Increase Creativity: A List of Ways

Shanna Swendson, author of Enchanted, Inc. (Book one is Hex and the City)offers a fine list of "Creativity Boosters."

She adds the excellent advice to use these techniques only as boosters, not as ways to procrastinate about writing.




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Help with Book Marketing

Book Candy Studios is a new company that's doing beautiful "movie preview" style ad spots for online marketing of books. Fees range from $350 to $1500+. I haven't worked with them, but am very impressed with their sample trailers.

Getting someone else to help with promotion is one way to make easier the process of tooting your own horn.

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Ten-Second Meditative Moment

Here's a cool, calming and confidence-inducing trick. I found it in a book I put on my list of ideas for my husband of what I'd like to get for Christmas: Kundalini Yoga Meditation: Techniques Specific for Psychiatric Disorders, Couples Therapy, and Personal Growth by David S. Shannahoff-Khalsa. This may not seem like a good stocking item, but it has good stuff in it.

This technique is one piece of a long and complicated meditation for dealing with obsessive-compulsive disorder. It's also for use in sticky moments during the day, when one might tend to tense-up. Particularly useful because it doesn't show.

All you do is take a deep breath and hold it for about three seconds, just long enough to think the syllables, vic-to-ry, then let the breath go. I do it two or three times, especially when I catch myself in any nervous habit. This creates a mini-break, slows mounting agitation, and is a nicely affirming message. (Vic-to-ry, BTW, is ideally not victory over other folks involved.)


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