Ready to Rev Up Your Creativity? An interview with Jill Badonsky, author of The Muse Is In: An Owner's Manual to Your Creativity

If like so many of us you need a little help revving up your creativity from time to time you'll want to check out the latest book by Jill Badonsky, The Muse Is In: An Owner's Manual to Your Creativity.

Jill Badonsky

Jill is the founder of Kaizen-Muse® Creativity Coaching and author of three books essential to any creative library including The Nine Modern Day Muses and a Bodyguard, The Awe-manac - A Daily Dose of Wonder and her brand new book, The Muse Is In: An Owner's Manual to Your Creativity. (She also happens to be my mentor, former creativity coach and friend.)

As I shared last week, there are at least five reasons (actually there are hundreds!) that I'm thrilled about the arrival of her new book.  Today I'm happy to share an interview I did with Jill about her latest gift to the global creative community. Hopefully it will give you some insight into her always inspiring, never boring, nine-times-out-of-ten hilarious take on our creative process, how to rev it up and keep it running smoothly. But first - check out one of her whimsical illustrations of a creative mind. Yep, that's right. She not only writes, she also fills her books with her own original artwork!

Creative Oasis (CO): Where do you come up with this stuff? I'm actually being serious. I have all of your books, am trained in the creative coaching method that you created and have been lucky enough to have you has my own creativity coach once upon a time. I am continually amazed at the stuff you come up with, as you say in this new book, to help get people's creativity working like "a well-oiled machine." Where do you come up with your unique ideas and methods for this?

Jill Badonsky (JB): I don’t know. Ideas are just THERE. I just assumed everyone has this accessory of ingenuity. I’m as perplexed about it as you are.

Maybe I’m wired into some plane of existence that feeds off-beat humor to willing and daffy recipients. Luckily I receive stuff that is actually useful as well. 

Part of it I think is valuing humor and novelty so much that I surround and expose myself to it constantly. That predisposes me to come up with stuff.  Thanks for the great compliment!

But, ya know, Jill, from my observations over the years I’ve noticed that YOU have a lot of creative ideas too, so there.

CO: What are one or two of your personal favorite tools that you use to when you feel stuck creatively?

JB:  Often I’m stuck because I’ve been working too hard so I simply need a break. Taking walks with small question and getting out of the house to a café helps.

Also free-associating. Just fluidly brainstorming usually taking something already in existence and thinking of what else it could be, what it sounds like, what about it is funny, or what else it could bring to mind. My first book I started with the nine muses, the second one with The Old Farmer’s Almanac, and this latest one I started with an owner’s manual for a car. Starting with a structure just makes it easier.

CO: What do you say to those people who swear up and down "I'm not creative!"?

JB: This question is one of the reasons I wrote the book. I feel strongly that everyone is creative, in all different ways.  But mostly I don’t say anything unless they ask for help because advice-giving doesn’t usually work. There are four pages that address this in the book. Here is part of one of them:

Some people think we are either born with creativity or we’re not.

Many people are indeed born with an innate talent.  When they cultivate that talent through many, many hours of practice, amazing works of art, literature, music, what-have-you are brought into existence.  But really, do you need to BE that person in order to discover the bliss, benefits, and rewards of creativity? No.

You can develop skill with practice, but the process is what makes life more wonderful.  Talented people are not necessarily happy;  the ones who are also happy, know how to create joy within themselves. 

Passion, curiosity, healing, need, problem-solving, angst, joy, amusement, reckless abandon - these are ALSO drives that result in creativity.  Everyone has the ability to be creative in these ways.  Everyone gets to be creative.

CO: I'm guilty of sometimes buying books on creativity (or other subjects) and then not reading them. Any tips for ways people who are intrigued by your books and buy them to actually make the time to read them? 

JB: Keep them in the bathroom.

CO: Thanks, Jill...for the interview...for the books...and, of course, for having the mind and heart that continue to generate creativity-instigating goodness for all of us!

Note the devilish creative twinkle in our eyes

Be sure to leave your questions and comments for Jill below. If we receive at least ten questions and/or comments she has generously offered to have a drawing for a free copy of her new book for one of you lucky readers to win. We'd love to hear from you!

Until next time, all the best from my creative oasis to yours,
Jill

An Inspiring Reminder to Be True to Your Creative Self!

Margaret Wolf admits there was a time when creativity took a back seat to the rest of her life, but not anymore. “I no longer steal time for my art,” says Margaret. “I made a promise to myself that the rest of my life would have to work around my creative pursuits.” A photographer/artist/writer, who recently held her one-woman show, “Three Cubed” at the Janette Kennedy Gallery in Dallas, Texas, Margaret says it’s a joy and a privilege to live a life immersed in her creative process.

