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creativity inspiration & influence planning & productivity

Creative and connected #6 – how to be a creative entrepreneur

July 21, 2017

 An entrepreneur creates value from ideas.

Joanna Penn, The Creative Penn

creative portfolio

Inspiring resources to keep you creative and connected – this week with a focus on being a creative entrepreneur and portfolio careers.

Here’s a round-up of what I’ve enjoyed and shared this week on various social platforms with a focus on how we can make a living from our creative skills.

I’ve been listening to podcasts and reading about being a creative entrepreneur and making a living from creativity for years now. It’s been part of “the long runway” – as Elizabeth Gilbert calls it in one of her Magic Lessons podcast – or preparation for this transition I’m now more actively embracing.

In this post, I share recent podcasts, books and posts on this theme as well as resources and contacts I have found valuable over time. A key focus is how we can work as multi-passionate people on portfolio careers with a number of income streams. These streams can include activities such as writing, coaching, speaking, self-publishing, workshops and online courses.

Podcasts on creativity and money

Real Artists Don’t Starve. Creativity and Money with Jeff Goins – on The Creative Penn

I loved this recent chat with Jeff Goins on my favourite podcast, The Creative Penn. It focuses on Jeff’s new book, Real Artists Don’t Starve: Timeless Strategies for Thriving in the new Creative Age. Jeff summarises key themes around creative success: showing up, discipline and taking a portfolio or multiple streams approach.

Key takeaways:

  • Jeff’s writing practices – his goal is “to write 500 new words every day”. He has a writing routine called the three bucket system. Each day, “I start something new, I finish something old, and I publish something. And so the three buckets are ideas, drafts, and edits. My work is every day, to move something from one bucket to the next.”  I’m so inspired by this idea of structuring work into a pipeline of action!
  • portfolio ways of working as a successful model for creatives and the benefits of having multiple streams of income. These streams include writing, workshops, online courses, speaking, coaching, as well as other revenue sources like property.
  • timeless strategies for creative success – the focus of his new book – about 12 things thriving artists do to achieve success.

How to be a Badass at Making Money – Jen Sincero on Your Kick-Ass Live Podcast with Andrea Owen

This podcast chat is about limiting beliefs around making money. It’s based on Jen Sincero’s latest book, You Are a Badass at Making Money: Master the Mindset of Wealth. This is a fun, energetic conversation that explores mindset issues that can stop us taking action.

Books and reading notes

I’ve continued reading David Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity. It’s becoming heavily underlined as each page speaks to me around work and identity. We’ll be exploring this book in more detail here soon on Quiet Writing.

I’m nearly finished Joanna Penn’s Business for Authors: How to be an Author Entrepreneur which I’ve been enjoying as an audiobook. This is recommended reading/listening for anyone keen to learn more about operating as an author and business person.

Joanna is a creative entrepreneur who has built up income over time from multiple sources. She generously shares her tips and experiences via her books, blog and podcasts. Her recommended books and resources on creative entrepreneurship include:

  • How to Make a Living with your Writing – where Joanna shares practical tips based on her ability to earn a six-figure income through blogging, writing books and marketing ethically. I listened to this as an audiobook and it made fantastic learning.
  • Making a Living with your Writing – a page full of resources based on Joanna’s experience including practical tips and lessons learned on her entrepreneurial journey.

In terms of creativity and money, my thinking over time has been stimulated by Chris Guillebeau. Chris’s work is full of practical, grounded advice. His books on creative entrepreneurship include:

creative entrepreneur

Blog/Twitter/Instagram posts and interactions:

In 7 Reasons Creative People Don’t Talk about Money, poet and coach for creatives, Mark McGuinness talks about the love/hate relationship creatives often have with money. The post includes resources about money and creativity, especially around banishing some of the stereotypes.

Turn Your Creativity into a Career provides a guide for creative professionals interested in turning their creativity into a career. The perspective is around mapping your future as an independent creative entrepreneur and shaping your body of work.

How to Launch a Successful Portfolio Career, an article by Michael Greenspan in the Harvard Business Review, is targeted at corporate and executive level leaders and argues for a pragmatic approach to professional transitions. He advises: “The more specific and unique your skill set and experience, the more valuable your portfolio will be.”

