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,…
career
Is Anyone Watching? Should You Care?
Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure We've all heard the phrase “Dance like nobody's watching.” It shows up in Facebook memes and on motivational posters. It has been credited to a variety of sources, including Mark Twain (it doesn't sound to me like something Twain would have said). The website Quote Investigator has an…
Craft vs. Attitude
Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. In a previous post I mentioned the book Conversations with Charlie Haden, a series of interviews with the great musician conducted by Josef Woodard. Haden had a long working relationship with another legendary musician, Pat Metheny, and Metheny participates in one of the interviews in the book. In…
Creativity is People!
I'll be the first to admit I'm not a people person.
Creative Credit
Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. This post is basically a rant, and doesn't apply to the majority of readers, so my apologies up front. While browsing Twitter recently, I saw a retweet from a writer who included a photograph with her post. Since I'm involved with both writing and photography, I'm always interested…
Creative Comebacks
Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. I recently came across a compact disc recording of Elvis Presley's comeback special (officially titled "Singer Presents...Elvis!") that aired on NBC in December, 1968. Presley hadn't performed before a live audience in years. It was a dramatic example of a career comeback that, for a few years at…
Schedule Some Rejection
Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. I've been reading a history of western classical music recently. In a chapter on Johannes Brahms, I found this passage very interesting. It's from an 1859 letter Brahms wrote to his friend, violinist Joseph Joachim, following one of the early performances of Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 in…
Quarterly (Self) Review
Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. Earlier this year, I made a decision that involved what I call "jumping off a cliff." I left my conventional day job for a life of free-lance writing and photography. There was (and still is) a lot of risk involved, but my personal risk isn't the subject of…
Concentrate Your Fire
Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. I've been reading Dr. Maxwell Maltz's 1960 book Psycho-Cybernetics. While the book occasionally strays into the neighborhood I call "crackpottery," there is a lot of useful information. I'm not a fan of the term "self-help," but it's the term that's commonly accepted, so we'll go with that. If…
Rest Like LeBron James
Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. I'll acknowledge up front that I'm not a sports fan. I'm not a sports fan to such an extent that I would barely know the difference between a 5-iron and a cricket bat. However, I appreciate that athletics have a lot in common with the creative arts. Success…