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How I Became a “Natural” in Just 10 Years

Photo by Beverly Tharp
Photo by Beverly Tharp

As a performing a singer/songwriter, I can’t tell you how many times people have said to me, “You’re a natural performer!” As if I was born with the ability to comfortably stand on a stage and entertain an audience.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In my teens and twenties I fantasized about singing onstage (even sang into a hairbrush in front of a mirror), but I was well into my thirties before I really did anything about it.

See, fantasizing about something does not make it come true. Unless you take action. And that means taking action even when [Read more…]

The Surprising Results of My Crazy Experiment – a Case Study in Creative Courage

3x5: Real

Two years ago I did a crazy experiment in tiny and daily writing.

I’d been wanting to develop a consistent, sustainable writing practice for a long time. I also wanted to learn to write poetry like my poet heroes.

I was already a believer in the benefits of a tiny and daily creative practice (namely, daily keeps your toe in the creative stream, and when you keep your commitment tiny makes you a thousand times more likely to actually make it happen, plus it helps you get back on the wagon when you stumble), but so far I’d [Read more…]

How I Fell from 40 Feet Up and Lived to Tell About It – a Creative Courage Case Study

That's me on the static trapeze! You can see the flying trapeze net in the background, to the right of my legs.
Years ago, the year I salsa-danced my way through my divorce, I was having tea at a friend’s house, chatting about this and that, when she casually mentioned something about her flying trapeze class.

“Flying trapeze?!” I sputtered, “You do flying trapeze?!”

I mean, it’s not every day that you meet someone who does flying trapeze, so I was beyond intrigued. I had to know more.

So she described to me how you climb a very tall ladder — 40 feet up — to a teeny, tiny platform, maybe two foot wide by five feet long, where one of the teachers snaps a rope into [Read more…]

Pushed Out of the Nest – a Creative Courage Case Study

Spread Your Wings - calligraphy art by Melissa Dinwiddie

Years ago, when I’d been doing calligraphy for less than two years, and it was still a pretty fresh, new passion for me, I flew back East to meet a friend of mine from the online calligraphy world, Sheryl, and to spend the weekend with her.

Sheryl lived in New Jersey, and she was teaching a workshop that weekend way out on Long Island, for a calligraphy guild called Island Scribes. I’d signed up to be one of the students in the workshop, so we had a long car drive ahead of us, with several joyful hours of uninterrupted conversation.

I don’t remember much about the details our conversation, except that at some point, Sheryl said to me, “You should teach.”

“Yeah,” I said, looking at my hands, “I’d love to teach someday.”

“No,” she said, “you should be teaching now.”

The Seed Is Planted

“Now?” I asked, abashed. “I’m not ready to teach yet! What could I possibly teach?”

Without batting an eye, Sheryl said, [Read more…]

6 Reasons Why You Should Share Your Work (BEFORE You Feel Ready!)

Shy Rabbit-mixed media painting by Melissa Dinwiddie
Shy Rabbit – mixed media painting, 6″x6″. Want art like this in your inbox, and first dibs on purchasing? Subscribe to my ArtSpark Newsletter!

As a creativity instigator, my first objective is simply to get people creating, but there’s another key element to living a creative life, which I believe is equally important: sharing your work.

If we feel resistance to creating in the first place, for most of us the resistance to sharing what we create is about a zillion times stronger.

After all, it’s [Read more…]

Spend 5 Days Creating with Me, and Walk Away Transformed - Come to Creative Sandbox Retreat

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