In The idea of  “one true calling” is a romanticized lie, Emilie Wapnick explores the myth of the true calling and whether you might be a ‘multipotentialite’ or “someone with many interests and creative pursuits“. Emilie talks about the spectrum of being a multipotentialite and provides some models for managing multiple portfolios and career strands. She also has a book, How to be Everything, which explores this issue in more detail.

My post on Quiet Writing, How knowing your authentic heart can make you shine,  looks at the power of finding the thread that connects through your passions and career journey; in my case, writing. It also provides suggested strategies for finding your golden thread or authentic heart to guide you.

My Tarot Narratives on Instagram have been a rich source of inspiration and insight for my creative journey and I hope they are connecting with you too. This has been a consistent daily intuitive practice since 1 June now and I haven’t missed a day! Thanks for all the creative interactions.

And here’s the beautiful orchids coming out in my garden. Have a fabulous creative weekend!

Creative and Connected is a regular post each Friday – previous posts below. I hope you enjoy it. I would love any feedback via social media or comments and let me know what you are enjoying too.

Feature image via pexels.com

Keep in touch

Subscribe via email (see the link at the top and below) to make sure you receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions in 2017. This includes MBTI developments, coaching, creativity and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world. My free e-book on the books that have shaped my story is coming soon for subscribers only – so sign up to be the first to receive it!

Quiet Writing is on Facebook – Please visit here and ‘Like’ to keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. There are regular posts on intuition, influence, creativity, productivity, writing, voice, introversion and personality including Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

How knowing your authentic heart can make you shine

6 Inspiring Podcasts for Creatives and Book Lovers

Creative and Connected #5 – being accountable to ourselves and others

Creative and Connected #4 – the wholehearted edition

creativity inspiration & influence planning & productivity

Creative and Connected #5 – being accountable to ourselves and others

July 14, 2017

 

accountable

Inspiring resources to keep you creative and connected – this week with a focus on being accountable to ourselves and others!

Here’s a round-up of what I’ve enjoyed and shared this week on various social platforms with a focus on being accountable especially for our long haul creative projects like writing a novel.

Podcasts on being accountable

The Secret Library Podcast – Dal Kular on being at the beginning of the writing process

This podcast was such a treat! It’s a chat between host, Caroline Donahue, and Dal Kular about the beginnings and process of writing. Dal is a special Instagram creative buddy and Caroline is a fabulous coach who works with writers who I happen to be working with right now. So just to be able to hear these two special people, who also have a connection between them, riffing on the writing process together was pure joy!

They talk about the novels they are both writing – the initial ideas, the inspiration, the incubation and the getting down to writing. I loved hearing how their novel ideas were conceived and how they evolved.

The key points for me were all about accountability to ourselves in our bigger and longer creative work.

This includes:

  • how we can often put this accountability to ourselves around long haul creativity last. As Caroline says in the podcast, she is not late for appointments with others but can be late for writing appointments with herself.
  • remembering our deep work and those special inspirations that we may lose touch with but that are so important to honour and get back to.
  • that the process of writing something like a novel has its own special joys like travelling to experience details and being able to shape characters based on your experiences, including negative ones.

As a result of listening to the podcast and a coaching session, I am now aiming to get two larger creative projects including a novel, higher up the order of time priorities!

The Creative Penn – Discipline and Practice in Writing and Swordfighting with Guy Windsor

This podcast is an excellent one about writing discipline and practice using links between martial arts and writing as its basis. Guy Windsor is a swordsman, author and entrepreneur. He chats with Joanna about what writing and martial arts have in common including skill building and dealing with fears.

They focus on practices and tools to create accountability in writing. These include:

  • starting with achievable goals
  • using tools to create accountability like word count
  • making mental adjustments about how we are categorising our writing.

The last one is powerful and involves seeing something like writing a novel as play rather than work. I think this sort of flipping the identity and shifting our mindset is a really great strategy for enjoying those longer engagements that can feel a little daunting. Bring them into the arena of fun!!

Books and reading notes

Reading-wise this week, I started David Whyte’s ‘Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity’. This is a special read and one I’ve been savouring. It’s been such a deep pleasure to enjoy David Whyte’s beautiful poetic prose about work and identity, a theme I have been reflecting on:

Taking any step that is courageous, however small, is a way of bringing any gifts we have to the surface, where they can be received. For that we have to come out of hiding, out from behind the insulation. In a way, we have to come to an understanding of ourselves in our work according to where we have established our edge.

