This post written by Elisa, a student at the Berklee College of Music is as earnest as it is perceptive. Mayer has much to say about developing creative work and debunks a few myths that may seem as familiar to writers as they are to studying musicians.
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On Writing
- Want to be happier? Make things with your hands says, Rachel Cooke
- Get yourself satisfied, says Michael Meng
- Workspaces offer clues to creative genius, says Summer Anne Burton
- Humanities aren’t a science, says Maria Konnikova
- Writing combats the traumatic effects of war, says Ron Capps
- Social norms never just settle; artists must negotiate them, says Alan Jacobs
- Keep not doing what you’re doing, says Frank Partnoy
- Intellectual shift workers have to manage social jet lag, says Maria Popova
- Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice, says Tim Kreider
- DC is full of landmarks for writers, says Carolyn Parkhurst
- There are tricks to getting good interviews, say the Kitchen Sisters
- This Is the Time for Poetry, says Alice Walker
- The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
- Science Must Reconcile in Philosophy, says Gary Gutting
- Sometimes Creative Work Means Taking a Break, says Mike Ramsey
- What’s the role of the professional critic in the age of the reader-review, asks Tom Payne
- Culturomics is both interesting and worrisome, says Anthony Grafton
- Manage the temptation to publish yourself, says John Mayer
- Don’t write what you know, says Bret Anthony Johnston
- Your neighborhood bookstore doesn’t look like this, says host Veronica de Aboitiz
- Writing can be an art but first it must be a craft, says Robert Ludlum
- Write about what we’re forgetting as we accelerate toward tomorrow, says Pico Iyer
- “Our nation’s veins and arteries will pump you in and out,” says Charles Jensen
- We have to listen with more of ourselves, says Evelyn Glennie
- The cure for writer’s block? Have something better to do, says Laura Miller
- Achieving balance starts with simple steps, says Nigel Marsh
- Writing a memoir? Get over yourself, says Neil Genzlinger
- Writing a fine sentence is a delicate process, says Stanley Fish
- How do you really learn something? Immersion, says Tony Robbins
- Embrace intellectual messiness, says Malcolm Gladwell
Washington Writer's Retreat 