Reminder: Listeners Wanted!
Before I dive into today’s episode, I have a special announcement.
Has the Live Creative Now podcast made a difference in your life? Would you like to be featured on the podcast?
I want to start sharing listener stories, so if you have a story of how listening to the podcast has changed your life for the better in some way — big or small — I want to feature you in a Listener Spotlight.
Here’s how it works:
1. Just log into iTunes and leave a rating and review. (If you don’t know how to do that, you’ll find step-by-step instructions at livecreativenow.com/itunes-review).
2. Then copy and paste what you wrote in your review into an email, and send it to me, along with why you want to be featured in a Listener Spotlight. You can email me at livecreativenow.com/contact.
That’s it!
If I pick you for a Listener Spotlight, we’ll have a relaxed, fun conversation, and the recording of our conversation will be part of a future episode! How cool is that?
Now on with this week’s episode.
Lisa Manterfield loves to tell stories. She’s fascinated by human behavior and what makes people tick. She especially loves “fish-out-of-water stories of ordinary people in extraordinary situations, especially if those situations delve into the unexplained,” as it says on her website.
I wanted to have Lisa on the podcast, because the storytelling in her most recent novel, A Strange Companion, rocked my world.
And yet this book almost never saw the light of day.
“I couldn’t make it the book I wanted it to be,” she told me. “But it was the idea that wouldn’t let me go, so I kept coming back to it.”
For ten years.
That’s dedication.
And that’s one of the things we touched on in our conversation: how do you know when to give up on a creative idea, and when to let it go?
We also talked about about:
- Art and commerce, and how different creatives balance the two to craft lives that work for them.
- How A Strange Companion finally came to be, after ten years of countless revisions.
- Why not publishing five years ago turned out to be a good thing.
- When to give up on our creative ideas, and when to push them.
- The discomfort of getting praise for your creative work.
- “The Gap” between your vision, and what you’re capable of creating.
- and more…
Have a listen and let me know if you resonate.
(My thimble-sized review of A Strange Companion: A lot of people want to write novels, fewer people actually manage to finish one. Fewer still string words and ideas together in such a way that the novels they write take my breath away. This book did that. I loved it! And I couldn’t stop thinking about it after I’d finished it. Five stars.)
Something Cool
This is the first time there are two Something Cools in one episode, since I asked Lisa to contribute a Something Cool, too!
From Melissa:
Down Dog – really cool yoga app
From Lisa:
Enjoy!
Want a creative kick start?
Check out my book!
What would change for you if you could totally revel in the joy of creating? You CAN, with The Creative Sandbox Way!
You’ll learn:
- Melissa’s 10 fool-proof guideposts that have helped thousands get joyfully creating.
- 5 reasons why creative play is good for you, AND for the world (it’s neuroscience, baby!)
- Why “I’m not creative” is always a lie, and how to bust it.
- How to turn creative blocks into friends.
AND you’ll get creating right in the book itself.
“It’s one part field guide, one part creative practice—and I loved it. The Creative Sandbox Way is an adventure packaged as a book.”
~Chris Guillebeau
NYT best-selling author of The Happiness of Pursuit and The $100 Startup
Hear ye, hear ye! This is to serve as official notice that all links to anything for sale, be it books or courses, are likely to be affiliate links. What this means is that if you click through said links and make a purchase, although it won’t affect the price that you pay, a few coins will jangle into my coffers, enabling me to buy a packet of hard gluten-free biscuits to feed myself and my husband for another day, or perhaps a pen with which to create some artwork. Or perhaps they will contribute toward paying a fraction of my web hosting bill, so that this blog and podcast can continue to exist. Thank you kindly for your attention.
Thanks for Listening!
Thanks so much for joining me this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post.
Also, please leave an honest review for Live Creative Now on Tunes!
If you’d also like your voice to be heard on the show, leave your question as a voice message right here.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates.
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Now go get creating!
PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!
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