Cre­ativ­ity For Life

Over the years, Eric Maisel has worked with thou­sands of cre­ative peo­ple, includ­ing writ­ers, musi­cians, artists, dancers, and actors. He knows first­hand the strug­gles they must face, and through his many books and pro­fes­sional prac­tice he’s helped them find bal­ance in their lives while pur­su­ing their artis­tic endeav­ors. Firmly grounded in psy­chol­ogy, Cre­ativ­ity for Life explores all the chal­lenges con­fronting an artist: decid­ing if you have tal­ent (or if that’s even impor­tant); deter­min­ing your level of com­mit­ment; pur­su­ing star­dom; hon­ing your craft; over­com­ing blocks; tak­ing care of the busi­ness end of your artis­tic life; find­ing your place in cul­ture; com­ing out as an artist; find­ing love and friend­ship inside and out of your artis­tic com­mu­nity; and using your art to explore your inner life. A com­pre­hen­sive approach to the much-misunderstood artist’s life, this book, con­tains both nuts-and-bolts ideas and exer­cises and inspi­ra­tion to nur­ture growth as an artist and a person.

Brain­storm

Not all obses­sions are to be avoided. A pro­duc­tive obses­sion, whether for an idea for a novel, a busi­ness, or a vac­cine, can be cho­sen delib­er­ately, pur­sued with deter­mi­na­tion, and expe­ri­enced as a pow­er­ful source of mean­ing. In this provoca­tive, prac­ti­cal guide, Maisel coaches you to use our human ten­dency to obsess to cre­ative advan­tage, ful­fill­ing both your promise and your promises to your­self. “Ele­gantly com­bines the most inspir­ing ele­ments of mind­ful­ness, engage­ment, focus, and flow. Eric Maisel shows you how to be more pro­duc­tive by turn­ing obses­sions into pos­i­tive pas­sions.” – Susan K. Perry, Writ­ing in Flow

Cre­ative Recovery

For writ­ers, artists, musi­cians and cre­ators in every field, this book offers a com­plete addic­tion recov­ery pro­gram specif­i­cally designed for the cre­ative per­son. Cre­ative Recov­ery presents ways to use your own innate cre­ative abil­i­ties in the ser­vice of your recov­ery and lays out a com­plete pro­gram for liv­ing a fully cre­ative and addiction-free life.

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Deep Writ­ing

“Psy­chother­a­pist Maisel defines deep writ­ing as ‘writ­ing pas­sion­ately and well about those things that really mat­ter to you.’ It involves seven prin­ci­ples: hush­ing the mind, hold­ing the inten­tion, mak­ing choices, hon­or­ing the process, befriend­ing the work, eval­u­at­ing, and doing what’s required. Maisel fol­lows five fic­tional writ­ers through the seven steps and offers var­i­ous exer­cises. Maisel’s psy­cho­log­i­cal approach sets his work apart from the many inspi­ra­tional how-to-write books on the market.”—Nancy Shires, Library Jour­nal

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Ten Zen Seconds

Ten Zen Sec­onds presents a pow­er­ful, ten-second tech­nique that teaches you how to use a deep breath as a con­tainer for a spe­cific thought. This tech­nique is sim­ple to grasp, sim­ple to use, sim­ple to prac­tice and sim­ple to mas­ter. You’ll find your­self able to do things that pre­vi­ously felt too dif­fi­cult to attempt. You’ll be able to calm and cen­ter your­self before an impor­tant meet­ing or con­ver­sa­tion. You’ll be able to change your basic atti­tudes about life, becom­ing calm and pos­i­tive where before you may have been anx­ious or pes­simistic. Blend­ing East­ern prin­ci­ples of breath aware­ness and mind­ful­ness with West­ern prin­ci­ples of pos­i­tive psy­chol­ogy, Ten Zen Sec­onds offers a pow­er­ful anti­dote to stress, pro­cras­ti­na­tion and anxiousness.

