This is a sponsored guest post by Wayne Wilkerson.

Since I have been living in an apartment for the past two years, moving for me is not as painful as it could be. I do not have a large amount of furniture, so it is not necessary for me to hire large moving trucks. I recently moved into a larger condo and instead of using professional services, I asked a large group of friends to help me move. I was lucky to have two friends with large trucks that were available for the weekend. With the help of my friends I was moved into my apartment in a short time. There was a great deal of unpacking and disorganization to take care of because of the quickness of the move. I had taken the time to contact Internet Service Provider to have my internet turned on at my new condo which helped me stay entertained when taking breaks from unpacking.

Having a large group of friends move me was very helpful and made the process fun and easy. With so many different hands and people working to move me in, a lot of things were misplaced in different rooms, but it was well worth it. Having the wireless internet helped to keep people around longer to help out since they were able to play around online. While this move was not the most efficient and organized, it was one of the more fun moves Ive ever made.

In more than two decades, I managed to fill piles of notebooks with stories, ideas, clippings, doodles, quotes, drawings, anecdotes, and poems. And, I have been lugging these notebooks from country to country, every time I find myself moving (I’m in my fourth country now). I can throw clothes and shoes, leave stuff toys and gifts, donate expensive ornaments and appliances, but I can never bear to throw or leave any of my writing journals away.

In fact, I still find myself looking through them every now and then to get new ideas for a story or article, to finish a piece I began months or years ago but never had the energy to complete back then, and/or to rehash favourite themes.

What about you? Do you have a journal yet? If not, what’s stopping you from starting one?

Make your journal personal. Give it a title and make it just the way you like it. Some of my favourite journal titles are: “Life’s a Mixed Bag of Nuts”, “Scribbles”, “Sojourns and Seasons”, “New Beginnings”, and “The Crazy World of Me”. Do you have any other ideas for titles?

Play with your journal! You can add stickers, gift tags, magazine clippings, and more. Write with different coloured pens! In fact, why not try writing with different types of pens — glitter pen, gel pen, ballpoint pen, coloured pencils, and markers.

Feel free to doodle, sketch, or draw in your journal. It doesn’t matter if you don’t consider yourself an artist. These things could help to remind you of your thoughts and ideas of a certain time, place, or person. They can even be starting points of your next nonfiction piece!

So, go ahead and get yourself a journal. Then, begin to write!

Here are some more ideas and prompts on starting your journal:

* If you feel self conscious about starting your journal at the very first page, leave the first three to five pages of your journal blank.

* Put a picture of you in one of the pages and write as many positive adjectives as you can to describe yourself.

* Doodle on one page of your journal. You can put anything — spirals, stars, hearts, etc. Afterwards, look at your doodles. Do you have any favourite doodle? Write about that doodle. How can you identify yourself with that doodle?

Happy journal writing!

1) Walk, jog or run. OK, let me first place a disclaimer: I’m not a big fan of exercise. I do, however, acknowledge that it’s good for one’s body, mind and soul. So, even though I’m not an exercise freak, I always feel refreshed and inspired after a good walk, stretch, dance or pilates session. That’s why I highly recommend it too.

2) Read or look at books, magazines, newspapers, photo albums, scrapbooks, etc. I’m a visual person. I can’t help but feel inspired when I read well-written books or look at great images.

3) Attend classes, seminars or workshops. Writing, painting, photography, and many other creative pursuits can be very isolating. That’s why it’s always great to mingle with other like-minded individuals. And, of course, improving your knowledge and skills should definitely help too.

4) Go window shopping! No, really. There are just so many ideas at the mall. It’s probably because shops are often buzzing with colour, shapes, sounds, smells and people. So, go ahead and spend a few hours just taking it all in.

5) Start creative eavesdropping. It’s an embarrassing habit, I know. But, that’s the wonderful part about being a creative individual — you have the license to do embarrassing stuff every now and then. And yes, listening is a great tool for creativity!

6) Just work. Sometimes, when your creativity won’t budge, you just have to kick it in the butt and tell it to keep moving. Face that blank page and start scribbling. Get your old canvases and paints out and start throwing colours. Sooner or later, inspiration will strike. And, even if it doesn’t strike as soon as you want it to, you’ll at least have a few bits and bobs of work that you can save for more brainstorming later.

7) Visit galleries, museums, and/or libraries. Basking in the presence of great artists, writers and historians can often be an awe-inspiring experience.
Socialise. Being surrounded with people can inspire you to create. You can get re-energised if socialising is your thing. And, even if socialising isn’t your thing, you can still pick up ideas from individuals that you meet.

9) Pray or meditate. Looking to a different source of strength, inspiration and motivation may be just what you need at a time when you feel dry in your creative life.

And, finally,

10) Relax! If all else fails, or if you simply feel like doing so, just put your feet up and get some rest. Perhaps, the lack of inspiration may be due to your body telling you that you’re doing too much, too fast. Unwind, get pampered, take it easy.

Inspiration may be knocking on your door soon enough.

Go out there and have fun. Or, stay in your jammies and relax.

Whatever you do, just remember: YOU ARE SPECIAL. YOU ARE CREATIVE. No one else in the world can do the things you do quite like the way you do them.

