This week, among other things, ALLi Director Orna Ross sets seven scenarios for self-publishing success  in Business Models for Indie Authors: Which One Is Right For You? Other Sel… Read More

Will this be a creative week for you? This week, my thoughts are all about my online Go Creative! workshop tomorrow night. Last month’s workshop hit a hitch, tech-wise, … Read More

For a creative, or creative entrepreneur, rest isn’t a break from the process. It is the process. So around here, we start each week with day of deliberate creative rest… A day… Read More

This week’s create date was spent in Gladstone Park at 6am on Thursday morning. On the off chance that you’ve been buried in a creative cave this week, as I was for a day or two… Read More

As a creative, I find much business advice mechanical and one-dimensional. It doesn’t speak my language and doesn’t help me to create more, or better. Which are my two… Read More

My mother’s name is Brigid, named as almost every Irish person used to be, after a saint. And today is Brigid’s day, one of the most important days of the year. Imbolc in Gaelic… Read More

This week, among other things, we bring you one of our Fringe Highlight Podcasts: 7 Stages of the Creative Process with Orna Ross Other Self-Publishing Advice British novelist Elaine Mo… Read More

Your “Mashion” is the point at which your mission and passion meet. Once you find this niche area, your future becomes clear, and you find your past was perfect too. Everything h… Read More

What are you creating this week? Don’t forget to map it out and think about how you’ll hold yourself accountable to do what you want to get done. At ALLi it’s been a month… Read More

Sunday is my lazy day, a day of creative rest… Maybe Sunday doesn’t suit you but one day out of seven, do as little as you can do that day. Switch off. Lie low. Be lazy. let go… Read More

The American psychologist Jerome Kagan says meaning is “the human cobweb”. To know anything about spiders, you have to understand the one thing that makes them unlike all other i… Read More

Anybody can create anything they truly want, yes, but not everything they (think they) want. The key here is the word “truly”. True wants are not the false cravings and hankering… Read More

My meditation method is called “Inspiration Meditation” and, in its various forms, aims to bring you into creative presence and flow. Though not, of course, in a linear, goal-cen… Read More

This week, among other things, John Doppler is kind enough to share his insights on AMS advertising in this book promotion piece: 11 Top Tips for Best AMS Advertising Practice Othe… Read More

This week, among other things, John Doppler is kind enough to share his insights on AMS advertising in this book promotion piece: 11 Top Tips for Best AMS Advertising Practice Othe… Read More

What are you creating this week? Don’t forget to map it out and think about how you’ll hold yourself accountable. This week, for me, was all about friends and family. A funeral a… Read More

Sunday is my lazy day, a day of creative rest.. Maybe Sunday doesn’t suit you but one day out of seven, drop as much as possible of everything that you normally do. Do as little as you… Read More

What is A Create Date? Once a week, you: Ask yourself: “what feels like the most fun I could have?” Schedule the time and place, as you would any other appointment. Whe… Read More

There are many ways to say “no” but “yes” is the default attitude of the creative. This is too hard. I can’t. I won’t. That’s ridiculous. I&rsq&hell…Read More

We cannot help but be creative. Being creative came with being born. To go creative, though, is something else. First off let’s recognize that being or going creative is not an excuse… Read More

This week, among other things, John Doppler speculates on what Amazon’s secret 50% royalty plan could mean for KDP authors, if anything. Other Self-Publishing Advice Sally He… Read More

What are you creating this week? Don’t forget to map it out (latest research says that makes it 68% more likely to happen). As ever, I’ll be blogging. It keeps me honest and acco… Read More

I vividly remember the first book I ever read about the creative process. It was a bright blue, frisky, spring day and I was taking a bus to Skerries, a town on the north Dublin coast, to se… Read More

I was thrilled to be asked back on Joanna’s show for, what we realised was, my fourth time! It’s always a pleasure to talk with Joanna regardless of topic, but an even greater on… Read More