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A Writer’s Paris

The sym­bolic home for cre­ative peo­ple every­where, Paris has been inspi­ra­tion for count­less artists and writ­ers. In this dynamic book, well-loved author Eric Maisel gives writ­ers the guid­ance they need to take a lit­eral or fig­u­ra­tive soul-renewing artis­tic sojourn in the city of light. It shares with read­ers how and why to take a cre­ative visit to Paris, pro­vides logis­tics for those com­mit­ted to a trip and inspi­ra­tion for those who hunger for a taste of the expat life, fea­tures the expert advice of America’s fore­most cre­ativ­ity coach, and is filled with lessons and anec­dotes that con­vey the spirit of the glo­ri­ous city. This book will inspire any­one to create.

A Writer’s San Francisco

In this beau­ti­ful book, com­plete with draw­ings by San Fran­cisco artist Paul Madonna, Eric Maisel pro­vides impor­tant lessons for writ­ers and other artists set against the back­drop of San Fran­cisco. Thirty indi­vid­ual essays pro­file the best sec­tions of the city for pump­ing up the juices (“The View from Bernal Hill,” “South of Mar­ket”), noted literati of the past (“Mark Twain and the Onion”), deal­ing with those inspiration-inhibiting earth­quake fears, and much more.

A Writer’s Space

To write what they want to write the way they want to write it, most writ­ers need to carve out a psy­chic space as well as a phys­i­cal one. In A Writer’s Space noted cre­ativ­ity expert and best­selling author Dr. Eric Maisel shows read­ers how to do just that. He takes writ­ers by the hand and guides them deep into their own cre­ative process, help­ing them to: iden­tify the emo­tional and phys­i­cal impulses that spark their cre­ative process; stream­line their writ­ing lives to make the most of the time actu­ally spent writ­ing; devise per­son­al­ized rit­u­als that get writ­ers writ­ing and keep them writ­ing; find/create a phys­i­cal space in which to work that com­ple­ments the writ­ing process; and design a writ­ing sched­ule that’s easy to keep no mat­ter what.

The Atheist’s Way

In The Atheist’s Way, Eric Maisel teaches you how to make rich per­sonal mean­ing despite the absence of benef­i­cent gods and the indif­fer­ence of the uni­verse to human con­cerns. Explod­ing the myth that there is any mean­ing to find or to seek, Dr. Maisel explains why the par­a­digm shift from seek­ing mean­ing to mak­ing mean­ing is this century’s most press­ing intel­lec­tual goal.

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Liv­ing The Writer’s Life

Pre­sented in a lively for­mat, Liv­ing the Writer’s Life offers advice from estab­lished authors, along with their per­sonal tes­ti­mo­ni­als on the writ­ing process. Cop­ing with writer’s block, rejec­tion, and the chal­lenges of self-discipline and many other issues are cov­ered. Expert guid­ance on writ­ers’ con­fer­ences, net­work­ing, self-promotion, the edi­to­r­ial process, and other mat­ters help aspir­ing writ­ers or those with writing-career prob­lems to resolve.

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What Would Your Char­ac­ter Do?

Not just another dry, how-to instruc­tion book, What Would Your Char­ac­ter Do? is the first inter­ac­tive guide that encour­ages writ­ers to get inside their char­ac­ters’ heads as they cre­ate them. This fas­ci­nat­ing book: pro­vides more than 20 quizzes to help writ­ers ana­lyze their char­ac­ters’ traits; fea­tures easy-to-understand psy­cho­log­i­cal sum­maries and prompts for fur­ther explo­ration; and includes a wealth of writ­ing and psy­chol­ogy exper­tise to help writ­ers cre­ate believ­able char­ac­ters. Whether read­ers are explor­ing how their char­ac­ters react to the death of a loved one or how their char­ac­ters learned to ride a bike, they’re sure to emerge with more com­pelling heroes, hero­ines and vil­lains than ever before.

