Archive for February, 2009

I often write about how amazing my twitter followers are, but I can never say it enough. This time @beachpig came to my rescue when determining today’s writing topic. His recommendation: “How to come on strong when you don’t think you have it in you!”. These 7 tips are motivation, ideas and goals that you must have in mind to become a stronger and more dedicated writer.

1. Realize your commitment to write isn’t just for yourself but to inspire others with your words and to think of their needs to fill yours. (@Beachpig’s contribution was the topic, and answer #1)
2. Take a stand about something you believe in. Controversial topics can be discussed openly and honestly, and you have every right to stick your ground (as long as you do it by discussing NOT arguing).
3. Being strong doesn’t mean standing alone. Sometimes the hardest thing, and what can prove your inner strength, is having the knowledge to ask for help.
4. Practice, Practice, Practice. Force yourself to sit down and write every day, whether or not you get a post out of it. Currently I have about 15 drafts of posts, ideas that I like but haven’t quite finished. It is okay to leave ideas open and unfinished, but it’s not okay not to write.
5. Remember blogging isn’t about writing once a month, or even once a week, and hoping your audience will ’stick around’. Blogging is about a consistent flow of ideas that benefits your readers. Consistency is key.
6. Narrow your niche. Many people have problems staying strong in their writing because they have too many things that they can write about. What is an easier task: “write about whatever you want” or “write about creativity in color“. If you can choose any topic, it often ends up that none is chosen. When you have a narrower topic base, it is often easier to write.
7. Let your inspiration come very a variety of places. If you are having trouble finding creativity looking in the same places – try looking somewhere else. Twitter and Stumbleupon are 2 of my favorite places to look for ideas, but sometimes they fall short. When that’s the case, I will pour through my notebooks, check out the library or go do something fun. I usually end up inspired but just getting out and living.

What did I miss? Or are there tips that you don’t agree with? How can you be a stronger writer?

Have you ever tried to explain twitter to your real life friends and received a blank stare? Most of us have, and most of us wish we had a way to explain it more efficiently, and share our twitter life with our real life friends.

Mark Davidson gave a great way to explain Twitter to me yesterday while at the OC Tweetup: Twitter is like standing around in a convention. You are chatting with a bunch of people, and overhear someone ask a question that is your knowledge base. You respond, and possibly chat for a bit, then move on to another topic. It is a situation where it is okay to butt in and impart your knowledge, then move on to something else. People expect participation. People want participation. Without participation, twitter doesn’t exist.

I was intrigued by his answer, and figured I would see what the rest of my twitter friends did when confronted with explaining twitter to their friends.

• sherryboyer: I just tweet in front of them and they get the excitement by osmosis!
• RichardBPenn: it’s easy you explain to them that twitter is like facebook tag lines where you can change it as often as you want.
• cambie: I just don’t go there!
• jamespero: i explain it as two things, as a status update similar to that on facebook or myspace, and as a micro blog
• AlaskaArtist: Doesn’t do any good, they don’t get it. I pull out my laptop & let them try, then they get interested.
• TechTalkWRLR: Explaining twitter: Public IM. Occasionally I have to fill the gaps in for the ‘following’ concept.
• Michael_Keefe I just tell them to try it before they judge. Most find their own way to use and enjoy it!
• warplayer I sold it as a sort of “group text” where we can all communicate on our phones simultaneously. Ive got a small circle on here…(cont’d)… Some immediately went nuts over it… the rest were sold when they saw how much fun we were having and felt left out.
• andysowards I say it’s great for networking with business people and getting your name out there

As you can see, the answers were mixed, but the conclusion was pretty much the same: It is difficult, and sometimes not even worth it. I know that in my case, most of my friends still see Twitter, and those who tweet, as a strange group they could never be part of.

Which is why I decided to organize an event perfect for twitter and non-twitter alike. With some help from Jimmy Kawalek, I am happy to announce an April wine tasting event for everyone! The event is still finalizing registration details, but it’s one you wont want to miss, and so we wanted to give you a heads up to get it on your calendar. I will be collecting the list of everyone who emails me and will send an email as soon as the final details are made. This event will give you a chance to meet some of your twitter followers in person, as well as *hopefully* clarify ‘Twitter‘ to your real life friends. We hope to see you there!

I love color. I love creating unique color schemes. And I love finding them in random places. I often use adboe’s Kuler when I am stuck on a scheme for a design, but I get bored with it fairly easily. A lot of times, I wish I could take a picture and just pull some true colors out of it…now I can! Using stumbleupon and the tag ‘web development’ I came across a great new tool: Colr.org. You can upload any picture you want, let it choose a random flickr image, or have it pull colors from a website. You can click on spots on the picture, and it will pull the true color out to help you create a theme. For example, I pulled in the background image from my website so that I could grab some colors. Once I did that, I can either click ‘pull scheme from website’ or I can mouse over the image and click any of the color boxes for a true color. Here is what mine looked like while working on it:

Try it out, upload a picture and have fun, you never know what color schemes will come out! (and if you create something amazing, please share it!)