This week, among other things, Debbie Young brings us a book production tip – How and Why to Use Both CreateSpace and Ingram Spark to Self-publish Print Books – and A Special Fre… Read More

In our own place here on the bigger of two islands in the north we’ve had stormy weather this long time now, the kind that can make hay of the waves and slice out the sun, and obscure… Read More

What are your creative intentions for 2018? This year, to accompany the publication of the Go Creative! Series, I’m going to be offer you a deep dive into my method for mapping creati… Read More

After today, on Sundays I’ll be taking the day off, practicing being lazy. Creative rest. It’s not easy, sometimes, for hyperactive entrepreneurs to lie low. I first began this p… Read More

The difference between a creative entrepreneur who produces regularly, and one who does not, is creative routine. Here’s how it goes for me, on a good creative day. I wake up around 6a… Read More

I ran my first online Go Creative! workshop on Tuesday, something I’ll be doing every first Tuesday this year. It was not my finest hour. Squeezed preparation time due to too much Chri… Read More

Happy New Year! And thank you for your patience while we made the background changes necessary to get the Creativist Club up and running and my own head shift, as I move into this space of c… Read More

This week, among other things, Canadian indie author Marie McCann shares her strategy for dealing with the critics in Why It Helps If Indie Authors Develop a Thick Skin. She draws… Read More

The blog and Monday Motivator will be taking a break during December, as we work to bring you our new format for 2018, alongside the release of my long-awaited Go Creative! series and the ne… Read More

This week, among other things, we take a look back at an Indie Author Fringe presentation from Tim Lewis. If you’re interested in starting a podcast to raise your indie profile and gro… Read More

We now have our quota for the workshop in London on Nov 25th. It’s a big room and we haven’t quite filled, so I have three free seats to give away (value £125), to some cho… Read More

Going creative solves many of the emotional problems that we might consider to be inevitable or everyday. In fact, happiness is best understood, and acquired, as a by-product of creative eng… Read More

The conscious mind contains our thought, creative intentions, and recent memories, like the name of a person you just met. It can be used to visualize as yet unrealized outcomes. For creativ… Read More

We access the unconscious mind, and the unconscious mind accesses us, through the subconscious. The conscious mind is a container, the unconscious mind is an ocean and the subconscious is a… Read More

Your unconscious never rests, not even while you’re asleep. It controls your heartbeat, blood circulation, digestion and other unconscious processes that keep you alive… Read More

This week, among other things, we take a look at what Pronoun’s closure means to indie authors, how we can transition across to other distributors, and which one(s) of those distributo… Read More

Going creative is about getting in flow, inducing the create state, accessing those parts of your mind that are beyond thought and talking, beyond feeling and doing. A century ago, Sigmund F… Read More

Here is an exercise for defining creative success, some questions that will help you write your own succinct quote like those we posted on Friday, explaining your definition of success. For… Read More

The creative way is never about straining or striving, driving yourself too hard or rigidly sticking to a fixed plan — but about returning, again and again, to your creative intention… Read More

As a conscious creator–creative and creativist–I have three definitions of success. To create what I love and love what I create. For me, that’s success. To be in the creat… Read More

Here are some quotes from well-known achievers that offer their definitions of creative success, and thereby offer you a window into thinking about your own definition. (For “man&rdquo&hell…Read More

There are seven keys to creative entrepreneurship, seven things you need to know and do if you are to succeed as a creative entrepreneur i.e. make a living doing what you love, while also ma… Read More

There are seven keys to successful creative entrepreneurship, seven things you need to know and do if you are to succeed in doing work you love, the creative way. Artists, coaches and t… Read More

This week, among other things, we are encouraging all indie authors to take part in Professor Alison Baverstock’s (co-founder of the MA in Publishing at Kingston Univers… Read More

This week, among other things, we point a spotlight on one of our valued partner members – PJ Boox, a physical bookstore in Florida that features only independently and small… Read More

What are you creating this week? Me, I’m happily preparing for my Go Creative! Day Workshop for creative entrepreneurs on November 25th. By creative entrepreneurs I mean those I t… Read More

