Three Creative Ways to Use Your Gift of Writing this Christmas

by Cathy Baker @CathySBaker

Anyone can purchase a Lowes gift card for Christmas. Or perhaps, a handcrafted petal-soft infinity scarf the color of sea glass. I’m sorry, was that too specific? 

But you, my fellow writer, can create one-of-a-kind gifts with the swipe of your hand or a tap on the keys. 

Feed Your Writing Creativity in Five Easy Bites

by Cathy Baker @CathySBaker

No doubt there will be a lot of feasting happening later this month, so today I’m serving up five bite-sized morsels to fill your creativity tank. The turkey and dressing will just have to wait!

An Artist Date: Collage Your Creative Dream (And a Starbucks Giveaway!)

by Cathy Baker @CathySBaker

There’s little doubt that I’m a Julia Cameron fan. Her book The Artist’s Way impacts my daily creative process. In a previous post, Inviting Your Creative Self on a Date on The Write Conversation, I shared a section of her book that speaks of Artist Dates. Julia asks her students to schedule one Artist Date per week. 

I tell students to seek mystery, not mastery, on their dates. I urge them to explore with childlike wonder rather than adult intellect. Artist Dates are intended to be fun.- Julia Cameron

One of her Artist Date ideas involves creating and designing a dream collage as a visual reminder of our dreams, goals, and priorities. 

6 Ways Creative Writing Prompts Can Move You Toward Your Goal

by Cathy Baker @CathySBaker

Is your muse in need of a little nudging? 

I admit to not always seeing the value of writing prompts. I want what writing time I have to count toward a specific project. Only recently have I begun to see their truth worth. 

In a matter of minutes, writing prompts can help spark our imagination, free our mind, and jumpstart our creativity. They pack a punch!

Make Your Creative Juices Sizzle with a Summer Day Trip

by Cathy Baker @CathySBaker

Summertime offers a plethora of opportunities for us to explore, learn, and hone our writing skills. Intentionality is the key, unlocking the power of creativity to sizzle through our stories. 

It’s no secret that our brain re-engages when faced with new experiences, so today I’d like to encourage you to plan a day trip. The only caveat is that this destination must be a place you’ve never visited before. 

5 Creative Ways to Share Your Work While on Vacation

by Cathy Baker @CathySBaker

The month of June offers summer vacations, time by the pool, and family road trips but who says we can’t also share our work while we’re away? If we put in a little time prior to packing, three of the following ideas will take care of themselves while you’re busy soaking up the sun. 

Three Final Ways to Live Your Best Creative Life, Part 3

by Cathy Baker @CathySBaker

Today, let’s close out this three-part series on specific ways to combat resistance and maximize our creative power. If you missed the previous installments of this series you can read the first Three Ways to Live Your Best Creative Life Part 1 and Three More Ways to Live Your Best Creative Life, Part 2. 

“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and he unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” – Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

Three {More} Ways to Live Your Best Creative Life, Part 2

by Cathy Baker @CathySBaker

Today, let’s continue to look at specific ways we can combat resistance and maximize the creative power within us to its fullest potential. If you missed the first installment of this three-part series, Three Ways to Live Your Best Creative Life.

Remember, the word createis defined as bringing something into existence. And where creativity is at work, we usually find resistance. 

Three Ways to Live Your Best Creative Life, Part 1 + A Journal Giveaway

by Cathy Baker @CathySBaker

Today, I share the first of a three-part series about specific ways to combat resistance and maximize the creative life to its fullest potential.

The word create is defined as bringing something into existence. And where creativity is at work, we usually find resistance.

3 Ways to Put Creative Processes for Writing Into Practice

by Cathy Baker @CathySBaker

Yesterday, Lynn Blackburn reviewed Light the Dark…Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process. If you missed it, here's the link to A Book For Writers to Challenge & Inspire. 

As I read the book (I confess, I’m not quite finished), I considered ways to personally apply their wisdom to my own writing projects. Today, I’ll share some of those ideas along with practical ways to put them into practice.

6 Creative Ways to Boost Your Writing in 2018

by Cathy Baker @CathySBaker

“Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is the result of good work habits.”

