Guest blog from EYMER Design:In November of 2009, EYMER DESIGN Laboratories + Think Tank developed a Social Media Test Kitchen, the Tiny Mind Gazette (www.tinymindgazette.com). The TMG is a TypePad blog that is interconnected to Facebook and Twitter.The content is provided by various designers/writers as a creative outlet of free expression. Much of the content is provided by my fellow Cohasset (Massachusetts) resident, Sally Sisson. Sally is a creative content developer for mostly Business-to-Business and Educational Companies. Sally and I first met through Facebook and discussed the possibility of starting a blog, loosely based on our charming New England town of approximately 7000 residents. Picture in your mind, Lake Wobegon seen through the eyes of The Onion or Spy Magazine of the 1980-1990s.Read more and see graphs of page view and click stats at:Tiny Mind Gazette Initiative: a statistical snapshot
Overcoming Creative Block (part 3): Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity
TED Talk: Nurturing creativityI love this video clip. I watched it a year ago and just watched it again—twice in two days. As the TED intro says, it's surprisingly moving—on many levels.It covers ego, insecurity, the creative process, mental instability, fear of failure, perfectionism, the Ancient Greeks and Tom Waits.It's for writers, artists, anyone who’s anguished over, as Gilbert puts it, “the utterly maddening capriciousness of the creative process.”The author of Eat, Pray, Love turns the whole notion of creative genius on its head and ponders the use of ancient muses to create distance between the person and the product. In the end, she comes around to a common sense approach to the entire process and lauds the value of "just showing up."In other words, lightening doesn't have to strike every time you type a sentence.“Don’t be daunted, just do your job.” That's her closing line.Good advice, indeed.
Overcoming Creative Block (part 2): Writing, procrastinating + keeping a sense of humor
How do you overcome writer's block? Last week I asked friends and colleagues for tips. Tom B., old friend and former co-worker, sent this witty reply:"Writer’s block, eh? For me it can sometimes be, Writer’s Pathetic, Strangled Bleat of Knowing That I’ll Never, Ever Write Anything of Consequence Again, Sob! (Of course, that presupposes that you’ve already written something of consequence.) "I’m actually a master of dithering when I’m beginning a writing project, searching desperately for nits to pick up off the floor, needing just another cup of coffee, accidentally 
browsing a Tahiti travel site for 45 minutes and on. But something always kicks in when I get that first paragraph done, so in scooping out the first shovelfuls, I wondrously often see the road being built."The external things (besides beating the pets) that seem to help are exercising, reading something that’s greatly unlike what I’m trying to write (sewing pattern books), or doing something that’s mindless but physical, like rearranging my nun puppets. 
"Exercising really is a good one for me: I honestly get full sentences that just jump in my head, particularly when I’m bike riding. But of course, I don’t carry a notebook when I’m bike riding, so the sentences do get bounced around a bit before they get home.
"Hey, you just gave me a good idea for a blog post!"And then he had the nerve to steal my idea! Can you believe it? You can read it in its entirety here at TomBentley.com. And other ramblings as well. He’s actually very talented and very funny. I’m a tad jealous.We used to share a cubicle wall and now we’re on opposite sides of the country. If you're looking for someone to write about Santa Cruz beaches or Kentucky bourbon, give him a jingle.
* bicycle tire clock available at www.alibaba.com
Closing thoughts...
“Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials. It's a matter of doing everything you can to avoid writing, until it is about four in the morning and you reach the point where you have to write.”- Paul Rudnick