I love this book for how it strives for and celebrates finding wholeness in our identity in the workplace. There will be a special focus on this book later in July here on Quiet Writing, so stay tuned!

I also had the pleasure of reading Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership through Solitude by Raymond M. Kethledge and Michael S. Erwin. I absolutely loved this book on solitude and self-leadership as the heart of leadership. It was a rich experience to reflect on its pages whilst reading. I will be writing about this special book further soon.

Blog/Twitter/Instagram posts and interactions:

I’ve been reading Ellen Bard’s post: How to Set Up an Accountability Group and Get Serious Results and thinking about setting up an accountability group.

I connected with Ellen on social media after listening to her great Creative Penn podcast chat with Joanna Penn on ‘Self-care and Productivity for Authors’ last year. Through our connection, we had a conversation about accountability and the role of accountability groups in helping us be more productive. The blog post spells this out in more detail: the how to’s, the advantages, the guidelines, the results.

Ellen has set up and led accountability groups as a form of inspiration to drive accountability and productivity. It’s also a way of ensuring support for both the good days and the bad days as creatives working in isolation.

As Ellen says in her post, Who’s in your corner? 7 ways to connect with kindred spirits:

I ended up with a group of ten amazing people who have inspired and pushed me to much greater efforts than I would have made alone.

Being held and holding others to be accountable for their actions is powerful and inspiring, and is another way to build connections.

So do read Ellen’s post on setting up an accountability group. And I would love to hear of any of your experiences with accountability groups or partners or if anyone is interested in exploring this further with me! Let me know via the comments or social media. Or you can email me at terri@quietwriting.com

Through Twitter, I’ve had the pleasure of connecting with Content Creator and Social Media Strategist, Bree. A fellow INTJ, she is just awesome with blogging tips. Wait til you see 3 of the best tips for the most successful blog post ever is fabulous is excellent, especially the headline tips and tools that she shares, available free via CoSchedule. I followed her tips and – yes, I had the most successful blog post ever in the past week with 10 Amazing Life Lessons from Swimming in the Sea. Thanks, Bree and a recommended follow on Twitter for you all.

In 7 ways to identify your uniqueness, Business and Life Coach, Naomi Arnold, reminds us that identifying our uniqueness is an important part of our accountability to ourselves in living a wholehearted life. This is a theme that is woven into the heart of Quiet Writing and something I love to write about and work on in my Life Coaching with women.

There’s been some awesome transformational energy around this week. Have you felt it? I wrote about it in my post, Transforming into the new with my Capricorn Full Moon tarot reading. The energies this week have been about embracing our uniqueness as a springboard at this time, especially the threads that tie our unique story together and give it coherence.

My Tarot Narratives on Instagram have been a rich source of inspiration and insight for me and I hope they are connecting with you too. This has been a consistent daily intuitive practice since 1 June now and I haven’t missed a day! It’s so true that as Danielle LaPorte says in White Hot Truth:

And you can keep flexing your intuition (because it’s like a muscle) to feel into the next right step.

Each day deepens my creative connection with tarot and spirit. The messages this week have been around creative order, organising principles things coming together and making sense. And today, there was a beautiful message about manifesting and finding a form for creative inspirations. Love to hear what’s happening for you in finding the form for your creativity!

Tarot narrative for 14 July: finding form You’re finding the form for your creative desires and inspirations now. Whether it be the new business that coalesces your heart or finally bringing that long-held dream to fruition or practically starting the book you’ve been writing in your head, or all three, it’s about manifesting now and finding a shape that’s real. It’s a time of fertility, sculpting, connecting the pieces, working out the organising principles and unearthing the treasure that’s there and bringing it into the light. And sharing the wealth of our discovery so others can also be inspired. #tarotnarrative #eachdayajourney Reading notes: Cards: The Empress and the Ace of Earth (Pentacles) from The Good Tarot deck and #9 Treasure Island from Wisdom of the Oracle. Book notes: Today is about writing your life, creating your story, whatever its form. Find the way to start, continue or shape the form that works for you to help you find the treasure that is uniquely you: “Our stories create us. Our stories tell us and others what is significant and valuable about us. Our stories validate who we are; they are our personal myths.” How are you finding form?Writing Your Life, Patti Miller #quietwriting #intuitivefriday

A post shared by Terri Connellan (@writingquietly) on

There was also a fabulously fun chat on Instagram based on this picture about sleep rituals and Sleepytime Tea. This tea is a nightly habit of mine, combined with Rescue Remedy Sleep Spray. Both work wonders for restful sleep! Anyway, pop onto IG to learn more and share your story about restful sleep solutions or chat in the comments.

accountability

Response to guest posting on Quiet Writing 

I want to thank everyone for their fabulous responses to the opportunity to guest post on Quiet Writing in last week’s Creative and Connected!

