This month has felt weirdly long and I’m not entirely sure why. I’ve done a lot of big thinking, so maybe that’s part of it. As much as I adore writing and photography, I’ve felt like there’s been a gap and I’ve been trying to figure out why. I knew there was something else I wanted/needed to be doing as well, but fully understanding what that was has been a bit of a brainwarp.
I got there though.
Some of the resources I was working through suggested thinking about not only what you recognise as your skills and talents, but also what other people tell you you’re good at. For me, that seems to revolve around self-discipline, self-motivation, basically deciding to do something and just doing it. I’ve always found that easy so I assumed everyone else did too, and I definitely didn’t consider it a talent or a skill before. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised I often encounter people talking about finding it difficult to stay motivated, get started on a new project or complete an existing one. This is literally never a problem for me, not because I am a shining beacon of awesomeness or anything, but because I happen to be pretty good at that specific thing. I can’t read maps or understand how a two-dimensional pattern can become a three-dimensional item of clothing, but when it comes to staring down the barrel of a gargantuan task and laughing in the face of deadlines, I’m there.
Then I thought about my online volunteer work which revolves around supporting artists and encouraging them to do the thing, whatever the thing might be. Even in past jobs, whether those jobs have been about marketing or customer care or any of the other things I’ve done, my favourite part has always been helping other people understand what they’re good at and using it to get things done.
I’m very much into distilling amorphous clouds of thought into very specific goals, partly because it helps me figure out the next step but mostly just cause of the kind of person I am, so I did that. I thought not only about what I wanted to do but who I wanted to do it with/for and how I wanted it to benefit them. This is what I came up with.
I am to inspire creative people to recognise, understand and appreciate their talents, skills and abilities, and support them in identifying and using the most appropriate tools and processes to achieve their goals with passion, focus and joy.
In terms of the how of it all, I’m really just at the beginning and I’m looking forward to exploring all the possibilities. Something I can get started on right now though is making my blog a more useful, helpful place. So I’ll definitely still be posting personal updates, photos and writing news here, but I’ll also focus on creating useful resources about planning, productivity, time management, and authentic social media use for creative people.









As well as all that figuring out of stuff, I took a LOT of close-up photos of flowers this month cause I’m totally hooked on nature photography at the moment. If you want to catch up on all the flowery posts (and a bit of beach), those are…
- My holiday photos are mostly flower macros
- Happiness is an empty beach
- Nature macro photography: Six-legged mountaineers and other treasures
- Not exactly a problem: I cannot stop taking macro photos of flowers
And a non-flowery post…
Finally, if you aren’t using Adobe Spark (a slice of browser-based genius) to create beautiful web graphics and stunning Instagram Stories, you absolutely should be. If you’re a Creative Cloud subscriber, you get even more fancy features!
I’m going to go soak up a solar energy spill with my body. Here’s to an amazing June ❤
As I’m drowning in procrastination and apathy right now I really look forward to all your creative advice to push me forwards 💖
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Is there anything in particular you’d find it useful to read a post about? I usually set up my blog schedule a few weeks in advance so I have stuff ready to write until the beginning of July, but I would absolutely love to be able to plan some posts that I know will be helpful to my readers 🙂
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Erm, all the things!
– Weaving in subplots.
– Scene/chapter changes- where to change scenes naturally.
– How to move ahead with time – so the reader knows it’s 2 days, a week etc since last scene without dropping in dates etc.
Does that make sense?
Must try to read as a writer but I always get so absorbed I don’t focus on technical sides.
Further list to follow…….
X
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I don’t know how much it’ll help because I’m still very much in the discovery stage of writing books, but I’m planning some posts in the next couple of months about how I approach projects, from plotting and drafting to character creation.
I tend to read a lot of stuff about How To Be A Writer™ and then disregard 95% of it. I did that with photography too though, and that worked out OK so maybe it’s not a bad approach 🙂
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I have every faith that your posts will be very much worth reading.
If I spent as much time writing as I do reading and listening to podcasts about writing I could probably have a trilogy by now 😂
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I look forward to seeing the new things on your blog! And cheers, to an amazing June!
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I’m really excited about getting stuck into the new useful stuff. I have so many ideas!
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Ooh I like this. I am always dabbling with the idea of getting a creative coach… er… if/when I get back to my novel writing maybe! 🙂
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It was a weird “Wow, so THIS is a thing I want to do!” moment. I’m still very much at the figuring-stuff-out stage but it feels right 🙂
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