As one of the 13 talented artists who agreed to donate an original piece of art to Infinite Possibility, A Night of Music, Art & Women Helping Women, (a celebration for the release of my solo CD, “Dancing in Limbo,” and silent art auction benefiting Women for Women International) I chose my song “Parallel Lives” for Margaret. This selection proved to be fairly serendipitous.

As she shares in her inspiring video below, although Margaret has always realized the value of living a creative life, she recently made the conscious decision to honor her true creative spirit at all times – to live her creative truth every day. She has successfully created a very satisfying MidLife Oasis™ for herself, and I for one am absolutely inspired by her!

Click here to watch connect directly to video if you're unable to view above. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSqi3YQJ56I)

No stranger to combing art and philanthropy, Margaret recently curated an charitable exhibit of 40 Dallas-based photographers (Living in Gratitude) and raised thousands of dollars for the North Texas Food Bank. “I feel lucky to be able to use my creative gifts to help others,” says Margaret.

And I feel lucky to call Margaret Wolf my friend. To see more of Margaret’s beautiful images visit her at www.margaretwolf.com.

Creating Your Oasis 101 - Teleclass - Sept. 9 @ 1pm central!

Join me for a fun teleclass, "Creating Your Oasis 101" this Wednesday, September, 9, 2009 @ 1pm central/11am pacific time.  This inspirational and motivational call will be a great introduction (or refresher course) in how to make the time and space in your life for creative fulfillment.

What brings your real joy and satisfaction? Whatever it may be - writing, painting, photography, baking, gardening , tap dancing - chances are, you don't get to it as often as you'd like. Whether or not you have kids in school, fall is a wonderful time to delve into your personal oasis and enjoy the mind/body/spirit benefits of making time for you! 

This one hour teleclass will provide effective tips and inspiring prompts to help you reconnect and recommit to the creative pursuits you love in a fun, no-pressure way. 

$15 payable by check or Paypal.  Click here to register!

I look forward to helping you create the time and space for your creative oasis!  See you there!

Beach Lessons - #3 – The Creative & Therapeutic Benefits of the Drip Sand Castle

My preferred method for building sand castles is the “drip” technique. You don’t need special molds, buckets or even a shovel. A glorious drip castle can be created using nothing but ocean water, sand and your hands. (thick brownish sand of Texas beaches is ideal –beautiful sugary sands of Florida – not so much)

If you sit right at the water’s edge, you don’t even need a bucket to hold the water. Just dig a little hole in the sand with your hands and let the incoming tide fill ‘er up. Then scoop out handfuls of soft, mushy sand and let it drip slowly out of your hands onto the beach. As you do this again and again, forms begin to take shape that look a bit like termite mounds or reverse stalagmites.

I love the free form way the structures evolve. I love the tactile experience – the way the sand feels as it oozes out of my hand - soft, squishy and warm. (I often give myself a little spa-like foot mud-scrub while I’m at it.) I love the process as much as the end result – which is one reason I find it to be such a satisfying creative endeavor. And, as a bonus - it’s supremely relaxing – therapeutic even.

Sand castles are not meant to last forever. I think their impermanence only adds to their unique magic. Like a sacred mandala, carefully crafted by Buddhist monks in ritualized ceremony, sand castles are meant to be enjoyed during their creation and by onlookers, and then lovingly offered back to the sea by the wind and the waves. (Once the Buddhist mandalas, with their intricate designs of brightly colored sand, are complete – they’re blessed, desecrated and usually released into a body of water to further spread the blessings.)

During my most recent trip to the beach, there were some major, architectural sand sculptures up and down the shore. Enormous castles complete with moats, turrets, bridges and flags. The coolest one was a life-size speedboat complete with bench seats large enough for four adults to sit in.

Mine, however, was more along the lines of the free-form structure that Richard Dreyfuss created over and over again in the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. I think I remember him using dirt, paper and even mashed potatoes to build it. He had no idea what he was building – but he was inexplicably compelled to do so. Me too!

Drip sand castles are a nice reminder that there are times when process trumps end product, free-form trumps structure, and messy beats tidy and neat! (check out this “Wreck This Journal” post by Pink Heels for another great example of this)

What can you do today to play with a creative process, make a bit of a mess and just have fun with it? I’d love for you to share your creative/therapeutic ideas with me!