The Art of the Book Proposal

Here is an expert’s guide through the ele­ments of a non­fic­tion book pro­posal, includ­ing the out­line, chap­ter sum­maries, marketing/publicity, book and chap­ter titles, and more. Filled with exer­cises designed to help a writer con­ceive and cre­ate a desir­able pro­posal, and check­lists to keep track of the project’s progress, The Art of the Book Pro­posal pro­vides the frame­work on which to build a great idea, as well as intel­li­gent, empa­thetic instruc­tion on how to pro­duce a pro­posal that will cap­ture the inter­est of an agent or edi­tor. While most how-to writ­ing books focus only on the nuts and bolts of putting a pro­posal together, Maisel, con­sid­ered by many to be America’s fore­most expert on the psy­cho­log­i­cal side of the cre­ative process, also helps the writer over­come men­tal bar­ri­ers to pro­duc­ing the best work possible.

Toxic Crit­i­cism

Some­times painful barbs from friends, fam­ily, cowork­ers, or strangers can lodge in our minds and eat away at our core. When you allow criticism–even self-criticism–to affect you that pow­er­fully, it can be toxic. And if you don’t break the cycle, toxic crit­i­cism can make you sick, strain rela­tion­ships, and pre­vent you from ful­fill­ing your dreams. But you don’t have to live that way! By using the proven strate­gies in Toxic Crit­i­cism, you can deflect any hurt­ful com­ment that comes your way, ratio­nally decide whether the crit­i­cism has any valid­ity, and, if you choose, give a cal­cu­lated response or use it as an oppor­tu­nity to make a pos­i­tive change.

20 Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Tips @ Work

Despite all the high-tech advances of the last sev­eral years, one aspect of the work envi­ron­ment remains sadly inef­fi­cient: cowork­ers’ abil­ity to com­mu­ni­cate well. Emails abound, tele­con­fer­ences con­nect dis­tant offices, and deals are closed in a mat­ter of min­utes. Yet most of the things peo­ple accom­plish — or don’t — depend on their abil­ity to com­mu­ni­cate with oth­ers. These 20 tips, designed to serve both employee and employer, include advice on how to offer crit­i­cal feed­back, under­stand the mes­sages one receives, sort out moti­va­tions, offer praise, and keep peo­ple informed. Each sug­ges­tion is fol­lowed by an expla­na­tion along with exam­ples. Brief exer­cises help read­ers assess their own com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills.

20 Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Tips For Families

Aimed at busy par­ents who want to improve their rela­tion­ships with their spouses and chil­dren, 20 Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Tips for Fam­i­lies lays out in sim­ple terms com­mon­sense ideas that can apply to any fam­ily: be direct but kind; don’t let your stress do the talk­ing; the first duty of love is to lis­ten; and more. A short expla­na­tion fol­lows each tip, expand­ing on it and giv­ing con­crete exam­ples of how to imple­ment it.

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Writ­ers And Artists On Love

A blank jour­nal with quotes for the cre­ative spirit. Brief quo­ta­tions on each page of this vol­ume in the Quotable Muse series delve into the nature of love — both as a roman­tic endeavor and as a fuel for cre­ativ­ity. Con­trib­u­tors rep­re­sent a vari­ety of medi­ums: there are dancers, actors, come­di­ans, com­posers, poets, painters, and more. Included are such lumi­nar­ies as Colette, Whistler, Nikki Gio­vanni, Louise Nevel­son, Sue Townsend, and Allen Gins­berg. A beau­ti­ful gift item and a beau­ti­ful self-gift.

Every­day You

Eric Maisel has writ­ten more than thirty books to help peo­ple live more cre­ative lives despite the dif­fi­cul­ties our soci­ety throws in our path. In Every­day You, Maisel takes a fresh and inno­v­a­tive approach to inspire all who would live a mind­ful, joy­ful life, grounded and con­nected to their work, their fam­i­lies, their own spirit.

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