For every ‘crazy creative’ on World Mental Health Day
This is love for you on World Mental Health Day, if you’re a creative who struggles sometimes. If anyone has ever called you a ‘crazy creative’. ❤️ This is for you if you’ve thought there’s something ‘wrong’. ⛈ This is love if you’ve wondered why your brain seems so...
A moment to grow in the changing seasons
September! Do you love it or hate it? For me, I’ve spent this month pulled oh-so-strongly in different directions. Firstly, after the long school holidays - when I spend as much time as I can with my son - I’m thrilled to have more time back. I’m back to my wonderful...
7 lessons from a liminal space (or a writing retreat)
Last week I took myself off, all by myself, with nothing but my laptop, notes, and a couple of books. I was in search of a liminal space - a place between worlds, almost, where I could join the dots and create. It turned out to be as much of a footpath: a journey...
Finding my liminal space to create
This week, I'm doing something I've never done. I'm off on a personal writing retreat, to create my liminal space. In anthropology, liminality is a transient, ambiguous state between two rituals, such as those between childhood and adulthood. An Aboriginal adolescent...
11 reasons a poetry habit will change your thinking
It calms your brain chemistry, develops your cognitive flexibility and deepens your ability to focus. Here’s why a poetry habit should be central to your creative life To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your...
My best creativity books of 2018 (and why you might want them on your gift list)
One of the biggest thing that happened in 2018 was getting a publisher for my book. Having spent years working with words in magazines and podcasting, creating something measured in tens of thousands of words is quite a different experience. (So far, the process is an...
Hurrah! Why creative brains need wine and chocolate
You put down your pen and save the file. Then you stand up, stretch, and head for the fridge, the biscuit tin or the wine rack (Don't you?). If we ask ourselves why, we've probably come across the fact that the brain uses up 20% of our energy. So, we rationalise, it’s...
Being grounded: are your purpose and your emotions aligned?
When Kathryn Nicolai launched her podcast Nothing Much Happens: Bedtime Stories for Grown-Ups, she didn’t plan fuss or fanfare. After all, she was a yoga teacher, not a writer. Even as a small child, Kathryn would wrap herself up in her bed at night, until she felt...
About Joanna Pieters
I'm Joanna Pieters and I've helped hundreds of professional creatives and creative leaders get their work known, sold and successful. I've run multiple, multi-million-dollar creative businesses and creating the ground-breaking psychometric assessment Vitally Productive. MBA, coach, violinist, writer, and host of The Creative Life Show podcast. Let's talk! 