Creative Sparks for the New Year

It’s a Brand New Year,
What Will You Create and How Will You Share It?

With memories of fireworks and friends fresh in our minds, it is the season for reflecting backward and planning forward. For authors and artists, this is a great time to consider what you’d like to create this coming year, and how you will share that work with people. Start with small, manageable and measurable steps. While goals are grand, unrealistic goals are a sure path to future disappointment. We often simply resolve to do more, more, more, without stopping to ask ‘why‘? The good news is that a lot of small improvements over the course of a year add up to much accomplished by the time you reflect on all of this again. Here are some ideas for small creative goals you may want to try;

• buy a sketchbook or a ‘doodle book’ with drawing prompts and begin to do one small drawing each day for the next year
• keep a journal of one thing you’ve learned each day, or one interesting person, place or thing you encountered that day. Be as descriptive as you can
• read a book outside of your own genre of writing, or your regular genre of reading. If you like historical fiction, get a good volume of poetry. If you are a fan of mystery novels, read a classic children’s book
• resolve to visit every gallery in your city once over the coming year (many of them are free)
• take at least one class or workshop to improve your writing or art
• whichever adventure you choose for yourself, start a blog to share it with friends, family and fans. Set a regular posting schedule for the coming year (one post a day, one post a week, etc.) and stick to it
• any other ‘artventures’ you are planning this year? Share them with us – we’d love to hear about them

If you don’t have a blog or website for your work, why not also resolve to take your work online this year? Going online is a great way to share what you’ve been creating, build a community around your work, and even sell your work. Going online can feel daunting, but we’d like to help with PageMaster Sites (you can read more about that by clicking here).

We wish you a happy and creative new year.