Fearless Creating in 5 Steps - How To Create Purely For The Love Of Creating

Whatever kind of creative projects you normally create, however many amazing things you’ve created in the past, sometimes there's nothing like the thrill of simply creating for the joy of creating.

The excitement of the unknown possibilities, the feeling of fear mixed with awe, the spontaneous free flow of ideas, words, images or sounds... It’s what we create for, it’s why creating is so important to us as creative people.

But how do you get to this point of enjoying your creativity? How do you get past all the fears, blocks and negative thoughts to just create?

Here’s a simple 5 step plan to help you create fearlessly – and love every moment of it:

1. Set your intentions. Decide for yourself to put aside at least an hour to commit to creating purely for the pleasure of it. Tell yourself you’re going to create for an hour, whatever happens. Set this intention of creating for one hour straight before you begin. If you say “I’ll try it for 10 minutes and see how I get on” it won’t be anything like as effective.

2. Decide on a form to create in. Choose a media or format that you've always wanted to try but never had the courage to. Or something you loved when you were a child but haven't returned to in years, maybe decades. Make it something that excites you and makes you feel you can’t wait to get started on.

3. Be prepared to create. Have your creative work space ready before hand. It’s no good setting yourself an hour to create then spending the first 45 minutes setting up your creative tools or equipment. Have it all ready so you can hit the ground running. Or rather, hit the canvas creating!

4. Free yourself from expectation. This is possibly the most important step. Don't have any expectations of yourself. Don’t worry whether or not you complete a piece of work within the time period you've set aside. The aim in fact is simply the experience of creating, not the "end product".

5. Create and enjoy! Whether it's finger painting, writing spontaneous prose, playing piano, tap dancing, carving wood or anything else, just begin, experiment, flow where it takes you, and enjoy the child-like sense of discovering at your capability to express your feelings and ideas, and the deep human need we all have to simply create...

Follow these 5 steps to get back in touch with the enjoyment of creating again.

Whatever other creative projects you work on, however large or small, however complex or simple, always make time to come back to creating just for the love of creating.

It will enhance every aspect of your creativity no end.

I invite you to take a positive step to increase your creativity today by downloading your free copy of the powerful and practical "Explode Your Creativity!" Action Workbook. Head over now to http://www.CoachCreative.com

From Creativity Coach Dan Goodwin

Creative Writing Journal - How Can A Creative Writing Journal Help My Creative Writing?

Do you wish you could have more creative writing ideas?

Would you love to be able to write more easily, more abundantly, more deeply?

The best way of being able to do this is by using a creative writing journal.

A creative writing journal is simply a portable notebook or sketchbook you keep with you wherever you go, and jot down your creative writing ideas in when they come to you.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it.

But how, and why, does this help your creative writing?

What makes a creative writer a creative writer? It’s not a trick question.

The answer is: they have creative ideas, they write them down, then they expand upon them so they have poems, stories, scripts and so on.

That’s really all there is to it.

But these three parts in sequence are essential:

1. Having ideas.

2. Capturing ideas.

3. Developing ideas into larger pieces of writing.

If a creative writer doesn’t have any ideas, their writing doesn’t even get started.

Where we often fear we don’t have enough ideas, the truth is that we do have the ideas, we just don’t capture them, then they pass by, forever gone and forgotten.

How often have you had a flash of inspiration, then a few hours, or even a few days later, remembered that you had a good idea, but can’t actually remember what it was?

If a creative writer doesn’t capture their ideas, they’re not a writer, they’re only a thinker!

By using a creative writing journal you capture these ideas, then you can go on to develop them.

All you need to do to capture your ideas is write them down. Use enough detail and description to try to store the essence of the idea, what made it exciting for you the moment it occurred.

The aim is for you to be able to return to your creative writing journal and the idea leaps out at you and gives you the same feeling as it did when it first came to you.

The more practiced you get at doing this, the fewer words you’ll need to jot down in your writing journal to capture this essence.

The final part of being a creative writer is developing your ideas.

If you don’t have any ideas, or you have very few ideas, it’s very difficult to expand them into rewarding pieces of writing.

But because you now have a creative writing journal bursting at the seams with ideas, this whole process is made so much easier for you.

The most effective way to use your creative writing journal here is to just grab the first idea that inspires you in your journal. Go with that creative energy and start writing out from that idea and expanding it how you see fit.

