Creativity and Inspiration

Yoga and meditation should create the kind of internal stillness in which you can listen to your own distinct and defining voice. This tranquility should release creativity, inspiring to greater clarity and directness. Yoga and other practices should discipline my mind and keep it focused on my creative ventures.

The last two months of 2004, I started working seriously with personal journaling -- offline -- to escalate a more creative life. I am mentioning it here because it is a useful focal point to see how yoga and meditation come to bear on other realms of one's life.

Writing is part of my daily practice.

Start with a book

• Natalie Goldberg wrote Writing Down the Bones: Freeing The Writer Within (1986), now a classic. I am currently following her lead for journaling as a method of forging creative momentum. She's Buddhist, and it shows in the stirring silence between her words.
• Julia Cameron wrote The Artist's Way and The Artist's Way at Work and a dozen of other books that grew out of this system for creative recovery -- I keep running into people reading the book and done the course. It must be some kind of cult. Probably because it's been successful.
• Gotham Writers Workshops have brought out several books, have online and face-to-face (NYC) courses.

Washington, DC Area Resources

Sometimes, we crave human interaction when testing new writing styles. Feedback from readers or other authors can be an incentive to get over the hump.

• Washington Independent Writers
• Bethesda's own Writer's Center - I am fortunate of have a very reputable support center in my own backyard.
• Maryland Writers' Association

Other Online Resources

• Associations: Authors Guild ::: National Writers Union ::: American Society of Journalists and Authors ::: Society of Professional Journalists
• Arts and Literature Daily
• Publications: The Writer Magazine ::: Poets & Writers Magazine ::: Paris Review's DNA of Literature: Interviews with Writers at Work ::: Poets & Writers: From Inspiration to Publication ::: Writer's Digest
• Writer's Net
• Writers Write
• William Strunk, Jr. - The Element of Style, a classic in electronic format ::: Bartleby.com
• Software: The Journal software for keeping a personal journal
• Conversations Within ... Journal Writing and Inner Dialogue - a useful site to get started with a personal practice without a lot of preliminaries, much less than reading a book. Gerry Starnes does not seem to be updating the site since late 2003.

Poetry

• Professor Al Filreis's Modern & Contemporary American Poetry at the University Of Pennsylvania -- lots of interesting stuff. Also see Kelly Writers House

Also See

• BackdoorTech.com Outliners and Organizers