Creative Compass: Writing Your Way from Inspiration to Publication - Softcover

Millman, Dan; Prasada, Sierra

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1932073655 ISBN 13: 9781932073652

Verlag: HJ Kramer, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

A guide should give clear directions and then get out of your way. In this unique collaboration, bestselling author Dan Millman and his daughter Sierra Prasada help to orient you as you advance through five universal stages of creativity: Dream, Draft, Develop, Refine, and Share. Whether you’re seeking new goals, the discipline to reach them, a shield against self-doubt and inertia, or practical advice on sorting through feedback and connecting with readers — you’ll find a way forward in this fresh approach to writing and storytelling. Drawing on the coauthors’ personal stories about overcoming challenges, as well as sage advice from other writers, artists, and innovators, The Creative Compass will transform both the stories you tell and the stories you live.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dan Millman is the author of seventeen books, including Way of the Peaceful Warrior, read by millions of people in twenty-nine languages. He teaches worldwide and lives in New York City.

Sierra Prasada is the author of Creative Lives: Portraits of Lebanese Artists. A writer, voice actor, and editor, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband.

www.peacefulwarrior.com
www.sierraprasada.com

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

The Creative Compass

Writing Your Way From Inspiration to Publication

By Dan Millman

H J Kramer and New World Library

Copyright © 2013 Dan Millman and Sierra Prasada Millman
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-932073-65-2

Contents

Foreword by Terry Brooks, 
Prologue: Your Story, Our Story, 
About This Book, 
Your Questions, Our Answers, 
Beginning, 
Introduction, 
Dan: Finding My Way, 
Sierra: The Other Side of Anxiety, 
Dream, 
Introduction, 
Dream a Little Dream, 
Your Stickiest Idea, 
Objective: Define Your Story, 
Get to Know Thyself, 
Dreaming in Dialogue, 
Your Ideal Reader, 
What If ...?, 
Dreaming on Deadline, 
Draft, 
Introduction, 
Objective: Tell Your Story, 
Who Is Your Storyteller?, 
Sense and Sensibility, 
Begin With What You Know, 
Sierra: How to Listen, 
How to Read Writing Books, 
Writing as a Solitary Act, 
Dan: The Will to Write, 
Permit Yourself to Write Badly, 
First Draft, First Layer, 
Develop, 
Introduction, 
The Missing Link, 
Sweat Trumps Talent, 
Dan: The Cycles and Layers of Learning, 
Your Master Metaphor, 
Sierra: Never Surrender, 
Objective: Follow the Golden Thread, 
Allegiance to Story, 
Your Voice, Your Persona, 
Questions: Help Us Help You, 
When the World Becomes Your Teacher, 
Refine, 
Introduction, 
No Bad Writing, Only Bad Timing, 
Creative Destruction, 
Objective: Choose the Right Words, 
Questions: More to Ask Early Readers, 
Working With an Editor, 
Trust Your Gut, 
Sierra: How I Write Now, 
Dan: My Final Draft, 
Share, 
Introduction, 
Objective: Move Your Readers, 
Your Book in Brief, 
Handling Rejection, 
The Nine-Sale Gauntlet, 
Self-Publishing Pros and Cons, 
Marketing Your Book — and Yourself, 
Sierra: Sharing on the Web, 
Dan: Reflections on the Writing Life, 
Epilogue: Your Writing Career, 
Parting Reminders, 
Acknowledgments, 
About the Authors, 

CHAPTER 1

Beginning

Create your own method. Don't depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you.

— Constantin Stanislavski

INTRODUCTION

As we prepare to embark with you on this journey through the five stages, we share memories of our own beginning. We each felt a desire to tell stories before we developed any sense of how to do so. Like all writers, we needed to dream before we could draft. In these first two memoir chapters, and in the chapters that follow, we relate how insights derived from our life experiences have transformed our work as writers. Our trials may reflect your own, and we write so that you can share in the rewards of our labor. We're no longer beginners, yet we begin again and again, continuously propelled forward by a shared love of words and stories.