This is how using a creative writing journal can help your creative writing in its 3 essential stages –

1. Having ideas

2. Capturing ideas

3. Developing ideas.

Invest in a creative writing journal for yourself today, start using it and you’ll find in just a few weeks, the difference it make to your creative writing is profound.

Take the next step in getting your creative writing kick started right now with the FREE 5 part creative writing ecourse at http://www.YouAreACreativeWriter.Com.

Creativity Coach and keen creative writer Dan Goodwin helps people who are struggling to be as creative as they know they can be. See more at his website: http://www.CoachCreative.com

Creative Confidence - Your 5 Step Plan For How To Survive A Crisis In Creative Confidence

Confidence can be the most influential and powerful element of all in what we creative, how often we create, and how bravely we create.

When our self-confidence is high, creating comes freely and abundantly, gushing like a waterfall in the Spring thaw.

We create every moment we can, and our creative work is bold, daring, experimental, each project building on the momentum and success of the previous one.

This confidence in our creativity can’t help but spill over into the rest of our creative life. So we walk with a bounce in our step, feel more sociable, more lovable, more capable, more alive.

All of this stems from having a high level of self-confidence.

Without strong confidence in our creativity, it’s a somewhat different picture.

We can’t get going on any project without feeling everything we do – every sentence, brushstroke, note, stitch or dance step – is weak, off kilter, lacklustre, uninspired.

Because our confidence has more holes in than an old man’s vest, we become super critical of every last detail.

Instead of gliding through the inevitable quirks, tangents and bumps that occur along the road naturally when we create, we’re brought to a sharp stop by the slightest sign that all is not flowing perfectly.

So we create less and less, and shrink further and further back into ourselves, afraid even of creating the things we usually find as easy as breathing...

In short, what starts as feeling uncreative and a bit stuck can quickly develop into a major crisis of creative confidence.

So what can we do? How can we overcome this crisis and even start to get that confidence back?

Here’s a proven 5 step plan for getting back YOUR creative confidence when a crisis hits:

1. Don’t panic. All of us in our creative lives experience ebbs and flows, highs and lows. They don’t last. That said, we’re not helpless slaves to some unknown force, there are specific, effective actions we can take to get us back on track when all seems to be hopeless and in disarray.

2. Know your creative strengths. We can’t be brilliant at everything we do, there are some things we do better than other things. By identifying our creative strengths, we can then focus on these during times when our confidence is lower, and they will help pull us through more quickly and surely.

3. Learn confidence from others. Think about people who you consider confident in life, creatively or otherwise. What are the their key “Components of Confidence”, the factors common to all confident people? How do they communicate, act and behave? What’s their mental attitude, their outlook? What do they believe about themselves? How can you start to take on these traits and habits yourself?

4. Practice being confident. Once you realise what your strengths are, and what confidence in others looks, sounds and feels like, practice, practice, practice. Confidence doesn’t just appear from nowhere, it’s a skill, an attitude, and a way of being that we can improve by finding what works specifically for increasing our confidence, then doing it more and more.

5. Take small, steady steps. If you’re confidence is low, then it’s maybe not the best time to take on the biggest and most complex creative project of your life. Start a small, specific project and don’t attach a fixed outcome to it, just enjoy creating and see how it develops. Then build on what you enjoy with a new, slightly more ambitious project.

Remember, having confidence isn’t like buying a ticket in the Confidence Lottery and then crossing your fingers and hoping your ticket wins the big prize.

Confidence is something you can learn, practice and develop, then during those times when you feel your creativity is getting a little stuck, you can draw on that confidence to pull you through.

Take the next step in being more confident and increase your creativity today.

Get your copy of Creativity Coach Dan Goodwin’s powerful and practical "Explode Your Creativity!" Action Workbook. It’s FREE when you sign up to the FREE twice monthly ezine “Create Create!” at http://www.CoachCreative.com

Creative Writing Journal - 5 Biggest Mistakes That Make Using A Creative Writing Journal Ineffective

Using a creative writing journal is the most effective way in reaching your creative writing potential.

It can help you have a greater number of ideas, have more vivid and powerful ideas, reduce the blank screen syndrome of writers block, and allow you to write more deeply, more fluidly and more often.

But only if you use it in the right way!

