The above photo was taken while driving through a rainy tunnel in Naples, Italy. We’ve had a couple of action-packed days despite my mystery malaise. Details forthcoming…

I am too sleepy to say much else, except that I hope everyone who’s doing NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo is hanging in there! Does anyone else ‘write in their head’ while in the car? Or doing dishes? I swear most of my blog posts and other writing comes to me while doing dishes or on my walks.

I saw an interview with a physicist once who said that he and his colleagues joked that the majority of scientific break-throughs didn’t actually happen in the lab, but as sudden inspirations in bed just before sleeping and just after waking, in the bath (like Archimedes’ “Eureka!”), or while staring out the window on the bus. “We call it the three B’s,” he told the interviewer.

If only I had an “audio out” from my brain. Today in the car, I wrote way more than my quota! How about you? When and where do you get your inspirations?

I-found the above image at this site while going through my bookmarks today. I’ve read my share of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung, but this image really cuts to the chase, doesn’t it? Read more »

It’s All Saints Day, and while they don’t give a hoot about Halloween, nearly every Italian has today off. So I asked Angelo if there are any special celebrations. ‘It depends how Catholic you are,’ he told me. ‘You either go to church, or you simply enjoy your day off.’

Angelo and his family fall into the latter category. Perhaps you wonder what category I fall into. Well, like 90,000+ other scribes worldwide, I have accepted the NaNoWriMo challenge, as well as the NaBloPoMo challenge. So, while that doesn’t make me Catholic, it’s apparent that I have a lot of faith! Read more »

Does this ever happen to you: no sooner do you start a creative project than the thought of all the chores you need to do starts nipping at your mind like a pack of junkyard dogs? Perhaps it’s your day off and you are torn between paying bills, doing laundry, cleaning house and working on your novel or other fun project.

It’s not fair! Unless you can afford a maid, those chores aren’t going to budge, but if you never take time for creative projects, you’re not going to have much fun. It can be a struggle to balance the creative versus the practical aspects of life, which is why I came up with my own method for dealing with this.

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One day as I was venting to a friend about a job I despised, she interrupted and grandly proclaimed, “I hereby give you permission to quit your job and do what you truly want ”

I had to laugh. Her words made me realize that the only thing keeping me stuck was that I hadn’t given myself permission to do otherwise. So now, whenever one of us is hesitant about the next step in our lives, the other will say, “Would you like a permission slip?” It’s our playful way to remind each other that the only real limitations come from within.

Since then I have made it a habit to write up a “Cosmic Permission Slip” for myself from time to time. Here’s what I do:

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