creativity Archives - Page 32 of 37

The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus
by Jen Bryant (Author) and Melissa Sweet (Illustrator)

Booktalk: For shy young Peter Mark Roget, books were the best companions — and it wasn’t long before Peter began writing his own book. But he didn’t write stories; he wrote lists. Peter took his love for words and turned it to organizing ideas and finding exactly the right word to express just what he thought. His lists grew and grew, eventually turning into one of the most important reference books of all time.

Snippet:
Peter’s family moved often, so making friends was difficult.

But books, Peter discovered, were also good friends. There were always plenty around, and he never had to leave them behind.

When he was eight, he started to write his own book. On the cover, he wrote Peter, Mark, Roget. His Book.

But instead of writing stories, he wrote lists.

See the book trailer.

Six Traits Mini Lesson

Trait: Ideas Writing a picture book biography can be tricky. How can you talk about an entire life with so few pages? You have to leave room for the art, too.

After you do your research and are ready to write, begin with the most important idea. Why was the person famous? Focusing on this idea as you write your draft will help you decide what to include in the story–and what to leave out.

Roget was famous because of his book.

When he was eight, he started to write his own book. On the cover, he wrote Peter, Mark, Roget. His Book.

And what kind of book was it?

But instead of writing stories, he wrote lists.

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Fearless Creating: A Step-by-Step Guide To Starting and Completing Your Work of Art
by Eric Maisel (Author)

Booktalk: For writers, painters, or performers in any field, new hope for overcoming creative blocks and finishing the art of their dreams.

The blank page, empty canvas, or uncarved stone will often fill artists with dread. But so may the thought of finishing, showing, or even selling their work. It is in this “artistic anxiety” that creative blocks begin.

With an understanding that could only be gained through years of experience in counseling artists, writers, and performers, Eric Maisel, Ph.D. discusses each stage of creation-wishing, choosing, starting, working, completing, selling–and the anxieties particular to each. He then shows how these inhibiting tensions can be turned to artistic advantages, how truth and beauty arrive in the work of art precisely because, and only when, anxiety has been understood, embraced, and resolved. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Snippet: Like a Laurence Olivier who experiences severe stage fright but still acts, like a Maria Callas who experiences severe stage fright but still sings, it is our job to exclaim, “Both creating and not creating make me anxious, and I choose the anxiety of creating.” The task is to replace paralyzing anxieties with hungry-mind anxiety, with the anxiety of wanting so badly to create that the walls of Jericho will not stand up to our trumpeting. This is perhaps a strange idea, but our goal is not to grow calmer but to substitute one anxiety for another. But in fact every challenge in life is met exactly that way.

You choose to do something challenging not because you expect a worry-free experience, but because you want the experience so badly that you accept beforehand the new anxieties you are about to experience.