Here are the 5 biggest mistakes we make that mean using a creative writing journal is frustratingly ineffective, and how to turn these mistakes around:

1. Always looking for the perfect writing journal. Much like some of us may be on a lifelong quest for the perfect handbag, car, or partner, going through versions that don’t quite live up to our perfect expectations like a starving fox goes through a coop of chickens, you may be waiting for the perfect writing journal.

It’s the same affliction – perfectionism. It doesn’t matter if your journal is a children’s exercise book that cost a few pence, what matters is that you use it. The more you use it, the easier it becomes and the better your creative writing.

2. Having a creative writing journal you’re scared to use. Maybe you decided to invest in a beautiful leather bound journal encrusted with rare jewels that you had to re-mortgage your house to purchase.

Ok maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. The point is if you have a creative writing journal that is so beautiful or expensive you’re afraid to write in it, it’s not serving its purpose. Get another journal that won’t intimidate you and start using it right away.

3. Not taking your creative writing journal with you wherever you go. So you bought a creative writing journal and can’t wait to use. The trouble is it’s sitting there on your shelf unused because you keep forgetting to take it out with you.

Put your creative writing journal somewhere you can’t forget to take it with you. By your house keys is a great place. Whenever you leave the house, grab your keys, and grab your writing journal, so you’re always ready to capture those creative ideas!

4. Not developing any of the ideas you capture. Maybe you have been using a creative writing journal and it’s full of great ideas for creative writing. This part of the process you have down to a fine art, congratulations.

But you’re not ever doing anything with these ideas, they’re just lying unloved in your journal. Show them the respect they deserve! Every week, or even every day, open your creative writing journal, pick the first idea that excites and inspires you, and start writing...

5. Not capturing ideas in enough detail. You’ve been taking your creative writing journal out wherever you go, and noting down ideas when they’ve come to you. Now your journal is packed with ideas waiting to be developed.

Except when you go to expand on them, the ideas are too vague, there’s no passion in them, they don’t inspire you. Ensure that when you first capture your ideas, you write enough detail so that when you return to them they’ll hit you with the same force and excitement as when they first came to you. The more you do this, the easier it becomes.

These are the 5 biggest mistakes that make using a creative writing journal ineffective. Which do you relate to?

Take these tips on board today, start using you’re a creative writing journal in the way that works best for you, and see the positive change in your creative writing.

Take the next step in getting your creative writing kick started right now with the FREE 5 part creative writing ecourse at http://www.YouAreACreativeWriter.Com.

Creativity Coach and keen creative writer Dan Goodwin helps people who are struggling to be as creative as they know they can be. See more at his website: http://www.CoachCreative.com

Your Creative Writing Journal - 7 Reasons To Never Leave Home Without Your Creative Writing Journal

The most effective tool any creative writer can have is a creative writing journal of some kind.

For anyone creative, ideas are our lifeblood, they’re the starting point for everything we ever create. Without ideas, we have nowhere to go, nothing to develop, we’re completely redundant.

A creative writing journal is a fantastic way of capturing, generating, storing and developing your creative ideas. In fact, as a creative writer, you should never leave home without it.

Here are 7 reasons why:

1. You capture ideas when they happen. The biggest reason you don’t have more creative ideas, isn’t that you don’t HAVE enough ideas. It’s simply that you don’t capture them and they disappear forever. With a creative writing journal, you can capture these ideas as they happen, then return to develop them at a later date.

2. You strengthen the belief that you find it easy to have new ideas. Once you start using your writing journal to capture ideas, you’ll realise how many you actually have. The more you realise how many ideas you have, the more confident you’ll be about having more.

3. You can write when you feel like writing. A common excuse for not writing is “I’m not in the right mood”. If you keep your creative writing journal with you at all times, when that mood is right, you can get straight into writing without delay.

4. You can organise ideas more easily. When you start a new journal, you can divide it into a few sections. Depending on what you write, you may have a section for character ideas, a section for scene ideas, another for plot ideas and another for phrases that just come to you. When you have a new idea, jot it in the right section and you organise as you go.

5. You help your ideas to breed. There’s something about having ideas collected together. They breed much in the same way as young rabbits! By keeping all your ideas in one journal, it focuses your creativity and allows related ideas to form more quickly and easily.

6. You give yourself permission to be more creative. By having your creative writing journal with you at all times, you’re sending your subconscious a strong message: “I’m a writer, I’m ready and prepared to write at any time.” Your subconscious responds by feeding you more ideas.