Twyla Tharp

Some believe we’re either born with the creative gene or we’re not. Truth is, it’s a moot point. God created us in His image so it seems likely that we all have some measure of creativity pulsing through our veins. The challenge is to transfer the creativity in our veins to paper.

Creative Christmas Gifts Only a Writer Can Give

by Cathy Baker @CathySBaker

As writers, we have the unique opportunity to give gifts not found on your typical Christmas list. Material gifts gather dust, but words captivate the heart.

While most of the gifts below are more meaningful than fun, all are in your wheelhouse waiting to be wrapped and given away.

Engage the Five Senses to Boost Your Writing

Edie here. Today I'm super excited to announce a new addition to our blogging team here at The Write Conversation. Please welcome Cathy Baker as a permanent part of TWC!

by Cathy Baker @CathySBaker

Fall offers up a feast for our senses—pumpkin lattes, the rustling of leaves, and fuzzy sweaters—refreshing us spiritually, physically, and emotionally. When we intentionally engage the senses our mind is energized, leading to fresh ideas and solutions for our works in progress.

Write Like You Believe It

Edie here. Today I have a treat for you. My good friend, Cathy Baker is my guest today. Cathy isn't just an author I admire (have you read her blog, Cultivating Creativity? If not you should!) but she's also someone with wisdom and spiritual insight to spare. She's releasing her second devotional, Pauses for the Vacationing Soul: A Sensory-Based Devotional Guide for the Mountains, next week. This is the second in the series and I'd be super excited—even if I hadn't written the foreword for it. So be sure to give her a warm TWC welcome!

Stop treating your calling like a hobby...

Write Like You Believe It
by Cathy Baker @CathySBaker

Seven words changed the trajectory of my life.

Inviting Your Creative Self On A Date

by Cathy Baker @CathySBaker

Engaging God & your creative senses!

Your creative energy called. Yet the only thing it heard on the receiving end was a busy signal: 

Beep. (My schedule is packed.)

Beep. (I'm not a creative person.)

Beep. (Who has the energy for creativity?)

No wonder it feels a bit neglected, even forgotten. It's time to take the artist within on a date. 

The Artist Date is a basic tool of The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. She asks her students to undertake one Artist Date per week. 

Weekend Worship - Welcome to the Family!

Today you're in for a treat! My good friend and fellow writer, Cathy Baker, is sharing a devotion. She has an amazing blog and I encourage you to visit her there.


Welcome to the Family
Although feeling more like the redheaded stepchild with all my questions and quandaries, Cindy from ChristianDevotions recently made this novice writer feel right at home with those words.

I’m quickly learning that the writing community is indeed much like a family. One visit to our Upstate Christian Writers Fellowship—co-led by Vonda Skelton and Edie—and one soon discovers it’s more than just a family…it’s a functional family.

• Cheerleaders with no need for pom-poms. No hype here—sincere, practical, and wise advice is more than sufficient to spur on even the most defeated lover-of-words.
• A wealth of knowledge shared, not hoarded. The skilled writer embraces the opportunity to share their expertise with all those desiring to learn.
• Creativity is encouraged, perfectionism doused. One frees—the other captures.
• All are welcome, family and friends alike. While writing can be lonely, a community that comes together to merge ideas, plots, schemes, and things, is anything but.

As with any family, true motivations eventually emerge—love, guilt, fear—and this family is no exception. Without a doubt, however, love is the undercurrent that runs swiftly throughout the writing community.

Forget the sweet and sappy type of love that avoids crunched toes at all costs. What family is functional under those terms?

Apparently, crunched toes serve as a badge of honor for this community, proving that vulnerability is both present and active. A true indication of love at its best.

“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” 1 Corinthians 8:1b

Don't forget to join the conversation!
Blessings,
Cathy

Cathy Baker delights in observing God at work in the nuances of life, and sharing those observations through writing, journaling, and blogging. She’s a woman who has been forgiven much and strives to live a life that shouts, “Thank You, Jesus!” An experienced Bible teacher, Cathy leads a Bible group in her church, as well as a community Bible study for women. She and her husband Brian live in South Carolina with their answer to the empty-nest syndrome—a pampered pooch named Rupert.