Irving Stone — Hunger

Many people treat the creative spirit as a luxury, something that is not needed to live life. And they are quite wrong. Creativity is a crucial part of living. If I did not have an outlet for my creativity, I would either go crazy or die. Creativity is at the very core of who I am. 

If I go too long without writing, without putting words on paper, I begin to feel a hunger growing inside me. I have a strong need to create, to produce something either through writing or drawing. It is as important to my life as water, air, food, shelter and companionship. Without it my spirit would shrivel and die. 

We all need food for the body and food for the spirit. Creativity provides the food for the spirit. Is your spirit growling with the need for creativity?

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Silence is a valuable gift for writers and artists. Silence is where our work as creative leaders begins. We must go back to the well of silence again and again to refresh our spirit and restore our sanity. Silence allows us to process the tons of information that enter our brains. Silence allows creativity to take root and grow beautiful flowers. Silence allows for reason to prevail over ignorance.

There is a lot of noise in our society that clouds our thinking and hinders the flow of creativity. The noise of multiple voices rises from the traditional media: newspaper, radio and television. And the noise is multiplied a hundred times over today by the cell phones, the internet and social media. Each of these technologies has value and can contribute to our success, but we must manage and control their use, not let them control us. We must sometimes go silent and cut ourselves off from the noise. We must go deep inside and experience the silence.

And in the silence we will know and understand our purpose. If we lose sight of our purpose, we will lose our way and become lost in the noise and chaos. The silence allows us to find ourselves and to stay focused on what is important and why we are here.

Are you in touch with your purpose? Do you know why you are here? Do you know what lessons you have learned and what lessons you still need to learn? How are you going to make a positive contribution to the world at large? What are you giving back to society? Seek to know who you are by knowing your purpose for being. Embrace the silence and stay focused on your purpose.

Henri Matisse

I have heard many wanna-be writers and artists say they are waiting to be inspired. They can only write or draw when inspiration strikes. Unfortunately, that is not the real world. If we wait for our muse to come, she may never arrive.  She is a fickle mistress who has her own agenda and cares not for our needs.

The key to finding your inspiration and to being creative is to work every day. Maybe it is for a half an hour or an hour, but one must do the work.  And when you least expect her, your muse will arrive wearing dancing shoes.  She will lead you into the heart of creativity and dance until your feet grow tired and your limbs ache.

And after your muse has left and gone to visit other lonely artists, don't throw your work away even if you feel that what you did was terrible. Let it sit and come back to it later and you will see it in a different light. Creativity is a process. It is messy and unorganized.  To produce great work, one must produce junk.  To achieve great work, one must fail again and again.    

Creative work is not easy.  Our conscious mind works against the spirit of creativity.  Our conscious mind attempts to distract us from the deep spiritual work by sending us to the refrigerator or demanding that we wash the clothes and vacuum the carpet.  We must be vigilant and not be deceived. 

May your muse fill your heart with joy 

and your soul with the spirit of creativity.

Harley King

Telling my personal story has often been difficult for me because my nature is to stick to the facts.  I was raised to believe in factual truth.  I have a bad habit of correcting my wife in front of people when she has the facts wrong.  And she lets me know it.  Old habits are hard to break.



It has taken me years to appreciate the importance of changing our stories in their re-telling — to understand the value of embellishing the facts.  Facts are not as important as meaning.  The truth resides deeper in our memories than facts.


Yet where does one draw the line? Reporters in recent times have been fired or forced to resign because they have played too loose with the facts.  And in some cases, reporters have fabricated the entire story.  Memoirists have been criticized and had their books pulled from the shelves because it was found that they fabricated some of their memories.



Do we violate the reader and writer bond when we embellish our stories?  The reader is expecting the truth and is upset to find the writer has altered the facts.  The trust is broken.  The reader feels betrayed.



Yet the great storytellers embellished their memories to make them entertaining.  Life as we live it has long stretches of boredom.  Life as we imagine it is full of adventure and romance.  Great writers understand this principle.  



Life as we know it is chaotic and without purpose. Imagination allows us to bring order and meaning to events.  Life is lived in the moment and only understood through creative reflection. Life is not as much about names, events and facts as it is about feelings, connections and dreams.  Life is about memory.  Cherish your creative memories.

May your memories grow in proportion 

to the richness of your creative spirit.

Harley King

Memories are the stories that we tell ourselves and others to remind us of the experiences in our lives.  Rarely are these stories entirely true.  The stories have been altered by time and our ability to forget.  We have the ability to change our stories and yet believe them to be true.  



Cherish your ability to forget what has happened to you because it helps you live a productive and happy life.  If we remembered every detail of our lives, we would suffer from boredom.  Be wary of the negative stories you tell yourself because some portion of each story we tell is false.  You have recreated the experience to fit your beliefs.  Don't live in a past that causes you pain and heartache.  



Celebrate your ability to recreate your experiences into stories that shape who you want to be, not who you are.  Our creative spirits provide us with a rich tapestry of memory.  We change our stories to give us hope.  Memory is a creative gift.  Alter your story to honor your life.



May your memories grow in proportion to the richness of your creative spirit.