Stark Raving Muse

The Hidden Barrier to Finding Creative Time

Parents: Check your guilt at the door and choose art -- for the benefit of you, your kids, my kids, and, let's be honest, the whole entire world.

What to Do with the Novel in Your Head

I can’t count the number of times someone has told me they have a novel in their head. But this time, it was different.

Why Trusting the Process is Bullshit

You have to show up for the creative process. You have to practice your art every day. But you don’t have to trust it. What you have to trust is something much harder than the process.

The Parent-Artist: When Worlds, and Identities, Collide

Reconciling the parenting identity with the artist/writer identity to become a parent-artist or a parent-writer.

Why Work Before Play Doesn’t Work (Making Time for Art, Part 4)

Work Before Play is an old Puritanical principle that shortchanges you before your day has even begun. Here's why -- and here's how to transform the old ways into something that works better for artists, writers, parents, and other creative types.

Watching the Clock (Making Time for Art, Part 3)

Learn how to cultivate awareness about time so you can manage it better and get more art, writing, or other creative work done.

What to Do with Distraction (Making Time for Art, Part 2)

How to dispel distraction and fan the fire of focus so you have more time for writing, art, and other creative projects.

Making Time for Art (Part 1 of 4)

Lack of time (or, rather, the perceived lack of time) has always been my number-one reason (or, rather, my number-one excuse) for not writing or making art. As it turns out, I'm not unusual. At. All.

Why You’re Not Making Art: The Truth About Inspiration

I know plenty of people who are sitting around waiting for inspiration so they can make art. I also know lots of people who’ve decided to take matters into their own hands and orchestrate inspiration themselves instead of waiting around for it. But the most successful artists I know don’t do either. Inspiration is a [...]

A Little Update

I know you know that I haven’t been posting every day lately as I was most of the summer. There’s a reason for that: I realized that what I had to say on a daily basis wasn’t nearly as interesting (at least to me) as when I took a step back and let things roll [...]