7. You inspire others to write. If you were sitting in a café and saw someone take out their journal and start writing, what would you think? As a writer yourself, no doubt you’d admire them, and start thinking about what you could write about the scene around you. The same positive effect happens for others when they see you using your journal.

These are just 7 of the many reasons why as a creative writer you should never leave home without you creative writing journal.

If you don’t have a journal, get one and start using it as soon as possible. The impact it will make to your creative writing will amaze you.

Get your creative writing kick started right now with the FREE 5 part creative writing ecourse at http://www.YouAreACreativeWriter.Com

Creativity Coach and keen creative writer Dan Goodwin helps people who are struggling to be as creative as they know they can be. See more at his website: http://www.CoachCreative.com

Creative Writing Journal - What It Is And Why As A Creative Writer You Can't Afford To Be Without It

As a creative writer, you need tools in order to write and create. Otherwise you’re just a creative thinker!

Probably THE single most useful and powerful tool you can use to enhance your creative writing is a creative writing journal.

A creative writing journal is simply a notebook or sketchbook that’s portable enough for you to carry around with you wherever you go. It can be small enough to fit in your hand, or the size of a typical magazine.

You can have a journal with lined paper, squared paper, coloured paper or plain paper. It can be as simple as a cheap paper exercise book, or as sophisticated as an sumptuous Italian leather bound multi-sectioned journal.

What’s important is not what it looks like, but how easy it is for you to use.

So how do you use your creative writing journal?

Essentially your creative writing journal is your ideas book. It’s where you capture and collect all of your ideas for creative writing. As soon as you have a new idea, jot it down in your journal.

The most fatal mistake many writers make, which leads to complaints like “I never have enough ideas” is not in fact that you’re not able to have enough ideas. It’s simply that you’re not capturing enough ideas.

As soon as they appear, you think to yourself something like “this is a great idea, I’ll remember it and work on it this evening when I get in”.

Guess what happens? Yep, a couple of days later you suddenly remember how you had a great idea for your writing. But can you remember what it was? Of course not!

Using a creative writing journal is the best way to avoid this frustrating and disappointing experience.

Taking this to another level, often even if you have a fragment of an idea and jot down a few words on a scrap of paper or something, when you return to it, the original excitement you had, and the essence of the idea, is diluted, somehow lost.

By using a creative writing journal, you can capture your ideas in enough detail that the essence of the idea is preserved. With practice, you can note down just a few phrases that get to the very heart and core of what your idea is based around.

When you return to your journal, the essence of the idea hits you once more like the fragrance on a lover's shirt you find the morning after a wonderful night together.

If you don’t use a creative writing journal - or only use one occasionally – you’re missing out on becoming the creative writer you could be.

Invest in a journal today and start carrying it with you wherever you go. You’ll notice the difference to the quantity and richness of your ideas in hardly any time at all.

Take the next step in getting your creative writing kick started right now with the FREE 5 part creative writing ecourse at http://www.YouAreACreativeWriter.Com

Creativity Coach and keen creative writer Dan Goodwin helps people who are struggling to be as creative as they know they can be. See more at his website: http://www.CoachCreative.com

Creative Writing Journal - The Creative Writer's Secret Weapon - Are You Using One?

What's the difference between a prolific creative writer and a writer who struggles to write consistently, and never feels they have enough good ideas?

Actually, there’s very little difference.

There are essentially two parts to being a prolific creative writer, and writing close to your true potential. Both of them can be hugely enhanced by using the creative writer’s secret weapon – a creative writing journal. Here’s how:

Part 1. Having ideas.

All of us who write are capable of having a steady stream of great creative writing ideas. Yes that includes you.

The main difference between those who have plenty of ideas, and those who feel they hardly have any is not ACTUALLY the amount of ideas they have.

It’s the number of ideas they NOTICE they have, and how many of these they capture. Here’s where the creative writing journal comes in.

By having a creative writing journal close to hand wherever you go, as soon as a fragment of an idea comes to you, you can jot it down in your journal. Just the act of writing the idea down instantly gives it “permission” to develop into something more.

If you have the idea in your head and think you’ll remember it, you’re very likely to be disappointed. It’s not a weakness or a failing on your part, we all do the same.

Accept that you can’t remember every glimmer of an idea in your head and begin writing the ideas down. That way you’re guaranteed to have them to develop in the future into larger pieces of writing.

Which brings us on to:

Part 2. Developing these ideas into pieces of writing.

