Be Awesome [Inspiration]

Source: Uploaded by user via Jon on Pinterest

Imagination without heart work = a daydream
Hard work without imagination = a chore
Imagination + hard work = awesome
Be awesome.

The choice is yours [Quote]

"This week you will stun the world with your vision, buoyant energy and creative brilliance, or you will bore us to death. The choice, as always, is yours."

-Brendon Burchard

via Give Yourself a Permission Slip: A Message For Women 

Just be an author.

A young person had a question for Neil Gaiman on his Tumblr blog, and he had a lovely answer:

I want to be an author when I grow up. Am I insane?
Yes. Growing up is highly overrated. Just be an author.

A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable [Quote]

A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It's only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate. - Steven Pressfield, Do the Work

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Dreams don't work unless you do [Quote]

Source: allthatinspires.me via Jon on Pinterest

Sadly, I fall into this all too often

via GoComics

Only create things you can’t not create [Quote]

By Me

"Fear of protecting your platform can’t be what drives your creative process. Only create things you can’t not create. Even if that means losing some of your audience."

from Dear musicians, authors, bloggers & me. | Jon Acuff's Blog

As always, some great points from Jon Acuff (make sure you click through and read the whole post).

Some days the dragon wins

When I read this post last night just before bed, I immediately emailed myself the link with the note "OMG YES!"

The whole thing is short and worth reading in its entirety for the full message, but this is the part that really hit me:

"Your manuscript was not written. Your miles were not run. Your dream was not dreamed. But, and this is an awful big but, that was just today. Tomorrow is a new day."

I have a tendency to fall into the trap of "I didn't achieve my goal today, so I'm never going to." I'm slowly learning to climb out of that hole and keep moving forward, brushing off the dirt of self-doubt and negative self-talk that clings to me afterward.


The dragon definitely won most of the last week. And I think the last couple days, I barely stood up to fight it. I'm back to fighting today, sword and shield in hand, partially thanks to this post.

photo via Library of Congress

I think I'm going to create a prominent "Having a bad day?" bookmark on my computer which links to that post so I can read it whenever I need to.

There Be Dragons by Jon Acuff

I used to do this...

Unfortunately, "Staring out the window" seems to have been replaced by a circle marked "Staring at a screen" and the intersection does not often result in inspiration. I need to remember to start staring out the window (or just into space) again.

From Indexed

New Blog: Creativity for Happy Endings

My friend *lizzie starr has started a new blog on creativity...

Creativity for Happy Endings

"How will this blog present creativity? Hopefully in a fun and delightful way. I'm gonna start out with a creative alphabet--words and concepts to define, describe and encourage creativity in all of us. And, no, just because I'm an author, it doesn't mean that's the only kind of creativity we'll talk about. I'll have guest bloggers with their own creative outlooks. I'll ask questions and… if you have questions, don't hesitate to ask! If I don't have a clue, we'll find the answers together. (If you build it, he will come.)" 

*lizzie is a great cheerleader who helps keep our local group of writers motivated. Check out the new blog and cheer her on!

Some thoughts for the new year

YouTube - 45 Lessons

Thanks to Tonya for emailing this to me (long ago) :)

"It's not a waste of time. Do it."

Like a lot of other people, I watched the Oscars last night. I was mostly unimpressed by the show, the speeches (mostly meh), the dresses (mostly ugly & some which were fine, but not worn by the right person) and the dancing (what was up with that?). The entire show was a bit of a slog.

However, I was especially struck by a couple of speeches near the end of the night. Sandra Bullock's acceptance speech made me cry - it was so very much the sort speech you'd expect from her, with humor and tears, and I'm very glad she won.

Another speech spoke to my heart and was probably missed or ignored by many, since it wasn't one of the big six. Michael Giacchino received the Oscar for Original Score for his work on Up. His words echoed through my thoughts the rest of the night and still do this morning, and I wanted to share them with you. Unfortunately, I can't find an embeddable version of the video, so if you'd like to watch it, you can watch here. I'll also include his words below:

Thank you, guys. When I was... I was nine and I asked my dad, "Can I have your movie camera? That old, wind-up 8 millimeter camera that was in your drawer?" And he goes, "Sure, take it." And I took it and I started making movies with it and I started being as creative as I could, and never once in my life did my parents ever say, "What you're doing is a waste of time." Never. And I grew up, I had teachers, I had colleagues, I had people that I worked with all through my life who always told me what you're doing is not a waste of time. So that was normal to me that it was OK to do that. I know there are kids out there that don't have that support system so if you're out there and you're listening, listen to me: If you want to be creative, get out there and do it. It's not a waste of time. Do it. OK? Thank you. Thank you. [via Oscar.com]

I hope every child can receive this kind of encouragement and support in their life. And it's a good thing for adults to be reminded of, as well, since the world tends to stop telling us creativity is not a waste of time once we're grown.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vlastula/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Get going!

A friend sent this to me yesterday:

Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the ground each morning, 
the devil says,  "OH CRAP, SHE'S UP"!

Thanks, Sharee! It's just the sort of kick in the pants I needed this week.