There are many reasons to go creative. It both asks more of you and delivers more to you than the willed mind-switch encouraged by LoA. You need to: understand the process, its different sta… Read More

This week I enjoyed a create date with one of my longtime icons, the beautiful, thrilling, comic, creative master, Grace Jones, filmed by Sophie Fiennes in and “official” biopic… Read More

Anybody who is thinking or reading about conscious creation these days will soon come up against “the law of attraction,” a powerful idea that has been circulating for more than… Read More

Just a month to our Day Workshop for what I call creative entrepreneurs: those who want to make a living doing what they love, while also making a positive difference in the world. This is a… Read More

Let’s take a look at this week’s highlights from my other blog, the Alliance of Independent Authors‘s Self-Publishing Advice Center.  This week, among other… Read More

What does it take to succeed as a creative entrepreneur? In the two creative communities I work within, the Alliance of Independent Authors and the Creativist Club, I regularly see soloprene… Read More

Each time I teach a new class about conscious creation I have a moment of excited anticipation as the new students file in. Already, though I haven’t met them yet, I know two important… Read More

This week’s create date: I’m heading to the Southbank, for the Koestler Exhibition 2017 As readers of my novels know, I’m fascinated by the theme of containment. Years ago… Read More

Like all interesting words, both “creative” and “success” have more than one definition and can mean wildly different things to different people. And creatives and cr… Read More

Now that Indie Author Fringe is over, it’s full steam ahead for my creative workshop,  London, November 25th. This is a workshop for authors and artists, educators and therapists… Read More

Let’s take a look at this week’s highlights from my other blog, the Alliance of Independent Authors‘s Self-Publishing Advice Center.  This week, we closed ou… Read More

Today, the Man-Booker Prize 2017 will be announced and Jon from Type and Tell, a Partner Member of ALLi, has put together a press release calling on the prize to open up to self-publish… Read More

I’m in recovery mode from Frankfurt Book Fair and Indie Author Fringe, so Monday Motivator is a little late this week. If you missed out on the Fringe, you can catch the action still a… Read More

Speaking at Frankfurt Book Fair International Self-Publishing Program with Porter Anderson (left), Andy Bromley and Kinga Jintetics (right) Today is Indie Author Fringe Day, Frankfurt B… Read More

One of the things I’ve been noticing about Insight Timer App is the popularity of its meditations for sleep. And there is a raft of research showing how important good sleep… Read More

Those interested in living a creative life often describe it as a journey. We use metaphors like the road less travelled, the river you can’t enter twice. We think a lot about forward… Read More

Let’s take a look at this week’s highlights from my other blog, the Alliance of Independent Authors‘s Self-Publishing Advice Center.  This week, it&rsqu&hell…Read More

Since June I’ve been exploring meditations for creativity at Insight Timer App. If you’ve been around here a while, you’ll know I’m a total believer in medi… Read More

This is your weekly Go Creative! reminder.  Make time today to map your week around what’s most important to you. Don’t let the distractions of the outer world drag you… Read More

When Should I Meditate? Zen masters recommend that the moment you open your eyes, before the first half-conscious thought has time to form in your mind, you should get out of bed and begin y… Read More

When people talk about creative breakthrough, they often confuse two different things, using them interchangeably and confusingly. The first is creative breakthrough that is personal, I call… Read More

Does it sound like a contradiction, that poems about pain can inspire? Actually it’s key creative principle. In June, I started using Insight Timer App  to record my daily meditat… Read More

Let’s take a look at this week’s highlights from my other blog, the Alliance of Independent Authors‘s Self-Publishing Advice Center.  This week, we’re… Read More

This is your weekly reminder to take time today to plan your week and get in what’s most important to you. Not to let the distractions of the outer world drag you away from what you mo… Read More

The two kinds of creative block are often considered to be psychological fails. I don’t believe they are, most of the time. Most of the time, they’re down to an educational failu… Read More

