While searching for good valuable blog I have found your site. I am amazed by its content. Congratulations.

From last month or so I am writing my blog ( language: Gujarati ). although my main interest is short story writing But I am also posting one suspense story in serial form .I have 50 visitors a day.

This Diwali I had put one post regarding Chain of Love !. message of this post is to motivate readers for helping each other as and when they are in trouble. this is started through one Email which i got through one of my friend. I tag this post as “Bray Anderson” (Gujarati language)

i am not earning any money from my blog. what I want is to translate some of your best article in my language
if you permit me. The motto behind this is to just help the people who are only know Gujarati. as and when I translate yr article I let you inform accordingly through email..that is my promise.

hoping for your positive reply.

with regards.

Kamlesh Patel

http://kcpatel.wordpress.com/
(shabdasparsh is the name of my blog in Gujarati)

I find that a lot of creative types (myself occasionally included) are, if not lazy, stymied by a sort of perfectionist terror. Writing ‘my’ music or creating art in ‘my’style is easy – it comes naturally – it gives great pleasure because it’s often a spontaneous urge. Not deeply pre-planned, it feels like an expression of character. The illusion is that ‘my’ personality is inherent in the act of this creation.

Therefore to create in a calculated way would be to compromise ‘my’ personality, disrupt the spontaneous creative act, and you are not only forced to work at what (we are told be fiction and society) ’should’ be natural. This work is then an artificial manipulation of your individual personality – selling out – a bad thing.

Or is it? I don’t believe so. Considering our own personalities, and acting in calculated ways is sound human as well as sound business practice.

Sorry this is a bit of a ramble – I’m sort of sorting out my thoughts as I go.

In answer to your question, how can you help? Keep writing stuff like this. Maybe throw some challenges into the mix. People can rise to challenges that they never thought they would…

Most creative production is (or in my books, should be) a process of communication. Just as you might alter your tone and mannerisms to speak with a child, or to ‘reach’ someone who is upset, or to help a foreign tourist, or when we meet a religious figure, so too should we be willing to alter our mode of production, or our product in order to ‘reach’ the widest possible group of people.

Maybe I was just a naive kid but when I didn’t have money to travel, I started looking into jobs that would pay me to travel. I found one and it turned into one of the best experiences of my life. I didn’t have money to ski, but then I started looking into opportunities to teach skiing. Yup, found one. And it was super fun. A great workout and a great way to be outside. Neither turned into a career, but, that wasn’t my intention.

I go back and forth. Sometimes I want my job to be wrapped around my passion. Sometimes I want my job to be neutral and just “there,” so that I can focus on my passions outside of work. There have been times when I’ve lived to work. But now I mostly work to live.