Blaze of Colour: Embracing Creativity

“Blaze of Colour: Embracing Creativity”, is suitable for anyone wishing to develop his or her own creativity or nurture it in others. Everyone is born creative, and connection to that inner genius—exploring, developing and expressing creative capacity—holds the key to finding one’s path in life. This book provides a blueprint for claiming creative voice.

Designated Notable Indie Book in the 2014-15 Shelf Unbound Writing Competition for Best Indie Book, “Blaze of Colour: Embracing Creativity” weaves together 4 content strands in 18 chapters: current research about creativity; personal narrative that explores the creative process in action; strategies for developing creativity with examples; 90+ exercises designed to guide hands-on experience. Readers are invited to find their own creative abilities and voice and use them. Doing so is an enjoyable and enriching voyage of discovery that is sufficiently absorbing to last a lifetime, open to everyone, and can be taken up immediately. For those already on the journey, “Blaze of Colour: Embracing Creativity” offers strategies for continuing development.

This book will be of interest to anyone who’s struggled to find his or her own path and voice in life. The author shows through personal and professional experience that losing touch with our innate creativity, the silencing of voice, is an all-too-common cultural phenomenon. Readers will be prompted to recognize influences at work in their own lives.

When the pace of life is such that we become preoccupied with the myriad tasks and responsibilities of everyday life we may lose sight of who we are and the gifts we are born with. We wonder how to begin. Where do we find good ideas, how much time and energy do we have to allocate, and how do we deal with the inner critic while exercising creative soul?

Creativity requires problem-solving, convergent and divergent thinking skills, and we are not always taught these in ways that are useful to the development of creativity. We may need a little help recognizing, reclaiming and developing the skills and talents unique to our creativity. This book offers strategies for issues that surface in the creative process: giving the critic a makeover, setting the creative genius free, and establishing a sustained creative practice.

This book demonstrates that creative activities can happen in short bursts of time and over a longer time frame. Participation with family, friends, complete strangers or on our own can improve health, develop valuable skills, build community and provide life satisfaction in ways that nothing else can. Readers, whether newly interested or confirmed creativity practitioners, will find the 90+ exercises useful for accessing and expressing personal vision, creating authentically, and cultivating habits that support creativity.

Our quality of life is at stake. We are happier and more productive when we know what our talents and abilities are—and use them. The world needs what each of us has to offer from our authentic creative selves. Creative energy is effervescent and transmittable, capable of generating inspiration and ideas for anyone who comes in contact with it: ourselves, the people around us, society and the world at large. We are all richer for these ideas and inspiration. Our voices need to be heard in the global conversation about creativity.

This book is strongly narrative: part spiritual memoir; part cultural mirror; part how-to. It’s an excellent resource for people looking for new interests and ways to de-stress; parents and grandparents wishing to nurture creativity in children and grandchildren; teachers planning to encourage its development in students or professionals working in the healthcare field. All will find helpful tips, ideas and perspectives in this book.