I am excited to say we have five very special confirmed guest bloggers lined up for the next months. I can’t wait to share the voices of the Quiet Writing community here to celebrate wholehearted living and writing, career and creativity.

There is one special spot for 18 December left if there is anyone called to write for Quiet Writing just in time for Christmas. I’d love to hear from you, special person!!

I am hoping that we can also consider a regular or one-off publication or online magazine as well.

Feel free to provide any thoughts on the concept of ‘My Wholehearted Story’ – see the previous Creative and Connected post – in the comments or via email. I’d love to hear your thoughts and can’t wait to receive your responses!

Garie

Creative and Connected is a regular post each Friday – previous posts below. I hope you enjoy it. I would love any feedback via social media or comments and let me know what you are enjoying too.

Have a fabulous creative weekend!

Writing pic via pexels.com

Keep in touch

Subscribe via email (see the link at the top and below) to make sure you receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions in 2017. This includes MBTI developments, coaching, creativity and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world. My free ebook on the books that have shaped my story is coming soon for subscribers only – so sign up to be the first to receive it!

Quiet Writing is on Facebook – Please visit here and ‘Like’ to keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. There are regular posts on tarot, intuition, influence, passion, creativity, productivity, writing, voice, introversion and personality including Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

6 Inspiring Podcasts for Creatives and Book Lovers

Creative and Connected #4 – the wholehearted edition

Creative and Connected #3 – on self-care

Creative and Connected #2

Creative and Connected #1

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creativity inspiration & influence planning & productivity

Creative and connected #3 – on self-care

June 30, 2017

 

creative and connected

Inspiring resources to keep you creative and connected!

Here’s a round up of what I’ve enjoyed and shared this week on various social platforms.

This week I focus on self-care and productivity especially for writers and creatives. It’s been on my mind as I’ve just been diagnosed with osteo-arthritis in my right hand after experiencing some pain for a while. It’s made me more aware of the need for practical strategies for self-care and the creative long-haul.

Here are some recent and valued resources to help in this space as well as some other thoughts and experiences around self-care.

Podcasts on self-care

Dictation has been suggested to me by a number of people as a self-care practice for writing. So it was interesting to listen to this week’s podcast on The Creative Penn:

How To Use Dictation To Write Faster And Stay Healthy With Scott Baker.

The podcast discusses two key benefits of dictation with tools such as Dragon: firstly, speed and increasing word count and words per hour and secondly, as a strategy if you have an injury or you’re suffering from RSI. Mindset, process and habit also emerge as key issues and especially the advantages of treating dictation as a productivity tool. The podcast also covers practical aspects of dictation: how to focus on dictation whilst also plotting and working on ideas; the need for practice; and the technical aspects of how Dragon learns how you write.

I haven’t tried dictation yet but I think it might be time to give it a go! I’d welcome any comments on your experiences of using dictation tools to increase productivity or manage injury whilst writing. Scott Baker also has an book on Dictation which I’ve purchased. It’s not expensive and looks a good investment for learning about this skill.

How to Dictate your Book with Monica Leonelle is an earlier Creative Penn podcast on dictation which you might find interesting.

Self-care and Productivity for Authors with Ellen Bard is also a fabulous listen on self-care including the pomodoro technique, morning pages, working as a digital nomad and compassion as a self-care practice.

Books and reading notes

I’ve been enjoying the memoir, Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton which is about a tough journey to self-care and self-love. I’m nearly finished that book and looking forward to diving into the other books on my current to-be read pile as I featured on Instagram this week as part of the #mywritinglife series:

creative and connected

Sometimes all that reading we want to get done can put its own pressure on us! Especially as writers, it is part of our job to be reading but it can be a challenge to get as much reading done as we desire.

