When you start a project, what do you call it?
Imagine you’re just getting started with a new creative work. If it’s a book, do you say “this story I’m doing about guilt, fear, and cakes,’ or is it “The Ministry of Fear?” If a painting, do you say ‘this thing  with a bearded guy and a couple dead people’ or “The House of  Death“?
Which sounds less like an impotent attempt to describe a creative work?
Which seems more real?
No matter what kind of project you’re working on, giving it a concrete, …

The last post was fun to write, so without further ado about nothing, let’s continue the list. Here we go with 14 more ways to generate ideas, increase creativity, cure cancer, end all wars…you get the idea.
17. Travel Travel will give your brain a chance to go wild. New places, sights, smells, gravitational pulls, all these will give you a ton of new ideas. Remember, travel doesn’t mean going to the other side of the world. Try going to a nearby town, a place you’ve never or rarely been. Or …

Do you ever feel like someone replaced your brain with a cinder block?
Has your river of brainy brilliance turned to a sluice of stumped stupidity?
No matter what kind of work you do, sometimes you run into a wall; the ideas dry up and you feel anything but creative. It happens to everyone. Don’t worry. You’re not alone. You need a break. You need a strategy. You need a saga.
Here’s your saga, delivered in 16 steaming hot points. Use them, abuse them, but do tell me how they work for you.
1. …

Got an old trumpet or guitar collecting dust? Do you want to learn to play the piano all over again? Maybe  you used to play way back when. What happened? Did you put it away and forget about it? Did ‘life’ get in the way? If so, why?
Playing solo just for the sheer hell of it can be a challenge, and even more so if you’ve not played for a few years. However, the rewards of relearning an instrument are worth the time, effort, and pain.
Relearning an instrument is like …

When the wife and I moved to Korea, we left a lot behind behind: our family and friends, a big apartment, the comfort of the familiar, and the very icons of our Americanity: our cars.
We both drove late model gas sippers. We didn’t have a choice. In our town, like most other cities in the States, public transportation is a sad joke. Cities are sprawling messes of unplanned development. If sidewalks exist, they’re usually in terrible states of disrepair. In the country, if you don’t drive, you either rely on …

Let’s lose some weight! When you’re on the road, a lighter pack can give you more freedom to explore, reduce achy shoulders and feet, and make you an all-around cleverer and sexier traveler. Part 2 of Better Packing, Better Travel explores the benefits of a lighter pack and gives you some tips for dropping those pesky unwanted pounds.

Want to learn how to stay dry when you’re on the road? It’s easy, and once you know how you might just find yourself jumping in puddles for the sheer hell of it.