Living a creative life
Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. It's easy to think of creativity as an act of creating something out of thin air. A novel, a painting, a sculpture; these are all tangible products that didn't exist until they were created. We shouldn't believe that creativity is always about making something up, however. Sometimes, it's…
Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. Currently I'm reading The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found by scholar and classicist Mary Beard. Pompeii is briefly referenced in my current writing-project-in-progress, so I'm reading about the city primarily for research. Fundamentally, however, I'm reading a well-researched book by a respected historian about life in…
Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. Even if, like me, you don't have children, you probably have some awareness of the ongoing debate about school start times. Teenagers tend to stay up late - sometimes it's so they can text with friends or play video games, but many times it's also because of homework,…
Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. I recently self-published a novella that I started writing in 2017. It was inspired by the life (and death, in early 2017) of a dog that I adopted from a shelter in 2002. It's called Buddy and Thomas, and it's about a stubborn dog that disrupts the life…
Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. My wife and I both needed dental work recently beyond a routine cleaning or filling. Faced with the prospect of dental bills sufficient to make a down payment on a house, we struggled with what to do. Finally it dawned on us that we were not constrained by…
Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. Being over a certain age, I'm way past the point of demonstrating myself to be a prodigy. Although I did display some aptitude for music at a fairly young age, I lacked the discipline to pursue it in depth. I mostly enjoyed all the great sounds I could…
Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. As a lifelong insomniac, I looked forward to reading Benjamin Reiss' 2017 book Wild Nights: How Taming Sleep Created Our Restless World. I wasn't disappointed. Wild Nights is not a book about how to get a better night's sleep. Instead, it's a cultural study of the history of…
