Small blue and white bird perched on fence post

The Creative Process: A Summation

Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. I've been writing for this site for a bit over two-and-a-half years. Recently, the thought came to me that a summing up of where we've been might be in order. This is my current (most recent) take on the creative process. Like most things in life, this is…

Photo of 4 playing cards: King of clubs, queen of diamonds, king of hearts, and queen of spades

The Creative Gambler

Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. I want to say up front that I don't advocate gambling in the conventional sense. The house always wins, and there are no exceptions to this rule. However, I've been thinking this week about Kenny Rogers' 1978 song The Gambler (written by Don Schlitz in 1976). Specifically, the…

Photo of partial page from print edition of Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

Insightful Examples of Inciting Incidents

Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. I've been thinking a lot lately about inciting incidents and the different ways they can be used in fiction. An inciting incident generally launches the primary conflict or action in a story. Joseph Campbell referred to the inciting incident as a call to action. Sometimes our characters seek…

Wildflowers overlooking the town of Tarascon-sur-Ariege in southern France

Go Astray

Welcome back to the Creative Life Adventure. I watched a delightful documentary recently (as I write this, it's currently streaming on Netflix). Bathtubs Over Broadway introduces us to the world of corporate musicals from the perspective of former Late Show With David Letterman writer Steve Young. First, Young discovered the likes of The Bathrooms are…

Black and white image of Montreal skyline with mural of Leonard Cohen

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…

Brown leather-bound note book

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…