Tolstoy’s Three Questions is a short story that asks: What is the best time to do each thing? Who are the most important people to work with? What is the most important thing to d… Read More

Our newest Creativist Club member is fine artist, Willow LaLand-Yeilding, from Sonoma Country, California. What, you say? You thought the club was closed for now and are patiently … Read More

The Power of Now With thanks to Eckhart Tolle. The talkers talk of leaving or remaining who should go, what cannot stay who’s right, what’s wrong where’s goodness gone? Too… Read More

Let’s take a look at this week’s highlights from my other blog, the Alliance of Independent Authors‘s Self-Publishing Advice Center.  This week, we’re… Read More

This is Part Eleven in the series. Read Part Ten here.  As well as ignorance of the process, one of the main reasons we see our projects flounder, is that we are not trained in h… Read More

Let’s take a look at highlights from my other blog, at the Alliance of Independent Authors‘s Self-Publishing Advice Center.  This week, we ask you to help us crack… Read More

The Go Creative method offers three forms of practice. • Effortless Exercise (Body: Play practice: Lightening Up) Effortless Exercise is moving the body in a way that connects wi… Read More

The Go Creative method offers three forms of creative practice: . Creative Practice: Body: Effortless Exercise Launches January 2018 Effortless Exercise is moving the body in a way that… Read More

This week, I’ve been working on the film script of Dancing in The Wind with my wonderful writing buddy, Joni Rodgers (You can see an excerpt of the book here) I’m polishing Go Cr… Read More

The Go Creative mapping method is based on never having more than three work waves in one day, if you’re working full-time on that intention. If you’re part-time, then one 90-min… Read More

In the Go Creative method, we don’t just map and log our work but also our rest and play. Creatives and creativists understand the power of rest and play in allowing the subconscious m… Read More

Longer than forever ago lived a people whom we, squinting back through thickets of time, like to call The Celts. It’s said they worshipped trees, as ancient people often did, as any so… Read More

Winds of change are blowing through the publishing industry, as digital technology enables authors to reach their readers directly, without using a publisher. Opinions about this change and… Read More

The Go Creative mapping method is based on never having more than three work waves in one day, if you’re working fulltime on that intention. If you’re part-time, then one thing a… Read More

Mapping Your Intention You already worked out how long your project will take. Now, if your creative intention is a big one, your aim is divide it down and down and down again. Until yo… Read More

At the end of every work wave, look forward, across the play and rest you’ll enjoy between now and the next 90 minutes. Decide what that wave will be. This sets up a link between what… Read More

This week, as we move from August to September, and I emerge, blinking, from the deep writing cave, I’ve been thinking about the most creative way to work. You’ll find lots here… Read More

The first chapter of After The Rising 1995 The thick double door beneath the sign – Parle’s Bar & Grocery – is shut. A For Sale board juts from the side wall, with a… Read More

In his pioneering research on sleep, more than 50 years ago, the creative scientist Nathaniel Kleitman discovered what he called the “basic rest-activity cycle”. As we sleep, and… Read More

I begin every work day, by giving 90 minutes to my writing. No matter what else is going on. If I have to attend something early in the morning (though I avoid this by only setting appointme… Read More

Again? Are you not mother? That is the question that must be posed and not just to those who work the world with their pants less stuffed, with their arms held aloft, when not wrapped round… Read More

So now you are embarked on your intention. We’ll have another series soon on taking it into the next stages of the process. But before we sign off on this series, we need to know that… Read More

So what are you creating this week? Each Monday I send a creative motivator email to remind us to reconnect with what’s most important to us. If you’d like to receive this w… Read More


Her Secret Rose is about the famous love triangle between the Irish poet WB Yeats, his muse Maud Gonne, and her daughter, Iseult. The extract below is doubly fictionalized, being a su… Read More

The create-date is a core creative practice, a most-fun-you-can-imagine weekly expedition, doing something that excites or delights you. This week, it’s soaking in the atmosp… Read More