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TED Talk

Your elusive creative genius

This was a surprisingly funny TED Talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. She talks about the weirdness of the creative process and how it just might be possible that “fairies follow people around rubbing fairy juice on their projects.” 

Article

Fear is boring, and other tips for living a creative life

If fairy juice didn’t work for you, this article by Elizabeth Gilbert is more practical advice to kick your creative butt off the couch. My favourite part is: “If you have a creative mind, it’s a little bit like owning a border collie. You have to give it something to do or it will find something to do, and you will not like the thing it finds to do.”  As someone who has had to staple their duvet back together because the border collie got a walk instead of a run, it brings into view a very relatable image.

Theory

What is spoon theory?

This week a coworker went home early, and when I asked if everything was OK he just said, “Yeah, just ran out of spoons.” So I looked it up and I really like the metaphor. Don’t enjoy the feeling, just the way of explaining it.

Fun Project

How to make a zine from a single sheet of paper

This has got to be the easiest way to make a cute little book. I made a bunch of them this weekend and the kids (and I) really enjoyed filling them. They’re just the right size to fit a short story without being intimidating, or taking too long to finish. Lots of fun! 

Podcast

Knowledge Project: Living in the Future

This is a podcast with Mike Maples who is talking about how he finds startups to fund that are going to be successful. It wasn’t my favourite podcast overall but there was an interesting section about an hour in that talks about storytelling. One quote was, “What entrepreneurs who tell stories well succeed at, is they realize they’re not the hero of the story. The audience of their message is the hero of the story. What they’re doing, is helping that person go on a hero’s journey to co-create a better future.”