There are hundreds of great graphic design posts – and endless lists of tips and tricks. But, most of those lists are for graphic designers that design for a living, or for people who need advanced tips and ideas. I have found that while helpful, we often forget some of the basic design rules that everyone should know. Regardless if you design for pay or just for fun, these rules will help everything you do look more precise, professional and powerful.

1. White space is your friend. Step away from the color, the boxes and the images. Leaving white space on the page will cause the eye to draw to the important factors in the page – allowing the reader to understand the key points. If a page is too cluttered, the reader doesn’t know what to look at, and you run the risk of your message getting lost.
2. Don’t let your font’s overpower the message Whether creating a piece, whether it is for a website or a magazine the font you choose is important. You’re not going to use BOopee (or a goofy font like it) when talking about a funeral home, nor would you want to use Edwardian Script (or a formal font) when talking about what your 10 year old thinks of his snack food. With that said, you also want to make sure not to pick too many fonts. The best rule is to choose 3 fonts: a font that is for the main writing, a font for the headers, and a ‘fun’ font for highlighting specific words. This will allow your message to get across cleanly, and still allow you a little fun.
3. Pick colors that compliment, not detract I talk a lot about color, how it affects you, and places to find it. I talk about it so much because it is so important. How many times have you seen something and your first thought was ‘the color is wrong’. If this is what you are thinking about, then the message can’t get through! There is no such thing as the right color – mixing things up is a good thing. But, trying to mix too many colors can be overwhelming. Remember, color may surprise you, you just need to know where to look.
4. If people have to hunt for it, they won’t find it Want people to call you? Give them your number. Want people to email you? Give them your email. Simple huh? It seems that this is not common sense. Many times, we get so carried away with making a design ‘look pretty’ that we forget to make it useful too. Unless you are entering your piece in a contest, more than likely the goal is to get a response, so make sure that the people can respond easily.
5. Spell check. Grammar check. No matter how beautiful the site or the design is, if there are spelling or grammar errors, it will be ruined. Do not trust your computer to check the grammar, it won’t. This also includes double checking that your contact information is right, and all the links work. A non-working design fails, no matter the beauty of it.
6. It’s okay to break the ‘rules’. See? I just did, and the sky didn’t fall. Sometimes it is okay to step outside what is expected, to get that surprised response from your audience. Just remember, do it too often, and like anything else, it gets old and boring.

What do you think? Do you have a design trick that everyone should know and use to share? Disagree with any of the above, or have a great example to share?

I am a member of the #hashtagmafia, if you aren’t a member of the family, and want to learn more, you can read about us. Anyway, one of the members, @magicbartender, icon caught my eye. I clicked on her link on her profile (*reason 1 of why you should have a link in your profile, but that’s another post) and was taken to her artwork. It was there that I fell head over heels for this beautiful abandoned 1940’s Pontiac. The green and blue sends a feeling of passion, heart and a cool calm. The broken windshield and the rusted fenders tell me of a life of use, and a car left to pass before her time. So, I had to contact the artsit, ask her motivation, find out what inspired her to create this piece. I expected a simple little “here’s why”, but what I got was an amazing story, a story of struggle and work that anyone who has ever tried to do something they loved, failed, and kept going, must read. Here is the story behind “Distingue”:

Recently, I took time off work. Mainly for “health”. Then, one day I painted a painting for the first time in YEARS. That was IT. Now, I cant see stopping again & hope I never have to!

But, I had forgotten that the struggle to find a style & technique of my own, had never been settled in my heart & soul. After all, the last 20+ yrs were spent raising my four kids, staying married (LOL) & working. Which had left little time to paint. There were ALWAYS crafts and fun art going on. But there was no soul cleansing, solitary, spirit renewing ART. You know, just for ME!

But I was quickly reminded you don’t just say…”I’m gonna paint”! EVERY piece was taking more time to “work through” then the time I was spending with brush in hand. It just wasn’t working…I wasn’t feeling it AT ALL!! It was quite disheartening. Because I KNOW I have to do this!

I started joining art communities, visiting blogs, watching videos, and still. My end results were so disappointing to ME!! And, as I think anyone who creates will say as well, Your OWN satisfaction is more important in the long run, than ANYONE else’s approval. Well…as long as you have food everyday! LOL

So, last Spring, I made a plan. I would devote ALL my energy, to finding my art! If I’m honest with myself, I didn’t have ALL the time in the world anymore, age DOES creep up on us all. And everyday is a GIFT!

I virtually cut myself off from all outside influences, started with what I LOVE…
the Old, Classic & Timeless. I traveled here & there, I took lots of pics., went to the Art museums. And sketched my ‘lil fingers off. And then set to mixing, blending and experimenting. I threw out EVERYTHING I was ever told to ALWAYS do, and to NEVER do.

So now I am so excited everyday to paint what I will call a kinda “rural decay”! That state & the place that time has brought things. Found/Discovered! Everything that was, something to someone once! The…Rusty, dusty, overgrown, abandoned…cars trucks trains planes, farms & their equipment. Lighthouses, railroad, factories, rooms &/or their contents, ruins. THIS painting is a beautiful example of just that. The things I stumble upon when walking in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes like a walk through a time warp. I think all my Art contains an Expressionist vision. I continuously try to depict the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse in me! And always include qualities of highly subjective, personal, spontaneous self-expression! No two of my pieces are ever alike! They are MY vision ALONE!

