Take a chance on something you really love

“You can fail at what you don’t want. So you may as well take a chance at doing what you love.”

Inspired words from an unlikely source!

Jim Carrey’s words in this commencement address to Maharishi University were inspired by his father’s life, but they ring true for so many of us.

Obviously we all have constraints on our time and resources, but we also have great ability to try to go after what we really want to do with our lives. And I want to write.

So today I entered a story, The Empress Road, in the State Library of Queensland’s Young Writers Award 2014 competition!

Fellow young writers! Will you join me?

Enter here:

http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/whats-on/awards/ywa

For a sneak peek at The Empress Road, shoot me an email!

This post was written by TJ Withers-Ryan © 2014. Reblogging is highly encouraged as long as you credit me as the author.

1Nov2013

NaNoWriMo

Posted in Creativity, Seasonal Posts by tjwithersauthor

Are you running the NaNoWriMo race with me this year? Let me know by writing a comment! We can cheer each other on to victory!

‘Tis my first year, and I’m pretty excited!

I’m using this as an extrinsic force motivating me to just get my novel finished already!

Remember what I talked about in my last post, the one about Scheherazade and the king of Persia? Sometimes you need a gun to your head to just get things done, right? So this should be great.

P.S. I made it!

2013 Winner of NaNoWriMo!

This post was written by TJ Withers-Ryan © 2013. Reblogging is highly encouraged as long as you credit me as the author.

27Sep2013

Working Creatively Under Pressure

Posted in Creativity by tjwithersauthor

Coming to hang out at GenreCon 2013 on Saturday 18th? Shoot me an email (see my Contact Us section)!

Today is all about being creative under pressure. In the workplace, whether you are a person doing creative work in a non-creative industry, or a person doing creative work in a creative industry, we all work to various deadlines, and you need to know how to harness your creative process in a hurry!

The best example of successfully doing creative work under pressure is fairly ancient. The story of ‘One thousand and one nights’, also known as ‘Arabian nights’, is the story of Scheherezade in Arabia.

A portrait of Princess Dunyazade (‘The Coffee Bearer’) by John Frederick Lewis

When a Persian king, Shahryar, discovers that his wife has been unfaithful to him, he has her executed. He keeps on marrying a bunch of women, but each time, he executes her the morning after their wedding, before she has a chance to be unfaithful to him. It is the vizier’s job to provide these virgins to marry the king, but one day he finds they’ve run out! So his daughter, Scheherezade, convinces her father to let her be the next bride.

On the night of Scheherezade’s marriage to the king, she begins telling the king a tale, but she doesn’t give him the ending. He’s so curious to know how the story ends that he doesn’t execute her the next morning. He figures he’ll just wait until he’s heard the ending, then execute her the next morning. But that night, Scheherezade finishes that story and starts right into a new one. But she doesn’t finish it! So the king is forced to keep her alive for one thousand and one nights.

Continue reading →

13Sep2013

Incubation part 3: Why we (should) sleep on it

Posted in Creativity, TED talks by tjwithersauthor

Why should we sleep on it? This post discusses incubation, sleep, and dream theory! My own experience, words from a sleep psychologist, and a wacky experiment examining the creative process.

“sleep and dreams and creativity” by Rachel Olsen: http://rachelolsen.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/dreaming-and-creativity.html

My own experience:

So you remember how I was working on a novel and I just couldn’t finish it? Right, right, that was months ago. Well, I finally had a breakthrough!

I originally envisioned this novel in three parts, but currently only two parts of it work well. So I was thinking that parts one and two combined work as a standalone novel, with some revision.

But the problem that was to be solved was, at the end of part two, the heroine and her lover part on opposite sides of an intergalactic war. As enemies. So sad! And since I’m the kind of person who doesn’t deal well with sad endings (open that box of worms another day), this ending had to be fixed!

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22Feb2012

Why do I write?

Posted in Creativity by tjwithersauthor

CI Foundation Units 2011: “I am creative because” / “I am not creative because”

“Why do I create?”

I was always certain I would grow up to be a writer. My first words were “book”, “sit” and “read”. There’s something about curling up with a good story and getting totally immersed in another world.

When I was four I discovered that it was possible to write one’s own stories! (Imagine!)

This became a part of my identity – what do I like to do? “I write stories.”

I’m not the only one creating things into the void as part of a search for meaning. Some say the very meaning of life is “to create a connection between our inner depths and the outer world” (Kant, 1982, quoted in Ventegodt et al, 2003, 4).

“Why are you creative?” from KKB101 lecture, 2011, QUT

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26Jan2012

What am I doing here?

Posted in Creativity by tjwithersauthor

Hi, my name is Tirzah, and I’m a write-aholic. The last time I wrote was 14 hours ago, and I’m getting withdrawal symptoms already.

So you can understand why I decided to write a blog about the writing process.

I think I’m really a researcher at heart. I enjoy sorting things, finding things out – almost more even than making things. Last year I conducted a survey of all my “creative” friends asking two main questions: “Why do we create?” and “How do we go about creating?”

I’ll be posting the results of said survey shortly, but for now, it’s enough that my intention is out there, in the void of the intertubes. I hope you enjoy the anticipation of what is to come… The suspense may just kill me.