DAN: FINDING MY WAY

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

— Yogi Berra

I WAS UPSIDE DOWN AGAIN. Not surprising, since I spent a good deal of my childhood that way, swinging like Tarzan from ropes or monkey bars, jumping from our roof wearing a makeshift parachute, or tumbling on a trampoline. Like my athletic dad, I felt more at home climbing a tree than sitting in a classroom. I enjoyed reading but showed no other signs of literary talent or inclination. Years would pass before the world would turn me right side up and I would find my way to writing.

In the meantime, I caught an occasional glimpse of the future: My ninth-grade English teacher, Ivan Smith (a.k.a. "Ivan the Terrible"), required us to write a short story each week — precisely two pages, immaculately typed, with the right-hand margin a nearly perfect vertical line, long before typewriters could do so automatically. Forced to edit every line to fit, I had to choose a shorter or longer word with the same meaning, which demanded an inventiveness I hadn't known I possessed. For the first time, I struggled to tell stories on paper. (In an early example of fan fiction, most of my stories resembled plots from The Twilight Zone.)

Apart from that class, a creative peak in an otherwise undistinguished academic career, my preference for athletics over scholarship became a self-fulfilling prophecy. My first semester at UC Berkeley landed me on academic probation — a wake-up call that propelled me into survival mode. Applying an athlete's work habits to my studies for the first time, I earned high grades in my second semester and would maintain them for the rest of my college years. But my attitude toward the classroom hadn't truly changed — I found essay assignments and poetry analysis tedious and confusing. My earlier creative writing had faded into memory. Achievement in gymnastics dominated the foreground of my life as I won national and then world championship titles.

As I turned in my final assigned paper, the thought struck me: I can now write whatever I want.

During my senior year at Berkeley, while volunteer coaching at the local YMCA and instructing at gymnastics camps and clinics, I discovered that I enjoyed teaching. Then, in my last few weeks of college, I made a pivotal connection between teaching and writing. As I turned in my final assigned paper, the thought struck me: I can now write whatever I want — and maybe someday I'll write something worth reading. I had no idea what that something might look like, but writing now represented a way of connecting with others.

Soon after, a magazine advertisement caught my eye: Bennett Cerf, one of the founders of Random House, had created a correspondence course called The Famous Writers School, with the tagline "We're looking for people who like to write." Acting on impulse and faith, and committing most of my meager savings, I signed up. I threw myself into the course, drawing upon years of training in gymnastics and martial arts, with their emphasis on practice, endurance, and mastering the fundamentals. I mailed in each assignment and, a week later, received red-pencil edits that helped me improve my work. Writing remained difficult, but it became an immersive pastime, generating a state of deep concentration that I'd experienced only in sport. Flow. The zone. Moments of silence, moments of truth.

Then life intervened: Marriage. The birth of my first child. The search for a career, or at least a day job. After finding a position as men's gymnastics coach at Stanford University, I sat down at my typewriter early each morning, stared at the blank page, and dreamed up instructive articles that I then submitted to Gymnast magazine. I later earned the title of contributor, my only compensation.

About a year later, while jogging around the Stanford campus on a hot summer's day, an idea came to me: If the purpose of a fever is to heat up the body and kill unfriendly bacteria or viruses, could an exercise like running create an artificial fever to support the immune system? Some research confirmed my hunch, so I wrote an article titled "Let's Catch Jogging Fever!" A few weeks later, a health magazine sent me a check for one hundred dollars. I had become a professional freelance writer.

Seven more years would pass before I earned another dime from my writing efforts.

After four years as a Stanford coach, I accepted a position on the faculty of Oberlin College in the Physical Education...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: HJ Kramer
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1932073655
• ISBN 13: 9781932073652
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 280
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: GS1 Slovakia; https://www.gs1sk.org; ; Nantersk� 23; Žilina; 010 08; Slowakei