This Creative and Connected weekly post is helping me with my awareness and accountability on my reading practices. Self-care wise, I have been mixing up my reading strategies to include hard copy, ebook and audiobook as a way of taking the pressure off and getting more reading done. This seems to be working generally with audiobooks helping to make use of long hours in the car.

How are you making time to get those all important books read? And how do you manage the accountability – if that helps you?

As I work on finalising my e-book ‘The 36 Books that shaped my story’, I’ve really been thinking deeply about reading and its role in creativity and influence and can’t wait to share these thoughts with you.

Make sure you sign up to the Quiet Writing email list so that you can receive the ebook once available. The Quiet Writing newsletter – Notes from the Beach – will be winging its way out also this weekend so would love to chat more personally to you. Just pop your email in the box on this page and you will receive both!

Blog/Twitter/Instagram posts and interactions:

There have been some interesting blog posts on self-care recently :

In What are the Four Golden Rules of Self-Care, Dr Monifa S. Seawell reminds us that self-care is not always about indulgence and adding things to our lives; it can be also about eliminating people, practices and things that might be toxic. She also says that it’s not about comparison:

Your self-care practice should be as individual and as unique as you are, so if you are comparing how your self-care routine matches up to others, just, stop it.

In 6 Ways to Weave Self-Care into your Workday, Amy Jen Su reminds us that:

At the heart of self-care is your relationship and connection to self. As part of your job, it means that you’re attuned to and understand what you need to be your most constructive, effective, and authentic self. Therefore, rather than narrowly defining self-care as just physical health (which is an important piece of the equation), we need to pay attention to a wider set of criteria, including care of the mind, emotions, relationships, environment, time, and resources.

This is valuable advice and my learning about self-care has included this notion that it has a wide spectrum. This post also provides practical tips for noticing when you’ve slipped out of self-care mode.

My self-care activities

For me, self-care includes finding time to exercise and enjoy the environment where I live. It was such a pleasure recently to walk to Curracurrang in the nearby Royal National Park in Sydney. There were whales off the coast – breeching and rolling and blowing off some steam. And there were beautiful vistas of ocean, waterfall and bush flowers. I shared some of the bush flowers on Instagram:

Here’s another shot from just off the coast by a beautiful waterfall looking back towards the ocean through the trees.

coast walk

Working with intuition is also an important part of my self-care. I have posted my Tarot Narratives on Instagram every day this month. This intuitive work with tarot and oracle cards and linking them with books (reading +reading!) has become a part of a deep and focused morning routine like meditation and journaling. It calms me and connects me creatively to intuition and to the books and texts in my experience. This type of activity is about self-care as much as anything. Especially for introverts who need that deep focused me time in silence to recharge, just making this space in our days is an act of self-care.

So how do you find that deep focused quiet type of self-care activity?

tarot narratives

My thanks for all the engagement and feedback on Tarot Narratives. My plan is to place them on the Quiet Writing blog with a specific category so they can be easily located and referenced as a resource. And I plan to continue each day! As always, I welcome your feedback.

Creative and Connected is a regular post each Friday – previous posts below. I hope you enjoy it – again, I would love any feedback via social media or comments and let me know what you are enjoying too.

Have a fabulous creative weekend!

Keep in touch

Subscribe via email (see the link at the top and below) to make sure you receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions in 2017. This includes MBTI developments, coaching, creativity and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world. My free ebook on the books that have shaped my story is coming soon for subscribers only – so sign up to be the first to receive it!

Quiet Writing is on Facebook – Please visit here and ‘Like’ to keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. There are regular posts on tarot, intuition, influence, passion, creativity, productivity, writing, voice, introversion and personality including Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

6 Inspiring Podcasts for Creatives and Book Lovers

Creative and Connected #1

Creative and Connected #2

Personality, story and Introverted Intuition

Shining a quiet light – working the gifts of introversion

creativity inspiration & influence planning & productivity

6 inspiring podcasts for creatives and book lovers

June 4, 2017

podcasts

Podcasts are the best on-the-go inspiration for creatives and book lovers. Here are my 6 top podcasts for firing up your learning about books, blogging, writing and creative entrepreneurship.

