Want to participate in The Next Chapter?

Our 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women journey is now complete. If you are travelling through the book on your own, please feel free to visit the posts below for inspiration and encouragement.

The Inspiration Continues: Your Creative Spark

If you are interested in the amazing interviews that were a part of this session, I've pulled them together in a super-charged inspiration e-pack of almost 3 hours of audio materials and over 100 page of transcripts and bonuses. Unleash your inner artist at Your Creative Spark.


Join The Next Chapter

If you're interested in participating in future sessions of The Next Chapter, be sure to sign up for my monthly newsletter and you'll be among the first to get the details! I'm looking forward to sharing more adventures with you.

Celebration!!!

The Celebration!

The celebration call was a rousing success full of warmth, laughter and, yes, celebration! For those of you who couldn't be there, you were missed. But I wanted to be sure you didn't miss out, so I recorded the call so that you can take part in your own time. But if you're going to listen, I have one request: please, wherever you are when you're listening, do the happy dance along with everyone! And thank you to everyone who made the call. It was a joy to share the hour with you!

The Celebration Call Recording

Your Creative Spark...

I also have some big announcements and lots of wonderful news. First, I'd like to officially announce the release of Your Creative Spark: Inspiring Interviews with 12 Highly Creative Bloggers.

This is a collection of all of the interviews from our 12 weeks together - plus additional bonuses from the interviewees and complete transcripts. There's almost 3 hours of audio and 122 pages of text! I'm offering a special price until Sunday, April 5th at midnight! For more details and to order, go to www.yourcreativespark.com.

The Winner...

You may remember that people who participated in The Next Chapter survey were eligible for a draw to receive this collection for free.

And the winner is (drum roll please...): Boho Mom!!!
I'll be in touch with you soon about how to pick up your prize.

Our Next Book...

I am thrilled to announce that our next book is going to be playful, lively and a big stretch for some of us:

We'll be starting on Friday June 5, and I hope you'll play along. I will be creating a new blog home for us at www.tnc-wreckthisjournal.blogspot.com. There's nothing there yet but feel free to bookmark it or add it to your Google Reader. I'll be getting it started and opening up sign ups next week.

And this week, if you'd like to share your celebrations, intentions or reactions, or anything else for that matter, I've added one final Mr. Linky for The Next Chapter: The 12 Secrets edition.

My love to you all,

Jamie

Secret #12: Planning to Achieve Your Goals

12 weeks dedicated to your creativity - Congratulations!
Every step you took, whatever the size, was a gift to your creative spirit.
(I'm sure she's creating a thank you card for you right now!)

We have one more secret to cover and I'm jumping to the end of the chapter and inviting you to celebrate! I hope you'll join us on the Celebration Call and mark being a part of this magnificent, creative, sensitive, courageous group of remarkable women. Just add your name to the sign-up box above. And if you can't, I hope that next Friday at 2:00 EST you will take a moment to celebrate the group, your muses and yourself as a creative being. Give yourself a gold star. Smile at the sky. Take yourself out for coffee. Call up a friend and celebrate how amazing you both are! And stop by here later in the day. I'm going to record the call and will post it as soon as its available. (There's also going to be a special offer on Your Creative Spark, the collection of interviews, so you'll want to check that out)

Now to the first part of the secret - planning to achieve your goals. I love how Gail starts out the chapter with asking us to develop our own creative creed. It feels like such a wonderful culmination, a chance for us to come up with a collection of our own secrets as highly creative women. This whole journey, we have been doing that. You have shared your wisdom, experience, fears, humour, vulnerability, creativity and courage - and it has been extraordinary. Thank you for so generously sharing yourselves.

The video I'm sharing with you today is one of the ways that I plan. It holds my vision for this year and reminds me each day to stay focused on my goals and my dreams. I wonder what creative goals you will set for yourself. I hope you will share them not only this week but in the weeks to come, that we will stay connected and continue to grow together, making the world a brighter place by being the stars we are.

With love and deep appreciation,
Jamie

Highly Creative Blogger Interview #12: Laini Taylor

I hope you enjoyed our interview with Laini Taylor. A creative power e-pack of all 12 inspiring interviews plus over 122 pages of accompanying transcripts and bonuses are now available at Your Creative Spark.

