Everyone gets rejected. Even Kurt Vonnegut, Madonna, Andy Warhol, and others who went on to be luminaries in their field. If you get rejected, don't take it to heart. Learn from the experience and move on. Mostly, rejection is simply proof that you haven't given up--which is a great thing.

Ann Patchett has many useful things to say about writing in her new essay collection, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, and in particular about the core creative challenge of surviving the fatal moment when, having finally summoned the courage to bring your vision to life, it immediately disappoints: ...

In my case, it used to be perfectionism that shut down the creative process before it started. I spent nearly five years writing and rewriting the same novel chapter because I was terrified of having others see it and judge it. Then - as I got less perfectionist - my ...

No, not that way, silly!           They're all fine suggestions, but they missed the best one of all: Buy his/her book!

Going off the Internet seems a radical act, but for most people it's essential for creativity. The Internet is inherently and continuously interruptive, and that's not a good mix with creative work, or productivity in general. I recently rewatched The Hours, and found the many scenes of Virginia Woolf (portrayed by ...

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” That famous quote from Muhammad Ali really does captures the spirit and essence of productive, joyful work. Let's break it down: 1) “Float like a butterfly.” You move lightly and freely around and through your work until you see an aspect of ...

The Inimitable One offers a list of one-star reviews of books that later went on to win science fiction's celebrated Hugo award. John Scalzi. Reading his reviews? My favorite is this review of Scalzi's own novel Red Shirts, which actually uses the word "onanistic": This is an onanistic shallow and ...

  Please check out this wonderful piece by New Yorker cartoonist Drew Dernavich, in which he discusses his creative process for a cartoon. This is the rejected version of the cartoon! Click over to Dernavich's article to see the final version that The New Yorker used. (Reprinted with kind permission ...