In an effort to boost my creativity and to take life a little less seriously, I recently signed up for an on line drawing class called “Silly 5” offered by Carla Sonheim, author of Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists.

She uses classes like this to sort of trick people into learning how to draw. Although the assignments are to do silly things like drawing your feet without looking at them or to draw elephants hanging on trees instead of leaves, you are learning to observe more closely and improving your eye hand coordination without even thinking about it. If only exercise, dieting and improving your writing could be so easy…

In doing the exercises, I realized that one of my problems with drawing is also a common problem with writing. I want the picture to be perfect. I want to know where each line should go. I want to know what colors will be put where. I want to know all of what’s going to be included before I get started.
But that’s not how good art work or good stories go. You may have a sense of where you are headed. You may have an idea of what you want to accomplish. You can have an outline, just as you can sketch out the elements of the picture. But it’s okay, and in fact recommended, to get started without being entirely sure of how you will add depth and color.
It’s sort of like having a map or written directions, but understanding that you will need to make adjustments when you actually take the trip. Maybe you find that a street has been closed down or that your map instructs you to go up a wrong way. Maybe you see a Blue Jay in a tree down the street in the opposite direction and you want to get a closer look.
Another thing about drawing is that a picture can look pretty boring and sometimes downright ugly on its way to being beautiful. Same thing with writing. This is where practice and skill come in. This isn’t about raw talent. It’s about learning tips and tricks to take something that is dull and lifeless and to add some color or some more lines or some layers until it pops off the page.
So, if you don’t know exactly where something is going, don’t feel intimidated – it’s normal. Do not let it stop you from getting started.

Some days the stories get stuck. You know what to say, but not how to say it. Or worse, you’re not even sure what to say, you just know you have to say something. You could stare blankly at a blank screen. You could go eat a quart of ice cream and run around the block ten times. But sooner or later you have to actually put letters together to form words that form sentences that make some sort of sense.

When this happens and you can’t or don’t want to put off the writing, steal a technique from the art world and start doodling. To warm up or to get themselves moving, some artists will scribble, draw circles or just push a pencil around the page. What does that look like for writers?

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As I was debating whether I really wanted to go on a long run this weekend, my dear six-year-old looked at me with her earnest blue eyes and said, “Why are running so far?”

This is the million dollar question that you need to ask yourself whenever you write. Why am I writing this blog? Why am I writing this newsletter? Why am I writing this poem, book, letter?

There are two important reasons to ask the question. The first is that the answer will give you the motivation to write. If this is what you’ve determined you need to do to build your business, well then get writing. If you know a letter will make someone happy, get writing. If you don’t have a good answer for the “why” question, then maybe you are trying to do something you either shouldn’t or don’t need to do.

The second reason is that the answer to the why can help you figure out the content. Are you trying to connect with customers? What do they need to hear? Are you trying to get volunteers to pick up Girl Scout Cookies? What’s going to motivate them?

Well, why am I running so far? Isn’t it obvious? So I will have something to write about. That and I have been led to believe that it will keep me healthy.

Check out this video to see exactly what I meant with my post on words:

The Power of Words

This was sent to me by a blogging colleague and author of the insightful “Not Running a Hospital” (who ironically had not seen yesterday’s post).

When it comes to losing weight, there is a simple formula: eat less, exercise more. It may be simple, but that doesn’t make it easy.

Fortunately, the simple formula for writing better is much easier to follow: Write more, read more.

The writing more gets plenty of attention, but reading more is just as important and maybe a little easier. It’s not really how much you read or even what you read, it’s how you read. As you read, pay attention to the words, the sentence structure, the paragraphs. What draws you into the store and holds your interest? What makes you stop reading? If you find a piece boring, think about why.

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What is it with grandmas and dresses?

One of the best worst Christmas presents I ever received was a yellow dress, given to me by my grandmother when I was about 8.

I suppose it was pretty enough despite the square neck and puffy sleeves, but I hated it as soon as I opened the box. I didn’t wear dresses. At all. Ever. I was a strictly jeans and cowboy boots sort of kid. Not only that, all of my cousins – there were a lot of us – got $5 and pencils with their names on them. To me, this was way better than a stupid dress.

To make matters worse, I had not yet learned that all important skill of diplomacy and sparing a gift givers feelings. I don’t remember exactly what I said but I know from the reaction that I was pretty honest in expressing my feelings about the whole issue.

I decided recently that I wanted to write a story about this dress for my first grade Sunday School class, only I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to say. What would the point of the story be?

Sometimes it seems obvious – there’s a problem, you found a way to solve it. But even then, there may be other levels to explore.

Is this a humorous story about an out-of-touch grandma? Is it a cautionary tale about ungrateful children? Is it a heart-warming story about a little girl who loved her grandma so much she wore the ugly dress for class pictures that year?

Even if you think you know what you want to say about something, it’s worth poking at it a bit more to see if there is another way to go about it.

After all my meandering about the subject, this is what I think about that present: It’s become one of my favorite, and not because I ever fell in love with the dress, although I really did wear it for my class picture. Rather, it’s that this is a present I remember, and every time I do, I remember the giver, and she’s worth remembering. I’ve also decided that she must have seen me as a pretty little girl who would look cute in a dress, and sometimes it helps to look at your self through the eyes of others.