENGE!

Summer is my favorite season. I always want to do and savor so much! Time outside, play time, garden time, swim time…and yet it seems to zoom by so fast.

For years I have hosted various summer games to help us really savor summer. We’ve had the Summer Thrills Scavenger Hunt and the Capture the Summer Wow Scavenger Hunt.

This year, I wanted to host a challenge for you to enjoy summer. But then I thought, oh hell no. The last thing we all need is another CHALLENGE. Right?!

We want to chill! So I have designed the first ever Summer Chillenge. The goal: to help you relax, enjoy and chill a little.

Why does chilling matter? Being able to make space for relaxing, daydreaming, savoring and nourishing our nervous systems is a vital practice for humans and especially for creative types.

Chilling is essential to the creative process.

We get our best ideas when we are walking, exercising, driving, relaxing or in the shower or bath. In short, when we are doing nothing or next to nothing.

This space is essential for us to listen to our own original impulse, to align with our inner compass and to tap into the divine source that feeds us our great ideas. If we are always rushing around doing, doing, doing, our creativity is tepid at best and we feel mostly stress.

Will you join me to chill out a bit more this summer? It’s easy. All you have to do is…chill. Here’s how:

* Know what ‘chill’ means for you. One woman’s chill is another’s hell.
* Share pictures of yourself in chill mode. In the hammock. By the pool or at the beach. Lying under a tree.
* Use the hashtag #Chillenge2018.
* Chill a friend. Tell them about the Chillenge and do chill things together.

For guidance on making it a Chillenge to remember, join the Chill Team. It’s F*R*E*E!

When you sign up, you’ll get your Chillenge Starter Guide. You will receive a weekly Chill Tip from me between June 4th and August 20th with inspiration for chilling.

Join the Chillenge here and watch your summer unfold in joyous and fun ways.

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the key travel practice we almost always overlook – and it makes trips so much better!

There’s almost nothing more exciting than planning for a trip. It’s fun considering options, researching the location and imagining all adventures I’ll have.

But we often set out on a trip with the wrong focus. We make elaborate plans of what we will see, do and eat. Yet we forget to get clear on what we want from our trips.

This missing piece to travel planning can make the difference between a great trip and one that you’d rather forget. Setting your intention for your trip can change everything.

An intention can help us magnetize the experiences we want to have beyond what we can plan. It can help us stay centered when travel plans shift. Consider these inquiries:

What kind of experience do you want to have?How do you want to feel?How do you want to be in the face of it all?How do you want to return home?

Some examples of travel intentions include:

In Hawaii, I am present with my husband on our honeymoon. Among all the activities and adventures, I intend to be present with him and with us. I use this time to connect and to solidify our commitment to each other and to our marriage. All the planning and decisions will be made with this in mind – connection, commitment and fun.

In Paris, I feed my curiosity. I discover new things and am open to the unexpected. I feel engaged and active but relaxed. I make time to linger in cafes and parks. I am sure to spend time with friends and make new friends. I am open to visual stimuli that makes its way into my art. I return home refreshed and full of new, creative ideas.

Set your travel intention

What about your upcoming trips? What intention might you set? Try this exercise from my Magic Journey, Magic Journal class to find and set a powerful intention.

Do a free-write about your upcoming trip. Write about everything you want to see, do, eat and experience. Write about what you want to feel. Go wild and make all the wishes you want for your trip.

Set a timer for 10 minutes and start with the prompt my intention for my trip…

Then, read through it and pull it into one or two sentences. Write your intention for your trip in the front of your travel journal. You can use rubber stamps or do your own lettering for your intention. You can also set an intention for your journal.

My own travel intention

I’m headed to Paris soon, where I will spend three weeks on my own.

While there, I will catch up with friends. I’ll absorb patterns for my 100 Day Project and explore new adventures in the city. There’s the Portes Ouvertes Belleville, which is a fantastic artist open studio weekend in Belleville. I might do a Coffee Cupping at Belleville Brulerie (in French!).

My intention is to have new experiences, fill my creative well and come back refreshed and ready for a great summer and work on my book.

