Mastery of Failure Creating a Written life Package

Posted on by taniacreations

I have just released my Creative Space Mastery Podcasts in English and Brazilian Portuguese, with my new website: creativespacemastery.com

I would never have imagined that I would have an idea for life, a breakthrough even, during or because of a job interview for a job I didn’t get. I was talking to a CEO, the founder or owner of a very interesting boutique services company and she was saying something familiar to me. Very familiar indeed… 

‘I have wanted to write a book, for years, actually, I need to do it, I have the content’ or something to this effect, I can’t swear to the words exactly. 

The sense of urgency, the pressure, the need to make it come out, the desire to bring that niche knowledge to light. I know that feeling, the stories that thump from inside the chest, the ones that will not be silenced no matter if you keep telling them you have other priorities. 

They do not shut up. And now and then, in moments of silence, or when you lower your guard, when you are around other artists, writers — in her case, people like me — the voice screams louder and it really claims for attention.

And why not? How many leaders haven’t done so, heard the voices and their books did so much for them, becoming tools to pass on their unique knowledge to their industry, becoming social proof, a tool for engagement between employees, opening opportunities for invitations for networking, speaking engagements. 

A book can transform into a manual, an educational tool, and a legacy, positioning a pioneer as a thought leader who presents their authority on the subject of their expertise by articulating unique perspectives. Once it’s done, at the very least, the voice taking energy from other tasks calms down.

It quickens and one is left accomplished, with a marketing tool, and peace. I had all these thoughts after that interview, reflecting on the feeling from the conversation I had with the CEO who was interviewing me for a job but spent minutes talking about a book she desired to write but couldn’t find the time or the process to start.

I didn’t get that job, but not because of that interview. And when I didn’t get it, I decided to send an email to the CEO saying ‘If you ever decide to write your book, and you would like my help with the challenges you mentioned, contact me, I can help.’

And, in the act of writing that email, the Creative Space Written Life Package was born.

I realised I had a series of unique qualifications to offer people with the giant of narrative pounding on their chest. I had the creative process structured I had twenty years of corporate experience, with the knowledge of assisting teams and executives, working directly within human resources, designing learning and management courses, delivering training, and managing projects.

I comprehend the pressures faced by excessively busy corporate executives and the mindset that accompanies their responsibilities.On the other hand, I had exposure to a wide variety of industries and people from all walks of life, first through growing up inside Academia, because of my parents, who worked at the same University practically all their lives and in which backyard we lived at. doing an artist, a writer and a dancer, I’m among artists constantly too, having even worked at the administration of a Latin Dance company among others. 

Lastly, having taken a sabbatical for writing and a recent break from work, I understand what it is like to have to manage your own time which can be as overwhelming as having no time, as I imagine it would be for someone who just retired or was made redundant. In this case, what I know, has nothing to do with my skills as a writer. 

For this purpose, my strength lies in my highly organised and strategic mind and its ability to find individual, catered solutions for problems. Creative ways in which people could start and maintain a creative process to see their wanna ties through. And from an interview that culminated in a failed job, a new inspired idea was born!

Creative Space Mastery Resources

Posted on by taniacreations

I’m writing the content for a Podcast I’m creating, Creative Space Mastery.

As I’m doing this, Creative Space Mastery, I have been thinking of my favourite resources in building my creative process…

I thought it would be useful to share:

Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert

For me, the best lesson Elizabeth Gilbert writes in this book is about the creative genius being outside of the creator, that we just have to make space and hone the artistic ability to make it justice. 

This book is the one I would make a must-read to anyone in the throws of creation. It stokes a fire into the desire to create, bursts any perfectionism away, and stops you from delving into any failures of the past.

I think another lesson and the reason she was so successful with Eat Pray Love, is to bring to the world the concept that artists do not have to be tortured to create, contained in Big Magic. That lesson alone is a great kindness to the world, and the fact that she has been heard, is for me the connecting of the dots, the reason why everything happened for her the way it happened.

The War of Art, Steven Pressfield

This was my first encounter with the concept of the resistance that creating something can impose on an artist or creator. How hard it can be to finish something, and how just reaching completion is already an achievement.

The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly? Seth Godin

Seth Godin explores in depth the concepts of resistance and completion, and talks about pushing boundaries and pursuing audacious goals, this was a book that stayed with me and I call it my Green Book, it’s a sort of a bible on how to push through, and separate lack of inspiration from resistance.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King

Stephen King gave me another piece of the puzzle, my favourite part is when he talks about writing as archeology, the writer uncovering a story, not creating it, similar to Liz Gilbert, the story is outside the creator.