Now, because you’ve been jotting down your writing ideas in your creative writing journal, when you sit down to write, you’ll have plenty of material to work from.

How many times have you sat at your desk or work space and stared anxiously at a blank page or blank screen, wondering not just where the next writing ideas will come from, but if you’ll EVER have a creative idea again?!

By using your journal you virtually eliminate this kind of writers block.

The easiest way to use your creative writing journal to develop your ideas, is to simply scan through the ideas you’ve recently captured and see what catches your eye and gives you a tingle of excitement.

Don’t feel you have to work through every idea you write down in sequence, it simply won’t work.

ALWAYS go with where the creative energy and inspiration is. Pick an idea or a couple of connected ideas from your creative writing journal that leap out at you, whether you wrote them in there an hour ago or a year ago.

Follow that creative energy and start developing the idea in whichever direction it takes you.

A creative writing journal is the creative writer’s secret weapon. As we’ve seen, a journal helps you greatly in both of the two key elements of creative writing.

Can you afford NOT to be using a creative writing journal any longer?

Take the next step in getting your creative writing kick started right now with the FREE 5 part creative writing ecourse at http://www.YouAreACreativeWriter.Com

Creativity Coach and keen creative writer Dan Goodwin helps people who are struggling to be as creative as they know they can be. See more at his website: http://www.CoachCreative.com

Creativity And Perfectionism - A Marriage Made In Hell - Here's 7 Reasons To File For Divorce

Perfectionism is one of the biggest reasons why creative people don't reach their creative potential and become as creative as they know they can be.

Creativity and perfectionism are not just less than ideal partners, they’re more like a marriage made in hell.

Here are 7 unreasonable demands of perfectionism that show why your creativity should be filing for divorce and leaving it behind!

- Unreasonable Demand 1: You won’t produce amazing art at a moment’s notice. I expect you to be ready and able at the drop of a hat.

Reason to leave: Creativity can’t be turned on and off like a light switch. Yes you can become more creative, more often, but it’s unrealistic for anyone to be instantly creative on demand.

- Unreasonable Demand 2: You make far too many mistakes. In fact making any mistakes is wrong, you should get it right first time.

Reason to leave: We all make mistakes, it’s how we learn. Also, these “mistakes” often open a channel or trigger an idea you wouldn’t have otherwise thought of.

- Unreasonable Demand 3: You waste time just daydreaming when you should be hard at work creating.

Reason to leave: Daydreaming, letting your creative ideas mingle and develop in your mind is time very well spent. Creative ideas need to find their feet and grow naturally, they don’t just appear as perfectly formed finished projects.

- Unreasonable Demand 4: You’re inconsistent. Some of your work is much better than others. Why can’t you create brilliant stuff every time?

Reason to leave: Any artist who’s interested on their own development and growth will be inconsistent. To develop, you need to take risks, try different things. Some of these will work out better than others. It all adds to making you a better artist.

- Unreasonable Demand 5: You procrastinate. You should just pull yourself together and get going. What’s so hard about creating?

Reason to leave: There are many reasons why you might procrastinate. One of the biggest is often the fear of making a mistake or making a mess. Putting on extra pressure to be perfect just makes it harder!

- Unreasonable Demand 6: You change your mind all the time. You tell me you have a great new idea, then the next thing I know you’re working on something else.

Reason to leave: Ideas are the lifeblood of any creative artist. They come and go, some you’ll take and create wonderful art from, others won’t get developed. You’ll never have time to use every idea, just give your best to whatever you’re working on now.

- Unreasonable Demand 7: You’ve got far too many unfinished creative projects floating around. Just finish them!

Reason to leave: It’s OK to not finish every project. Sometimes you’ll come to a natural end and realise the project is not worth continuing with. Trust yourself that you’ll finish the ones that are most important to you.

Which of these unreasonable demands resonates most strongly with you?

What steps can you take, starting today, to separate yourself from the kind of perfectionism that so limits your creativity?

Act on at least one of these reasons today, and you’ll soon been wondering not only how your creativity got married to perfectionism, but how they ever thought it’s be good idea to get together at all!

There are many ways to be more creative and overcome some of the blocks to creativity such as perfectionism.

I invite you to take a positive step to increase your creativity today by downloading your free copy of the powerful and practical "Explode Your Creativity!" Action Workbook at http://www.CoachCreative.com

From Creativity Coach Dan Goodwin