My calves felt like someone had covered them in gasoline and lit a match. I could almost feel my chest collapsing on my lungs. And I would have given my firstborn for a sugary drink. I looked at my watch.

Is your thinking clouded? Do you sometimes use use Google to find the answers? Or have ever had a great idea and said to yourself, "I'm not using that?" Cognitive biases influence what you're

In school, our teachers made us learn poems line-by-line. They prescribed us assignments like they were Valium, and we were depressed. So we wrote long essays about great poets W.B. Yeats, William Shakespeare

New York man Robert Mapplethorpe (1946–1989) wanted to do one thing with his life: to live for art. During his teens and early twenties, he experimented with drawing, painting and sculpture. Then, in 1970

When was the last time you had to deal with criticism? If you’ve worked with an editor, you’ll know how difficult it can be to deal with criticism. Working hard on an article only to get it back covered

I joined Masterclass in Autumn 2017 for $97. To me, that was a cheap investment. Over the past 10 years I’ve spent thousands of dollars on writing classes in traditional classrooms, I’ve also paid for

If you're at the start of your creative career, it's hard to conquer self-doubt much less muse on how you'll manage success. A new writer slaves away on his first draft until it's perfect. He's too afraid

A margin of safety is mental model from the financial world that prevents savvy investors from losing it all. It’s kind of like a seat belt. Ideally, you’ll never need to put it to the test but having

When Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1922–2007) was 22, he’d no idea what to do with his life or even if he was a good writer. After surviving the firebombing of Dresden, he served for the US army as clerk in in Fort

You were supposed to go to the gym today, but you sat on the couch liking snaps on Instagram instead. Or perhaps you wanted to paint, draw or write a book. But you just watched re-runs on Netflix and picked

So you want to build lasting creative habits? Like blogging on Steemit regularly. Or writing a book. Or composing an album. Well, you might enjoy sitting down on the couch each evening to watch a comedy

Staying focused and productive without getting burnt out is kind of like skipping. With a little of focus and momentum, you can go for a long time, but waste too much energy jumping, and you’ll either

When Arnold Schwarzenegger was a teenager, he started lifting weights in the Athletic Union in Graz, Austria. Arnold was surprised to see each athlete had a section on the wall in the gym next to where

Creative work is kind of like water. It's fluid, messy and unpredictable. Lots of artists revel in this chaos and talk about how great all-nighters are. Still, this way of working is unhelpful if want

Conserve Your Willpower ‘I just can't be bothered.’ ‘I’m just too tired.’ ‘I don’t have the energy today.’ Have you ever made these types of excuses when it's time to work? If you have, please don't beat

“The habit of writing for my eye is good practice. It loosens the ligaments.” – Virginia Woolf Do you keep a journal? I've spent years writing in journals of various forms and it's my favourite writing

When you hire an editor, he or she can help you refine your articles or book, so it speaks to one person rather than the masses. (That said, don’t abdicate responsibility.) It’s exciting sending in a

Mind mapping is a great way of arranging your research for blog posts into different topics. This creative technique also help you find inspiration for topics to write about. This creative technique will

In this practical video, I explain how to create your first mind map, and I explain how writers can use mind mapping to organise their ideas and write faster. If you'd like to get the mind map I use in

Start by finding out what you feel passionate about. People say it’s a ‘passion project’ when they’re describing a film they had to create, a book they felt driven to write or an album they needed to record...