Living a creative life
"What a man thinks is his own business. What matters is what he does." -from The Honourable Schoolboy, by John le Carre Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. In a recent post, I referenced Robert Caro's diligent research process. If you haven't read any of Caro's books, either The Years of Lyndon Johnson series…
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. 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. 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…
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…
Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. I never get to travel as often I'd like, but I have had the opportunity to travel a little this summer. It reminds me how beneficial travel is to creative ventures and to life in general. Examples of creative travelers are well known. Van Gogh did some of…
Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. I'm in the middle of reading a collection of some of Vincent Van Gogh's letters, primarily letters he wrote to his brother Theo over a period of 18 years. It's a fascinating body of work. Van Gogh wrote so many letters that they end up providing a sort…