Because I have been going to Paris every year since 2000, I often get requests for information about Paris. Last year I wrote an ebook with my approach to Paris that includes my favorites and resources. You can get your copy of Visit Paris Like an Artist here. It’s also a useful creativity guide for anyplace you are traveling. Here’s what a recent buyer said about it:

“I’m loving Visit Paris Like an Artist. It could be applied ANYWHERE one visits. Your book is wonderful reading… thanks.”

Get your copy here!

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Your creativity – is it worth it?

Years ago, when I first became a coach, I wrote an article called Creativity: Why Bother? It outlined 12 ways creativity impacts our lives, even if you don’t become rich and famous from your creative labors. I loved that article and still do.

But recently I have gone through another real-time experience of why my creative passions matter.

You may know that in addition to being a writer, I am a watercolor artist and illustrator. Aside from a very profitable year with my art, I haven’t made a lot of money from it. My main income comes from Original Impulse, where mostly I help people who want to write.

Late last year, I realized that I had to focus more on work and less on my art. Meaning, I had to release my goals/expectations of making money from my art. While this felt right, it also felt like a loss.

I tried to reassure myself that I was still an artist and would still make art for fun. I love the play and power that comes from seeing something colorful appear on the page in front of me. It’s much different than writing.

But aside from some gift cards, I haven’t been in my art studio much this year. I was busy designing and launching the Original Impulse Atelier and The Devoted Writer. I got busy with coaching clients and other projects. My art studio and sketchbook began to gather dust.

Did ‘busy’ happen to you, too? I have been craving my art time.

What works for me is to get some structure around my art-making. When I heard that The 100 Day Project was coming around, I had to commit. Since April 3rd, I have been making patterns with watercolor and ink.

But before the pattern project started, something happened that reminded me that making my art isn’t optional.

I went to a Dr. Sketchy meet-up. These are gatherings with a live model. For anyone who has studied drawing, sketching from a live (usually nude) model is one of the basics of learning how to draw or paint. Dr. Sketchy claims to be the anti-art school, with models wearing often outrageous costumes. It had always sounded fun, so on Easter evening, I grabbed my sketchbook and headed out.

The model posed in a corset and lots of feathers in 5, 10 and 20 minute poses. It had been awhile since I had sketched, so to start loose I used watercolor instead of a pen. It was fun to make quick, colorful studies. For the ten minute poses I did my usual practice of drawing with a pen and adding watercolor.

After each round, the sketchers were asked to bring their pieces to the front for a friendly competition. The moderator and some art guy were the judges. The other dozen or so people were very talented and had clearly gone to art school, so I didn’t expect to win.

But at the second round, as I watched them assess the art, I saw them pointing at my sketchbook. Could they be choosing mine? The moderator reached down and picked up my sketchbook. She held it up and announced it the winner.

I was shocked. I got a goody bag of Easter candy and pencils. For the rest of the day, I rode a wave of joy and delight.

Now, what was the big deal? The adult in me knows that a competition like this isn’t a big deal. It’s not about winning and it’s certainly not about the candy.

But this little victory struck me very deeply, reaching the part of me that cares passionately about making art, not for money or for accolades, but because it’s just who I am. Making marks and applying color to the page evokes a deep, innate joy. When I make art, I am me. When I explore line and color, everything else disappears and I access a presence and clarity that I rarely get elsewhere. This is why I teach the class Drawing as Meditation.

Back in the day, when I was first showing people my sketchbooks, I was surprised at the response. I am always surprised when people like my art. Not that I think it’s bad; it’s just that when I am making for making sake, others’ opinions don’t really matter.

But when I won the Dr. Sketchy competition, I realized that some part of me had given up on the art. And that winning was a reminder, a validation, of who I am. Sometimes we need an outer nudge. Sometimes an external force can help remind us that even if no one ever approves of our writing or art, it’s worth doing anyway.

This creative impulse is embedded deeply within us, and no matter what we do or think about the results, our original impulse to create is never going to leave us.

I’m having fun honoring my creative impulse with the 100 pattern project. I’ve always been in love with pattern and this is the perfect way to explore it.

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