I watched a great TEDtalks video entitled, “How to build your creative confidence.” David Kelly provides some interesting insights on developing creative confidence, overcoming phobias and achieving self-efficacy (the belief that we can deal with any challenges that life presents us). I especially appreciated his comment that we are all “naturally creative” in our own unique way. Unfortunately, that belief is too often quashed…
Since I was a kid, September has always marked the beginning of a new year. Between completing my writing programs and my ed-related courses, I’ve been in school steadily since I initially graduated from the University of Toronto back in the early 90s. So, in the spirit of a new year, the following are this year’s resolutions: No more courses – for a while…
I got the idea to start a blog after taking a creative writing course entitled, “Building an Audience” with Terry Fallis at the University of Toronto’s School for Continuing Studies. Terry is the author of The Best Laid Plans (Canada Reads 2011 winner) and The High Road. He made blogging seem like the easiest thing to do in the world. A quick look at…
Am finally getting around to reading Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft which was mentioned in several of the writing courses I took. I appreciated reading that King went through “periods of idleness followed by periods of workaholic frenzy.” It actually made me feel better to read that someone as prolific a writer as King goes through spells of inactivity. If…
Stumbled onto this list of American writers of Korean descent. I read Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee years ago. Great book. The protagonist, Henry, is a man caught between two worlds – Korean and American, and finds himself belonging to neither.