Tag Archives: Creativity

Amanda Palmer Quote

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“There’s no “correct path” to becoming a real artist. You might think you’ll gain legitimacy by going to art school, getting published, getting signed to a record label. But it’s all bullshit, and it’s all in your head. You’re an artist when you say you are. And you’re a good artist when you make somebody else experience or feel something deep or unexpected.”-Amanda Palmer, The Art of Asking: or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

What Are You Reading in December?

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What is on your reading list this month?

Have you given yourself permission to take it easy, as the year comes to a close?

Or, as we race the clock to 2016, are you trying to stuff as many books into your brain as possible?

I am still doing the latter, albeit at a slower pace compared to November.

The other difference between this month and last is that I am currently committed to reading lighter fare.

Since 1st December, I’ve finished:

  • Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema by Tom Lesanti
  • Busted by Thomas J. Craughwell

I’m in the midst of reading:

  • Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance Era Edited by Lean’Tin L. Bracks and Jessie Carney Smith
  • Literary Rogues: A Scandalous History of Wayward Authors by Andrew Shaffer

To Be Read by 31 December:

  • The Life of Saul Bellow: To Fame and Fortune, 1915-1964 by Zachary Leader
  • Effie: The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, John Ruskin and John Everett Millais by Suzanne Fagence Cooper
  • My Golden Flying Years by Air Commodore D’Arcy Greig
  • The Mind of the Artist by Laurence Binyon
Effie Gray Ruskin by George Frederic Watts, 1851

Effie Gray Ruskin by George Frederic Watts, 1851.

What is your favourite book this month?

Which book on your list are you most looking forward to reading?

Please share with me in the comments!

Happy reading.

Virginia Woolf: A Few Words on A Writer’s Diary (with More to Come Later)

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“Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order.”-Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary

Portrait of Virginia Woolf by Roger Fry. Circa 1917.

Portrait of Virginia Woolf by Roger Fry. Circa 1917.

There isn’t a better book to read in October than Virginia Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary. Oh, it is extraordinary (in the full pulse of the word)!

“There’s no doubt in my mind that I have found out how to begin (at 40) to say something in my own voice; and that interests me so that I feel I can go ahead without praise.”-Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary

The struggle to harness one’s creativity is universal and timeless. It’s a constant fight. Battle on, friends!