We?ve talked about where our creativity comes from this month, how our thoughts and feelings influence it, and when procrastination helps or hurts the creative process. Now that we?ve talked about the more difficult side, let?s look at what creativity looks like when it works.
Creative breakthroughs ? whew! I don?t know if I could continue trying to live a creative lifestyle and work in a creative endeavor if I didn?t have frequent breakthroughs. I think we get an endorphin rush when the breakthrough is big enough. We?re happy to the point of laughing out loud and we?re filled with sudden energy to keep going! Yay! Thank God for wiring our brains this way!
This past week I?ve been working my way through a book I found in my library, The Right-Brain Business Plan by Jennifer Lee. Only two chapters in, and I love this book so much it?s on my must-buy list! The web site is also spectacular, full of colorful encouragement and happiness-inducing how-to?s! You may know that I started my own publishing company to publish my books. I did not jump into it with no business sense, though. I have a bachelor degree in business administration as well as a master?s degree in creative writing. I want to work in a creative industry, but I want to do it right.
I?ve written a few business plans in my life, done a halfway decent job with them, but I don?t think I ever looked at them again once they were printed and added to the 3-ring binder of ?business stuff.? But the way Jennifer suggests creating your business plan ? and I?m only two chapters in, but I think I?m right ? both uses common business sense and business tools and the more visual creative side of your brain to create a bona fide business plan that doesn?t get filed away and?that you?ll actually use. (Guess what optional reading is being added to my January online class on goal setting?!)
One of your writing routines should be to check in with yourself to see if you?re on the road you meant to be on. When I went to the RWA National Conference in July, one thing I wanted to verify while I was attending workshops and meeting agents and other publishing professionals was ? am I on the right road for me?
By the end of the last day, I was doing the Happy Kitty Dance because I knew self-publishing and being a business owner was exactly where I wanted to be! Nothing had changed to make me decide to give it up. Hearing all about what?s going on in New York and who is looking for what didn?t make me want to re-start submitting to agents and editors. Now that I?m making a more visual and creative business plan (and giving myself permission to forego the look of a traditional business plan!), I?m more excited about doing more frequent check-ins with myself. I love Jennifer?s idea of using index cards to keep track of parts of the plan so you can add new ideas when you think of them. I?m sure Jennifer is a friend I just haven?t met yet! I love the way she thinks! 
I?ve been trying to make my business background fit into my creative life, and I?ve tried to get my creative life to fit into a sound business mold, but Jennifer is the one who put the two worlds together.
Am I excited enough here for you to click on those links and check out the book and the web site?! The excitement is because I had a creative breakthrough last week! Something that I?ve been trying to create finally came together and I?ve got the endorphin rush to prove it. And not just an endorphin rush ? meeting your friend for coffee and talking about your works-in-progress can give you that, but does it always help you write more and better afterward? Part of knowing you?ve had a creative breakthrough is when you have lists and pages of ideas, and when normal and unrelated ?stuff? in your life sparks even more ideas.
Reading the first chapter of The Right-Brain Business Plan on the elliptical machine at the gym (difficult, but it can be done ? just don?t fall off when turning pages!), I had so many ideas about getting back into teaching that I was afraid I?d lose some of them. I used to put on an annual one-day writer?s workshop called Write Now! Workshops. I stopped doing them when I started traveling so much. But I have plans for a lot of online and live workshops starting in January 2013. I knew I wanted to get back into teaching, but I wasn?t sure how and where I wanted to start. Jennifer asked all the right questions to get my little brain humming!
I?ve still got most of the work ahead of me in getting my business plan down. But the other thing that excites me is that I can spend a little time ?playing.? I can use that drawing class I took two years ago to make little drawings on my business plan. (Oh, how my professors at The Wharton School would faint!) I can use some of the cool programs on my Mac to get more colorful and more creative. I can take pictures of myself in PhotoBooth and record me giving myself a pep talk in GarageBand and add those to my business plan. I?ve been praying for God to help rekindle the fire in my spirit for my work and I think this is part of His answer! I?M SO EXCITED! LOL!
Check out the book and the web site. Get yourself a plan that works for you, no matter how you get it written, and then work at making it happen. You can do this!
Speaking of creative breakthroughs, my friend Mona Hodgson had a creative breakthrough recently. She?s been writing children?s books since before we met (she?s one of my first writer friends!) and has published over a dozen of them. But she wanted to write adult books, too. In 2010, her dream came true.?Two Brides Too Many, the first book in the Sinclair Sisters of Cripple Creek series, was released by WaterBrook Multnomah. Too Rich for a Bride followed in 2011, and The Bride Wore Blue came out in May of this year. On October 2, the fourth and final book, Twice a Bride, will be released.
Today Mona is celebrating the release of her very first book trailer! You get to be among the first people to see it! The trailer is beautifully put together. You?ll want to visit these four sisters yourself. Celebrate with us by picking up a copy of Two Brides Too Many, or finish where you left off if you?ve already started the series. I think you?ll enjoy it. Congratulations, Mona, on your wonderful series and the beautiful book trailer! I can?t wait to see what your next series will be!
You can visit Mona at her web site?www.monahodgson.com/?and on Facebook at Facebook.com/Author.Mona.
Source: http://www.routinesforwriters.com/2012/08/27/creative-breakthroughs-whew/
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