Thank you Sue for sharing your story – and giving us all a little inspiration to do what we love, without worry about the should and should not.

Thanks to a great post by @hughbriss I found the new twitter counter. It was one of the easiest codes to alter (and even gives visualization as you create yours). You don’t need and CSS/HTML experience and all you need to do is copy and paste the completed code into your sidebar! I have always wondered which tweeple come to visit me, and now I can see. Plus, those who visit can see others who visit, and find people that have same blog taste. This time (and next time you visit) yourself to my twitter visitor counter, and check out others who have done the same.

What do you think of the tool? Do you have other great twitter/blog tools to share?

I know that everyone has a different reason for reading my blog, or for writing their own. But, after spending the last 6 months working on this one, I have figured out that there is one main point that I have to think about: Am I creative for me or my readers? The answer is, and must be, both!

I *try* to write everyday for those 2 reasons: me and my readers. It is important for me to think about both when writing, because if I lose one, I will lose automatically lose the other. A blog can not function without readers. Okay, it can, it just won’t have the same results. And it absolutely can’t function without posts.

For example; If I were to stop writing for me (or about things that I care about) I would have no desire to write. No desire = no posts. No posts = no readers. On the other side, if I were to start losing my readers, I would do one of two things: think that people have gone crazy or think that my writing has become poor. Either way, I would change what I was writing about to try to attract people back, in turn, I would now not be writing for me and wouldn’t want to write anyway! Which means no readers = no desire, and using the transitive property we already know, no desire = no posts. (Wow, my alegebra teacher would be porud of me!).

Vicious circle, I know.

So – how do you stop it from happening? The simplest answer: make sure that whatever reason you have for writing is fulfilled and you can avoid the trap of the transitive property!

For me, that means that I make sure that I like what I write, why I write it and the conclusion I make.  It also means that I try to pose questions, stimulate conversation and write about things that can help the people who read my blog.  People don’t come back to be bored, they come back to find ideas, motivation and inspiration.

What does it mean for you? What is your reason for writing? Do you think my formula is crazy or brilliant (or neither)? Feel free to share with me on how I can share better with you!

Just a quick message to my subscribers:

I finally switched my feedburner account over to Google (darn them for making this change…I loved that feed wasn’t part of Google!) Anyway, there have been problems in the past with the change over, so I wanted to make sure that everyone who was subscribed to me, didn’t lose their feeds. Please double check that you have the right rss feed address for Wright Creativity.

Thanks & enjoy!

Kirsten Wright

So facebook owns my data. What’s the big deal?I have to say I was a bit surprised by the response to Facebook’s new policy (just search twitter for #tosfb to see what I mean).

In an article by Stan Schroeder, he talks about his opinion on the new policy. Yes, I can understand his frustration as they basically own your data now, and did it without allowing people the opportuntiy to remove their data before the change. But my surprise is that he thought this was strange or out of the ordinary. Really? Have you read the TOS on most of the sites you use? Check your insurance, banks and credit cards. They own you too!

The web is not a place to take lightly where you put things. But, as long as you remember that anything you put on the web can be used by anyone at anytime, you can’t really be surprised. For example, I wrote a post about some favorite artists of my Twitter friends. I am a very honest person, so not only did I put the links to their sites, but I gave them full recognition for their work. The problem? I still took their images! Without asking. And put them on my site. What’s stopping someone with a more malicious intent from doing the same thing? And if they use it in a way that damages the image of an up and coming artist that can’t afford to fight it – what is the artist to do? Nada.

We know how amazing the web is – but it is also a dangerous place. You wouldn’t walk through downtown LA, SF or NY at 1am carrying a wad of hundreds and talking on the phone; we all know what the outcome would be. So why would you be that careless online? Don’t put your hundreds on the web for someone to steal, and don’t put information or photos that could cause damage. As long as you only put on the web what you’re not afraid of someone ‘borrowing’, you won’t have any issues. We’ve seen the aftermath of tweets gone awry already; we really shouldn’t be surprised that we have no web privacy. I’m not saying that Facebook shouldn’t have given us warning (because they should have) but I am saying that it isn’t a surprise.

Agree? Disagree? What do you think of FaceBook’s new policy? Do you think about what you put online before you put it there? Feel free to share your thoughts.

8 hours of Photoshop, graphic design and images = difficulty getting my mind focused on writing.

The designs that I created today were great (if i do say so myself…) but I was having a lot of trouble pulling myself a way to write. And even when I did, the most writing I could do was on twitter (and even there was hit or miss). After using Twitter to discuss the writing melting powers that Photoshop has on me, @beachpig sent a great message that clearly explained what I am suffering from and what I need:

“Rental creativity…when the Wright side of your brain is tapped out.”

Of course, that led to a great question for my readers: Do you find it harder to do a different type of work after you’ve been focused on one type all day? Where do you find your “rental creativity”?