Revel in your uniqueness. Be happy.

- Stack of old magazines, brochures, and/or newspapers
- Scissors*
- Paste or Glue*
- Lots of Paper or a Notebook
- Dry Container like an envelope, a plastic tumbler,
etc. (optional)

Once you have these materials, you’re all set to start making cut paste poetry. Just follow these steps:

Collecting Words

Go through your magazines, brochures, and/or newspapers. Look for words that you like and then cut them per word. There’s no limit to how many words you could collect. Of course, the more words you have, the better because you’ll have more choices when you start making poems.

Don’t forget to collect nouns and verbs. These would be the most useful words in your word collection. You might also consider looking for adjectives and adverbs, conjunctions and interjections, prepositions, and pronouns. Once you’ve collected enough words, you can put them in a container or just a clear space on your work/play area.

Fun with Words

Now that you’ve got a good collection of words, you can start making your cut paste poetry.

You can do these in three ways:

1) Just randomly choose words in your collection and paste them one by one on the paper. It doesn’t matter if they don’t make sense. Sometimes, you’ll come up with phrases or sentences like: puppy sing very of the good. Don’t worry about it at first. Just have fun and continue choosing and pasting words until your paper is too full or you think that your ’silly poem’ is done. You can leave this cut paste poem as it is, or you can get a pen or pencil and add words that could help your ’silly poem’ find some sense.

2) Give yourself a number and stick to it. For example, you chose “12″. Once you have this number in mind, randomly choose 12 (or any number that you chose) words from your collection. After you picked your words, try to arrange them on your paper and make a poem. Again, it doesn’t matter if some phrases and/or sentences don’t make sense. You can leave this poem as it is or you can get a pen or pencil to add ‘necessary’ words.

3) Lay all your words on your work/play table. Read each one carefully and start choosing words to make phrases and/or sentences for your poems.

You can try more than one approach, if you like. This way, you can select which one is your favorite for future use.

Here are some examples of cut paste poetry:

Title: Succulent Wild Woman: Dancing with Your Wonder.full Self
Author: SARK
Purchase: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/068483376X/indigoinn/

I bought this book at Angus and Robertson Book Store in Brisbane (Aus) on the 10th of June 2001 around 12.30pm. A few hours later, I finished reading the book. That’s how fun this is!

I first came across Sark’s work while I was living in California (USA). I wanted to buy her book so badly. But, at that time, I held back. And, every time I came across her books, I kept holding back. After reading

I’m sure that when you try to read Succulent Wild Woman: Dancing With Your Wonder.Full Self, you’ll find many other things that I wasn’t able to mention here. In just 179 colorful and unique pages, you’ll gain a special mentor in Sark, find lots of further reading resources, and know that you deserve to live a succulent, wild, and wonder.full life.

(c) 2001-2005 SAM Coggins

Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to
exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work.
- H.L. Hunt

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you
do not stop.
- Confucius

I’m inspired by…

the colour purple
the ocean
the wind
sunrise
sunset
conversation
prayer
reading
painting
drawing
walking
meeting other writers
writing
guitar music
classic music
rock & roll
blues
jazz
making love
being in the still of the bush

and probably other things I can’t think of right now.

* From ozmango00:

Things that inspire me

Thunder and Lightning storms
Thunder Bay Ontario
The Muses from Greek Mythology
The Ocean
Survivors of Abuse
Writing
Collages of print and photographs
sites like this on the internet
Recovery from Addiction
SARK
Trees
Fairies
and
Just living…..

[b]What about you? What inspires you?[/b]

Snippets and Stories: Writing Creative Nonfiction is an online course now available through the UniversalClass.com virtual classroom.

This course introduces the art and craft of writing creative nonfiction for profit and pleasure. It is designed to help and to guide students to understand the nonfiction genre — from writing features to creating quizzes.

The students will go through the process of coming up with a finished nonfiction piece beginning with creating ideas to submitting for possible publication. The course has five lessons in total – and several resources to help your creative nonfiction writing fire burning.

Snippets and Stories is a course with certificate options.

Get the Details Now and Enroll!

From Jennifer K., a student who completed Snippets and Stories:

I really enjoyed this course. Highly Recommended. (The instructor) rates 10/10. Great value.

You Come Too: Introduction to Poetry Writing is one of Chrysalis Creativity’s classic courses. Now, it is available through the UniversalClass.com virtual classroom.

This is a basic course on reading, writing and appreciating poetry. Through five lessons, the basic elements of poetry will be discussed and experienced in a non-technical, non-academic manner. It’s all about the joy of poems! The course will also explore the areas of rhyme, haiku, poetry sharing and critique. This is great for beginners, young students, and individuals who wish to teach young learners about the art and craft of poetry.

“You Come Too” is a course with certificate options.

Get the Details Now and Enroll!

*** From Yuko G., a student who completed this course:

“I really liked the freedom I had (you didn’t force us to write any “category”) and step-by-step explanation! Thank you so much for all your help! I’m really sad I’ve finished this workshop already. I hope to take your class again soon! Mahalo Nui Loa! (”Thank you very much” in Hawaiian).”