Laini Taylor is a writer and artist living in Portland, Oregon. Her first novel, Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer, was published in 2007, and 2009 will see the release of its sequel, Silksinger, as well as her third book, Lips Touch, a trio of supernatural tales about kissing!

Though Laini had always wanted to be a writer, a patch of *writer's block* after college (a symptom of staring at a computer screen all day at her first *real job* as an editor) led her on a winding path to art school in her mid-20s. She now designs a licensed product line, Laini's Ladies, that is sold throughout the country and beyond. She lives with her husband, illustrator Jim Di Bartolo, and their old dog Leroy, and spends her days writing and designing.

More about Laini...

Website - Laini Taylor
Blog - Grow Wings
Blog about writing - Not for Robots
Along with the magnificent Megg, Laini hosts - Sunday Scribblings

The Vault ~ Week of March 27

Over the course of this journey, you'll be claiming, exploring and expressing your creativity. You're going to grow and share and stretch. And we know when that starts happening all those inner voices come out. You know the ones. You're hearing them already. "Who do you think you are?" "You'll never be an artist." "Grow up." "That's not really creative." Ouch!

So, here's what I want you to do. Over the course of our journey together, any time you hear one of those soul-sucking, creativity-thwarting, heart-hurting phrases in your life, your mind or your memories, come and put it here in the vault. Leave it in the comments and let it stay there. Put it in every time it shows up. Leave it anonymously, if that's easier. Put it out of your mind and into the vault. Know that when you put it in the vault you are saying that limiting belief is GARBAGE and you don't need it anymore!

Let all these trouble-making thoughts keep each other company while we get on with loving up our creative selves!

Secret #11: Subtracting Serenity Stealers

"The first step in starting an enterprise is to clear the space for it or till the ground."
Barrie Dolnick, Simple Spells for Success

I love that this particular secret is coming up just in time for spring! Let's make way for yumminess to bloom into our lives. This week Gail's encouraging us to "get rid of everything you neither need or want in your life." What disturbs your serenity?

Some places to look:

• clutter
• toxic people
• toxic situations
• limiting beliefs
• activities you dread
• over-committing
• over-scheduling
  
• over-stimulation
  
• perfectionism
• the outdated
• the "undone"
• habits that aren't serving you
  

In service of your joy, your art, your heart, your body, your serenity, your dreams and your spirit, pick one stealer this week make the cut. You can do it!

Highly Creative Blogger Interview #11: Sunny Schlenger

I hope you enjoyed our interview with Sunny Schlenger. A creative power e-pack of all 12 inspiring interviews plus over 122 pages of accompanying transcripts and bonuses are now available at Your Creative Spark.

Sunny Schlenger is a professional organizer, author and mentor with over 30 years of experience as a pioneer in her field. She helped launch the “custom-tailored” approach to getting organized in the 90’s with her best-selling book, How To Be Organized In Spite Of Yourself, whose approach was licensed by Harvard University’s training and development program. She then took the concept of organizing to the next level by integrating it with spirituality. The result, Organizing For The Spirit was published in 2004.

In addition, Sunny has also been named as a “flow master” by Charlene Belitz and Meg Lundstrom, authors of The Power of Flow (New York: Random House, 1997). The title designates someone who is one of a group of people “highly engaged in the natural, effortless, unfolding of life in a way that moves them towards wholeness and harmony.” As a consultant, author, coach and mentor, Sunny has worked with thousands of people, assisting them in their quest for self-realization, productivity and peace.

You can find Sunny's website here and her blog here.

Sunny is currently offering a new course: My New Year How to Set Intentions That Stick
From the Big Picture Scrapbooking introductory page:

"We know that January is long gone, but 2009 is still fresh and new and with Sunny's techniques, you could even start a new year on December 31st! Regardless of what the calendar says, this could be the first day of a new year filled with potential-just like you! Come take part in this fascinating and FUN process and make this the year you feel like a winner!

Sunny's class includes: Five voice messages available as streaming audio, downloadable MP3 files and transcripts Inspirational and instructional messages and handouts to coach you through the intention-making process Bonus handouts with layouts by Big Picture Scrapbooking's Featured Teachers: Georgana Hall, Lisa Damrosh and Elizabeth Dillow Email access to Sunny Gallery to share your work and view the work of your classmates

Registration