Listening to podcasts – my experiences and tips

If you’re not listening to podcasts, now’s the time to start! And if you are, you know the joy of learning and connection it provides, so here are my hot tips and recommendations.

Whether it’s commuting on the train, driving in the personal space of your car, relaxing at home with a cup of tea or when you are exercising or cleaning, make use of that time to feed your creativity and help you prepare for future action. Take the time to learn about new people, new skills, new books, new ideas.

I’ve been listening to podcasts for a long time now, mostly because I live in a fairly remote place and have a long drive or train trip to anywhere. I cannot tell you how much I have learnt over the years from listening to podcasts. It’s like sowing seeds you can harvest straight away or down the track in so many ways.

Some people worry about not being able to take notes on the go. But I say, just relax, listen, let it all wash over you and soak in. If you love a podcast and want to take more from it, take the time to listen again with a notebook and pen in hand.

I’ve connected with people I’ve met through listening to podcasts; they’ve shaped my writing, coaching, self-care and reading practices. I know a hell of a lot about self-publishing, being an indie author and successful author mindset, information built up over years that I’m now armed with for the next steps.

I’m focusing on brand, blogging, social media and creative entrepreneurship at the moment as I shape new practices around coaching and writing so I’ve been listening to some new podcasts to skill up and be motivated around that.

I love books and reading, so podcasts help me to learn about new books, revisit old ones and discover classics I’ve never read or even heard of. Book-focused podcasts celebrate and share the pleasure of reading and creating books and so are very precious, like kindred souls.

And a tip for me – go with the unexpected and unusual! You never know what you might learn. I’ve learnt so much from podcasts that initially looked like they had nothing to do with my sphere of interests. Like this episode: Discipline and Practice in Writing and Swordfighting with Guy Windsor on The Creative Penn podcast. Easy to skip over as you think: what’s swordfighting got to do with me? Turns out plenty, so keep your eyes and ears open for the unexpected and broaden those horizons and connections.

So, here are the 6 inspiring podcasts for creatives and book lovers that I’m listening to right now! Links are in the title.

1 The Creative Penn Podcast – Joanna Penn

The Creative Penn Podcast launched in March 2009 and is edging up to Episode #400 as I write. I’m proud to say I’ve been listening pretty well since the start. I also support Joanna via Patreon because her shows are simply awesome. They cover “inspiration and information on writing and creativity, publishing options, book marketing and creative entrepreneurship“, I have learnt so much from Joanna about being a writer, an indie author, the book industry and a successful creative entrepreneur.

Joanna is a fabulous role model in writing and self-publishing and I’ve followed her journey as she left her day job and became over time a successful six figure author and creative entrepreneur. She is the most generous person, always giving insights into process, learnings and mindset based on her experience.

The podcasts include updates from Joanna about her writing, creative life and business as well as a round up of key trends in publishing, especially indie publishing. Joanna celebrates and embodies that self-publishing as an indie author is not a vanity thing, but a way of having an inspiring and self-directed creative life. Worked on over time, it’s a lifestyle that can also support you well financially too.

Some favourite episodes that have influenced me deeply with changed practices, connections and ideas:

Use your own life story to bring depth to your writing – with Steve Pressfield

How to find your author voice – with Roz Morris

Self-care and productivity for authors – with Ellen Bard

Productivity for creative people – with Mark McGuinness

The Artist’s Journey – with Steven Pressfield

2 Hashtag Authentic – for Instagram, blogging and beyond – Sara Tasker

Developed and hosted by Sara Tasker, who is on Instagram as @me_and_orla, it’s filled with creative inspiration for Instagrammers, bloggers and online creatives. With 205,000 followers on Instagram and a ton of practical experience, Sara is an Instagram coach and photographic influencer. Each episode is full of tips shared in a spirit of support and co-creation. I’ve learnt about the journeys of so many amazing Instagram influencers and creatives – and this has sparked so much creativity.

Some favourite episodes that have kindled ideas and supported creative practice and productivity:

Creating your ideal working week – with Jen Carrington

A social media, blogging and Instagram Q&A – with Sara

The power of personal projects – with Xanthe Berkley

I love this quote from Ira Glass discussed in the personal projects podcast with Xanthe Berkley (full quote in the show notes at the link above)

Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.
–Ira Glass

3 Make It Happen: a podcast for bloggers and creatives – Jen Carrington

After listening to the fabulous podcast chat between Sara Tasker and Jen Carrington on creating your ideal working week on Hashtag Authentic, I then made my way over to Jen Carrington’s website and her work.

