Unless stated otherwise, all poetry on Swimming in Lines of Haiku is Copyright Kirsten Cliff and may not be reprinted in any form without written permission from the author. kirsten(DOT)cliff(AT)gmail(DOT)com

Sunday, March 21, 2010

The long awaited 14th blog post...

My blog has suddenly had to go into hiatus for an unknown length of time while I receive treatment for leukaemia, which I was diagnosed with on March 2nd. It will be a long road ahead, they say 2yrs, but my chances of a full recovery are 95% so we all have lots of hope. Please send me your healing thoughts.

Kirsten x

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

FREE 28-Day Creativity Journal

Do you want a FREE 28-Day Creativity Journal? Well you won't get it from me! But I can point you in the right direction.

Head to the Creative Muse Coach http://www.creativemusecoach.com/ Fill out the Creativity Survey and get your FREE 28-Day Creativity Journal as a thank you gift!

So why would you want to do this?

The Creativity Survey "Your Creativity and You: Blocks and Dreams" is an on-line survey being conducted by Creative Muse Coach to discover how creative people address obstacles to expressing their talent. I found this to be very interesting and it helped me begin to recognise what my creative goals are and what's blocking me in my pursuit of those goals. It was worth the 10-15mins I spent filling it out.

The FREE 28-Day Creativity Journal. I have been using this journal, which recipients can print out for their own use, and am up to my fourth and final week. It has been a very enlightening journey and one that I'm very happy to have taken.

The journal begins with an explanation of its use...

"This journal was developed to support you in your creative process by providing a place to record your inspirations, track your challenges, and deepen your connection to your Inner Muse."

The journal uses the 9 Most Common Creative Blocks as identified and defined by Creative Muse Coach. By signing up to Muse News (an e-newsletter) you will receive a FREE e-course about these Creative Block Busters. So you can learn exactly what's holding you back instead of lumping it all under 'procrastination' and beating yourself up yet again!

Before you begin the journal, you list your creative goals. This had me focused right away. Then each day you fill out things like how you fed your muse, your creative successes, what your creative blocks were and how you overcame them. All this has made it clear to me where I'm spending (or wasting) my time and energy, what activities truly feed my creative self, how much time I'm spending creating, and what my main creative blocks are.

So I've gathered a dossier of information about me and my inner muse. I know what to work on and what activities to do everyday to keep myself fed. Could you benefit from having this knowledge about yourself?

Monday, March 1, 2010

Bravado call for submissions

Bravado 20 is now looking for submissions of poetry, fiction and prose for their November 2010 issue – deadline is May 14th, so you have plenty of time to come up with something that matches their criteria of ‘bold and contemporary’.

Bravado is a literary arts magazine from the Bay of Plenty. Guidelines are available online at http://www.bravado.co.nz/
You can submit by e-mail or send a clearly-presented ms. to the relevant editor to Bravado, PO Box 13 533, Central Tauranga 3141.

The editors would also like to remind potential contributors that they are open to submissions of haikai – Japanese forms of poetry – and black and white artwork or good quality photographs for internal pages.