Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “creativity”
@bethvogt I accepted a challenge this week. Not a physical challenge involving upping my exercise. Not a health challenge to decrease my calories or carbs. Not a decluttering challenge to attack my closets or my garage. What did I say yes to? I accepted an invitation to a Five-Day Card and Note Writing Challenge, thanks to my writer …
@bethvogt I’ve had a wind chime hanging in my office for years. I know, I know – wind chimes belong outside, not inside. I found this wind chime at a craft show, fascinated by the crafter’s display. Two copper tubes, along with a thin piece of agate, are suspended from a piece of burnt wood retrieved from one of Colorado’s …
@bethvogt Sometimes our well-thought-out plans don’t work. Frustrating, isn’t it? Last year wasn’t a great writing year for me. Too many disruptions meant very little creative writing. I spent some time evaluating what I needed to ensure I had a more productive year in 2021. Solid blocks of time. Dedicated space. No interruptions. Then I made my plan. It wasn’t …
@bethvogt My goal was simple: Sort through a stack of papers that needed to be filed. I never expected to return to the beginnings of a dream. A white restaurant napkin scribbled on both sides with words written in black ink and protected by a plastic page protector was slipped among the workshop notes and conference brochures and book contracts …
Whatever an artist creates, it is an echo of their life. When a reader turns the pages of one of my novels, if she listens closely, she’ll hear whispers of my life escaping from between the lines. Yes, I’ve plotted fictional characters facing obstacles that I placed in a specific order leading to “the end” of my design. But often, …
There was a time when I tried desperately to come up with a new story idea. As the saying goes, I had nothing. I played the writer’s “what if?” mind game while I drove around town. While I moved laundry from the washer to the dryer to the laundry basket. While I grocery shopped. While I loaded the dishwasher. While …
Every time I write a book, I have to get my brave on. Some of you are probably chuckling, wanting to ask: Oh, come on, Beth! What’s so scary about writing a novel? All of it. Figuring out what the book is about. Developing the characters. The first page. The messy middle. The end — oh, my word! The end! …
As a writer, I sometimes focus on the work of it all. Writing the story synopsis. Developing the characters. Putting the fast draft down on the page, scene by scene. And then rewrite. Rewrite. Rewrite. Somewhere along the way from synopsis to rewrite-rewrite-rewrite, I forget that, at the beginning, I fell in love with the story and the characters. I …
“Mom! Don’t take his picture!” I was walking around Breckenridge, CO with my husband and 16-year-old daughter. I had one camera and my daughter had another as we captured images of the town. But my daughter whispered “Don’t!” when I stopped to photograph the painter standing near a bridge, intent on the hanging basket of multicolored flowers. How could I …