It’s so practically encouraging and inspiring. Jen is a coach for big-hearted creative business owners and is based in Manchester, UK. Her blog posts are so helpful for those aiming to step up their own blogging work. And her podcasts are straight down the line insights, direct from Jen about such topics as:

S05 E08: Show Up As If You’re Already Where You Want To Be

S05 E06: Staying Connected To Your Version Of Success

S05 E02: Redefining Your Working Week

You’ll need a pen and notebook for this one because every statement is a gem of opportunity.

And Sara and Jen have launched a joint podcast recently which is another gem:

Letters from a Hopeful Creative

4 The Secret Library Podcast – Caroline Donahue

Caroline Donahue is a woman after my own heart: a reader, a writer, a coach who works with writers and an introvert who works with tarot and story. And she is also a super podcast creator and host exploring the most fascinating topics. Caroline’s mantra is that “books are a map, not just an escape” and this podcast is about all things books – the reading, writing, publishing, creation and enjoyment of books – as maps for growth, creativity and enjoyment.

With a love of tarot and intuitive practice, these themes feature strongly in Caroline’s interviews and the subjects explored. Perfect listening for an intuitive, tarot-reading, book-loving soul like me!

The episodes are diverse and inspiring – here are some of my favourites:

Episode #31 Kim Krans on The Wild Unknown

Episode #35 Amy Kuretsky on the healthy writer

Episode #42 Ezzie Spencer writes by the light of the moon

Episode #38 with V E Schwab

5 Magic Lessons – Elizabeth Gilbert

‘Big Magic: Creative living beyond fear’ has been widely read and influenced so many people. It was a catalyst for me in finally stepping into my creativity and authenticity more wholeheartedly in recent times. Liz Gilbert created the podcast because she felt she wasn’t finished with the subject and wanted to have “real conversations with real people” about “roadmaps for the path to creativity“. I am so glad she did.

Each interview focuses on a chat with a creative person who feels they are thwarted in some way in creating their big magic in the world. Liz coaches them and connects them with a special creative person who can inspire them and help with their goals and overcome fear. We get access to so much creative wisdom through this connection.

It’s a powerful combination and discussion. People bare their vulnerability and are held in such a special place as they break through the fear. The conversations provide moments of clarity and breakthrough and have supported and fuelled my own creative breakthroughs. It proves for me yet again the power of story in creativity.

They are all fabulous so hard to pick favourites but ones that have especially spoken to me are:

Series 1, Episode 1 Do what ignites your soul

Series 1, Episode 9 Dear Creativity and Fear

Episode 204 “Who gets to decide if you’re a legitimate artist?” featuring Mark Nepo

But do listen to all of them – brilliant inspiration to create your work in the world!

6 The Casual Academic: A Literary Podcast

Billed as ‘literary discussion without the pretense – just good books‘ – that’s exactly why I love this podcast. Alex Johnson and Jacob Welcker, both based in Spain, share book love in a way that bridges academia with the every day.

As a person with a background in literature, it’s helped me reconnect with literary fiction. I’ve discovered books and authors new to me that are so fascinating, especially Clarice Lispector’s ‘Near to the Wild Heart’ and H P Lovecraft’s ‘At the Mountains of Madness’. I’ve also been reminded of authors who I’ve loved reading that I need to revisit: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Margaret Atwood, Shirley Jackson, Ursula Le Guin.

Starting out as a book club over Google Hangouts with friends all over the world, the podcast has retained that casual feel. But it’s backed in by informed, engaging and well-researched commentary. Just listening to the podcasts has helped me reconnect with literature. As a result, my reading list is growing but it’s oh so rich! Plus Alex and Jacob have the best voices to listen to as they read and chat – they have so much fun, it makes me smile as I listen and learn.

A couple of my favourites episodes:

Episode 13: Mirages, Dread, and the Unreliable Narrator in Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness”

Episode 19: Narrative Techniques & The Thing Itself in Clarice Lispector’s “Near to the Wild Heart”

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Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can download my free 94-page ebook on the 36 Books that Shaped my Story – just sign up with your email address in the box to the right or below.  You will also receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

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You might also enjoy:

Shining a quiet light: working the gifts of introversion

Practical tools to increase writing productivity

Intuition, writing and work: eight ways intuition can guide your creativity

Featured image via Pexels and used with permission and thanks.

