Fill Your Tank

I love this quote from a lifehack.org post about boosting your creative juices -

An aspiring writer who doesn’t read is doomed to mediocrity from the start. A hopeful thinker of new thoughts will produce only banal repetitions, unless he or she constantly seeks out what others have thought before.

But What Are My Passions?

I've been spending a great deal of my research and work delving into taking your resources (your time, your money, your talent, etc) and applying them to the things you are most passionate about most in life, that you value most in life. Recently though, a friend who was asking how things were going with the book remarked "Wow, sounds great - I hope you can tell me what I'm passionate about while you're at it!"

Well, sort of. I have given it some thought, and knew it was something I needed to address, but the more I think about it the more important it is to have this as a firm foundation before moving forward. What use is learning tricks and tips on how to spend more time doing what you love if you aren't even (consciously) aware of what those things are that you value most in life, that you'd be so much more "alive" doing?

So, I'm directing my research and thinking efforts in that direction now. I came across this post about how to find work you love earlier today, which should give me a good jumping off point into the deeper waters of helping people make sure they have clearly defined what they are passionate about... at least at the point in their lives they read my book.

Three a Day

From an article at rodcorp about how author Philip Pullman approaches his writing:

I write three pages every day (one side of the paper only). That's about 1100 words. Then I stop, having made sure to write the first sentence on the next page, so I never have a blank page facing me in the morning.

He goes about it at a different time of day than I'd be likely to once I get rolling on this, but I really like the idea of starting that next page before stopping for the day.

The Hero Cycle

This graphic depicting Joseph Campbell's Hero Cycle from the Power of Myth may come in handy to have referenced if I end up creating a fictional story to support the purpose of Harness Your Passions.

Inspiration Dig

Working on this book, I've begun thinking of myself as something of a "passionologist", going out on expeditions through websites, bookstores, interviews, etc. in an attempt to excavate passion-related artifacts. One such artifact I've come across recently is the post aptly titled Finding Your Passion over at Brad Bollenbach's 30 Sleeps blog.

I'm becoming a big fan of the way Brad squeezes his thoughts into words.