QuinnCreative

With thanks to who made me laugh with this.

Love a word nerd? This makes a great holiday read! Fun, entertaining, and informative!

Where are the editors? "Flaunt" it so show off proudly. "Flout" is to deliberately break the law or refuse to follow rules.
The worst thing is that the headlines are written by an editor who should know much better.

Tired of "said"? Here are some alternatives.

How did you say it?

Our brain thinks light always comes from above. Like the sun.
But it doesn't. Enjoy.

Nerd humor

Truth. In many ways. Thanks to Lin Jorgensen who had it first.

Your life has a voice. Write it down. Join my class on diary keeping, with entirely new ways to capture your life as no one else can.
https://bit.ly/2WGaAka

The real truth about erasers and how creatives think while working. Excellent read! Thnx to Tanya Brown for sharing it.

Erasers are wonderful - The Oatmeal An eraser is not a highlighter of mistakes. An eraser is a tool.

The Atlas Obscura is an amazing book of little-known facts, places and interesting ideas. Luckily, it lets you tour amazing libraries online:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/7-libraries-you-can-visit-from-home

7 Spectacular Libraries You Can Explore From Your Living Room You can almost smell the old books.

Need a break from reality? Bon Apetit suggests reading a cookbook like a book-book!
https://bit.ly/3cVTd4d

There's No Better Time to… Read a Cookbook Like a Book-Book It's less about the cooking and more about the comfort.

Thanks to Jennifer Alvey, who reminds us that every printed page needs at least two editors.

San Francisco Center for the Book will be offering classes online soon. Meanwhile, here is a letterpress card made by Thea Sizemore.

Now you can say you studied grammar today.

It's not what you say, it's what other people read.
And sure, those juicy customers are great when eaten at a table. But hurry, no loitering.

Atlas Obscura is a wonderful book and fascinating website. Here's the link. Click on "stories" to see activities to do with your kids (or on your own.)
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mesmerizing-map-met-museum

Lose Yourself in a Mesmerizing, Meticulous Map of the Met The beloved New York museum comes alive in this massive and mysterious illustration.

I'm using my professional page to post creative links, poetry, and other creative ideas. Here's the one for March 31, 2020: Looking for pandemic-specific creative challenges? https://bit.ly/2UJGUQY

COVID-19 Creative Calls for Submission Sharing writing and art can be an antidote to fear and uncertainty. Check out organizations with COVID-19 creative calls for submission through Submittable.

"Between What I See and What I Say" by Octavio Paz.

Between what I see and what I say,
Between what I say and what I keep silent,
Between what I keep silent and what I dream,
Between what I dream and what I forget:
poetry.
It slips
between yes and no,
says
what I keep silent,
keeps silent
what I say,
dreams
what I forget.
It is not speech:
it is an act.
It is an act
of speech.
Poetry
speaks and listens:
it is real.
And as soon as I say
it is real,
it vanishes.
Is it then more real?

*read the entire poem here: http://www.wisdomportal.com/PoetryAnthology/OctavioPaz-Anthology.html

Octavio Paz: Between What I See and What I Say Octavio Paz: Between What I See and What I Say

Even auto-posts need to be proofread.
* * *
There was a young lady, quite bright
Whose speed was far faster than light;
She set out one day
In a relative way
And returned on the previous night.

The Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden is closed for now. But here's what it looks like with spring flowers in bloom:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FmDYXejLTQ&feature=youtu.be

Desert Botanical Garden in Bloom - Spring 2020 If you can’t be at the Garden in person, you don’t have to miss out—we will bring our vibrant spring blooms to you.

Love maps? You'll love these serious topographical maps of Switzerland with hidden drawing tucked into them.
https://bit.ly/3bpvzMR

For Decades, Cartographers Have Been Hiding Covert Illustrations Inside of Switzerland’s Official Maps The first three dimensions—length, height, and depth—are included on all topographical maps. The “fourth dimension,” or time, is also available on the website of the Swiss Federal Office of Topography (Swisstopo). In the “Journey Through Time,” a timeline displays 175 years of the countr...

Too exhausted, anxious, frantic to do creative work?
Me, too. So I'm pasting images from catalogs in my journal to use later. Some I'll use as drawing exercise, some I'll use in collage, some I may write about.
I use a temporary glue stick to put the pieces in the journal, so I can remove them when I need to.

Don't know how to journal? You don't need to be fancy. Write down what's happening to you during the corona virus time--incidents at the grocery store, how empty the street are, your fears.
When I was writing my dissertation, the most valuable documents were diaries women kept when they first came to the US. The cost of bread, what they wore, the places they lived--were much more accurate and detailed than any history books.
Be a documentor of history.

Here's a fun writing challenge. Below are six words. Use them, in any order, to write a poem (no more than 12 lines, or a flash fiction (no more than 100 words.)
You can post below or not, as you wish. No prizes, no contest, just fun.
You can use any grammatical form of the word (if the word is "big," you can use bigger or biggest; of the word is "late," you can use "lately." OK? Go.
Words: hill, run, pencil, chair, orange, paper.

The time of virus is a test of character for all of us. Some creatives who are reaching out:
---Martha Beck is offering a free course on calming. I got the link through her email list. You may have to go to her site to sign up, the link in my email wasn't transferrable.
---Danny Gregory is offering a creativity class online. Here's the link: https://sketchbookskool.com/coronavirus-creativity-guide/

Coronavirus Creativity Guide | Sketchbook Skool Free resources to get creative and reduce stress. Live drawing parties, free drawing prompts, and more to stay calm and make art.

Headline reminders:
1. Quotes are fine when you want the word to mean the opposite of what it says.
2. Never use puns in a news headline. Feature stories are fair game, but never news. And never this serious a topic.

"We don't find beauty, we make the world beautiful by paying attention." --Ralph Ammer. His TedX talk is wonderful if you are interested in visual expression but think "I can't draw."
https://youtu.be/ZqlTSCvP-Z0

How drawing helps you think | Ralph Ammer | TEDxTUM You don't have to be an artist to draw! In this beautifully illustrated talk, Ralph Ammer shows how drawing your thoughts can be a powerful tool for improvin...

We all know about that passive-aggressive voice, but not from grammar. Thanks to Nancy LaFever, from whom I shared this.

The passive-aggressive voice.
via

Headline writing is a specialty. The words that come after the colon are the main point. In this case, the headline writer made it sound like the police were found in the trash. Had the writer put the most important thing first, it would have been correct.
The single quotes are also wrong. No quotes are needed at all--it's not quoting someone verbatim, and it's not the opposite of what they mean.
Better to have written
Police: critical evidence found in neighbor's trash.

Writers are curious about the world around them. I had to share this story I came across doing research:
https://quinncreative.com/2020/02/the-long-myth-of-the-vegetable-lamb-of-tartary/