These authors are always great at showing us how they are just people like us, who started from nothing and grew through much work and even though success seems obvious from the outside it didn’t feel any obvious from the inside. 

The Novel Project: A Step-by-Step Guide to Your Novel, Memoir or Biography, Graeme Simsion

Graeme’s is a practical guide, and what I liked about this is to show how there are many more steps to creating something than just the one part, for example, to create a novel, the writing in itself is only a little bit. 

When a person is creating anything, you can’t consider just that one little part you like the best. In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert calls that the sh$t-sandwich. There are parts you will love and parts you will not like so much, it will come with all crafts and choices.

The Elements of Eloquence: How To Turn the Perfect English Phrase, Mark Forsyth

This is for writers, but also for anyone who needs to write as part of their creative process. And if you like language, this is a fun and funny read!

The Elements of Eloquence is hilarious, I expected a dry book impossible to endure and it made me laugh out loud, I learnt a lot, it took my writing to another level and at the same time explained why I write in a certain way and use certain elements already.

The Truth, Terry Pratchett

The Truth is fiction, in a fictional world full of vampires and goblins, and it’s the 25th book in the Discworld series, but Terry Pratchett is a master at stripping the world of its trimmings and bringing reality to its bare bones and showing it to you outside of our assumed conventions. 

The Truth is about the invention of the press and the power of the written word. It contains so much wisdom in wit and comedy that you have to read it with your brain turned on or you could just laugh and miss the best of the book.

“The young man is also an idealist. He has yet to find out that what’s in the public interest is not what the public is interested in.”

“You cannot apply brakes to a volcano. Sometimes it is best to let these things run their course. They generally die down again after a while.”

― Terry Pratchett, The Truth

The Word is Murder, Anthony Horowitz

In another work of fiction, Anthony H. Makes himself a character interacting with a fictional detective and through transforming himself into the narrator we are given insights into his creative process. A fun way to be immersed in an artist’s humble and self-deprecating, day-to-day struggles while creating.

While you know his interactions with his frustrating detective aren’t real, the writing process, and filming interactions,  are definitely based on his reality. I loved being there, being part of it, and knowing how frustrating it can be and that being famous and making it doesn’t make any difference to the process itself. The struggles are the same.

The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

It is a favourite for many people for a reason, it teaches us to see the world with creative eyes, with inspiration, with possibility; it is the book that taught innovation before the word was trending.

It is the book that taught us to see the elephant inside the boa constrictor instead of a simple hat.

Inspiration for Writers, Emily Darcy

I have a collection of mini-books around me, Inspiration for Artists, Quotes about Coffee, Never Stop Dreaming, It’s Going to be Okay, mini-books that spoke to me, some I bought from used bookshops and others new.

I read a quote here and there to inspire me, or when I’m stuck. 

They help. They push me forward. They provide guidance, sometimes, they are an oracle too!

Making Time for Stories in the Dark

Posted on by taniacreations

You don’t need to be validated to want to make time for your passion. To be a published author to dedicate yourself to your writing. To be a recognised painter to find half an hour every week to paint without judging your colours.

To find time for what makes your heart sing, forget what others feel is valid, just listen to the song coming from within, and make time for the music notes.

I may not be traditionally published yet, but I am very good at being creative. Rain or Shine, in happiness or in sickness, in abundance or depletion. I can create through too much inspiration or when I’m at the bottom of the well looking up, when it’s so dark all I can feel is the walls around me. 

I’ll hold myself up on the walls and tell stories to the darkness. Incoherent, bleak stories as they may be.

Don’t worry about the quality, as long as there is creativity and there is passion in the creation, that is all that matters.

Going Verbal

Posted on by taniacreations

I think most days you forget that with each action, reaction, decision, word, you make, take, utter, you are deciding who you are that day.

Most days you function in the automatic, being the same person you were yesterday and the same person people around you — based on the image you have created of yourself externally — expect you to be tomorrow.

In reality, every day, at every moment, you are deciding who you are to be. Every day I can decide, for example, if I will be a powerful storyteller, or if I’m a being amidst chaos at work. 

Week after week, I’m choosing the storytelling path, and recently, I woke up inhabiting the same body, in the same bed I had gone to sleep, but with an idea so powerful, that it has been transforming my life since.

This idea is making my storytelling going verbal, oral I mean, like our forefathers. I have several projects cooking up, watch this space, (this is a keyword, more on that later) and I am preparing for it!