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Gems #6 Encouragement, kindness and resilience

August 9, 2010

Some recent gems shining a whole lot of light…

If you haven’t read The Manifesto of Encouragement on Danielle LaPorte’s White Hot Truth, rush over for the best injection of inspiration and encouragement you will have felt for a long time. Danielle’s initial post is pure light and genius. Then hundreds of people have added their words from their precious angle. It’s a string of pearls you can wear around your heart to protect you and make you shine. It also opens you up to what you might be missing around you or what you might aspire to. I hope one day it becomes a book I can carry with me every day.

Recently, I wrote a post about twitter and my positive experiences connecting up with like-minded people and the kindness and reciprocity I had found. I had just finished writing and posting, to then find Jean Sarauer’s post on Virgin Blogger Notes on a related theme: How to grow your blog with kindness. Jean provides a personal story and some excellent examples of how kindess and adding value in blogging and twitter can enhance the experience and outcome for all. Jean encourages us to ‘practice shifting your focus from what you want to get to what you can give’.  This post helps you appreciate how you can contribute and how ‘As the analytics of your heart show upticks in kindness, encouragement, and support, the analytics of your blog will also improve.’  The ‘Manifesto of Encouragement’ is a great example of this.

I only caught up this week with the July 11 ‘Creative Penn’ podcast interview by Joanna Penn: ‘Inspiration For Authors On Resilience, Accepting Criticism And Being An Introvert With Clare Edwards’.  It was excellent – one of the best of Joanna’s interviews I’ve listened to – probably because it chimed in around some personal keywords: resilience, introversion and writing. I loved the way Joanna opened up in this interview about her own experiences as an introvert with doing interviews and developing a speaking career. I related so much, being at the far end of the introversion spectrum and interacting with people all day, every day, in my work role, often standing up and speaking to many people. I have learnt to manage this but this interview provided more insightful tools for balancing between the inner and outer worlds. There is also a strong focus also in the interview on tips for resilience and staying present in the moment.

Three overwhelmingly positive gems to take us all forward with encouragement, kindness and resilience!

Image, Mother of Pearl by Westcoastrobin from flickr and used under a Creative Commons license with thanks

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Gems #3

June 27, 2010

Some gems shining a little light this week:

I absolutely loved Chris Guillebeau’s recent post, ‘Free Advice’. Talk about challenging things you generally accept without thinking and turning them on their head! This post does this in a fabulously thought-provoking way. I have been reflecting on the thoughts therein for the past week and have certainly found myself challenging some common concepts that are often blindly accepted. Like ‘the customer is always right…’ Are they? Equally fascinating was the stream of comments that emerged from readers with waves of fresh thinking. Like ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it too.’ As one wise reader, Patrenia, comments, ‘Why have the cake if I can’t eat it?’ Indeed. Some great fresh perspectives on all manner of things – customer service, checking emails in the morning, twitter, projects and team – in this post and its flow on comments.

I thoroughly enjoyed Joanna Penn’s podcast interview with Scott Sigler on ‘How to be a NY Times Best-selling Author’. It was another ‘blow your mind’ moment in terms of shifting my thinking about publication, especially self-publishing and podcasting as ways to get written work out there. The world of publishing has changed radically in recent times with technology and it is fascinating to hear the stories of writers such as Scott and their success across different platforms. Joanna Penn’s podcasts at The Creative Penn are full of such dynamic and inspiring stories of innovation in all genres of publishing and social media. Scott Sigler’s newest novel, Ancestor, has its own book trailer developed by him which is amazing and perfectly geared for other visually based media such as YouTube.

Loved this post from literary agent, Rachelle Gardner, on ‘Resources for Writing Memoir’ (via Twitter, Joanna Penn). Not only does it have great  tips and resources for writing memoir, it also has an excellent list of memoirs to read, some of which were familiar and loved and others that were new and endorsed by many – so a great list to delve into. I also love Tristine Rainer’s, ‘Your Life as Story’ about writing memoir and highly recommend it if this is an interest.

Image by Opals-on-Black.com,  from flickr and used under a Creative Commons license.

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