Filled with fun anecdotes, quirky photos, and off-the-wall business advice, the provocative sequel to "It's Not How Good You Are, It's How good You Want to Be" reveals the surprising power of bad decisions.

    It contains over 50 writing and drawing exercises to help you find and love one's self, get in touch with ones' feelings, and dreams. It will also show you how to: * Play with new media of expression (color, images, symbols) * Sort out the seemingly random experiences in your life. * Deal with creative blocks to get a clearer picture of your potential and how to use it. * Define and implement changes. * Enrich your relationship with yourself and others Written for both novice and veteran journal keeper, as well as group leaders and counselors, it is a visually stunning book illustrated by the author, her students and clients.

    May draws on his experience to show how we can break out of old patterns in our lives. His insightful book offers us a way through our fears into a fully realized self.

    K. Rowling's wizarding world. Harry Potter: The Creature Vault is a fascinating look at how this menagerie was brought to life for the blockbuster Harry Potter film series. Detailed profiles of each creature include rare concept illustrations, behind-the-scenes photography, and filmmaking secrets from the Warner Bros. archive. A removable poster picturing each of the creatures and an interactive Eeylops Owl Emporium catalog complete this must-have package.

    Sixty exercise sticks: First Sentences, Non Sequiturs, and Last Straws will get stories off the ground, 60 cards fuel creative descriptions and four spinner palettes will ignite unexpected plot twists. For any aspiring writer, this kit is the perfect first step on the path to literary greatness!Inspires writers with creative prompts and samplesGets writers in the right headspace to let creativity flowFeatures 60 writing exercises and other creative gamesMake those days and nights of struggling to create writing ideas go away without having to bury yourself in more books with Writer's Toolbox, which makes for the perfect gift for writers.

    From crafting your own obituary to penning an ode to an onion, each page of this playful journal invites inspiration and provides plenty of space to write. Brimming with entertaining exercises from the literary minds of the San Francisco Writers' Grotto, this is the ultimate gift for scribes of every stripe.

    Strawberry ice cream. Making faces at monkeys in the zoo. Dog dishes that say "Good Dog." Carolers singing around a Norwegian spruce. Sun burning off the morning fog. Cabanas. It's the little things that make life worth living, and they can be found by the dozens in this obsessive, quirky, and utterly captivating compendium with over 950,000 copies in print. A pure, unadulterated listing, it offers not a single explanation, aside, or footnote, but reading it is as irresistible as eating popcorn. Randomly selected and catalogued over the course of twenty years-and illustrated with joyous and jewel-like precision by the gifted artist Pierre Le-Tan-14,000 THINGS is Barbara Ann Kipfer's perfect antidote to the all-too-frequently-mentioned things we should be unhappy about.It's a celebration of almost everything that's ever made us smile. And that itself is reason number 14,001.

    I have to talk myself into bravery with every sentence, agreed Cynthia Ozick, sometimes every syllable. E. B. White said he admired anyone who has the guts to write anything at all.An author who has taught writing for more than thirty years,In The Courage to Write, Ralph Keyes, an author who has taught writing for more than thirty years, assures us that anxiety is felt by writers at every level, especially when they dare to do their best. He describes the sequence of courage points through which all writers must pass, from the challenge of identifying a worthwhile project to the mixture of pride and panic they feel when examining a newly published book or article.Keyes also offers specifics on how to root out dread of public performance and of the judgment of family and friends, make the best use of writers' workshops and conferences, and handle criticism of works in progress. Throughout, he includes the comments of many accomplished writers -- Pat Conroy, Amy Tan, Rita Dove, Isabel Allende, and others -- on how they transcended their own fears to produce great works.

    We're chasing the wrong things, asking the wrong questions, and polluting our minds. It's time to stop, it's time to resist and it's time to rethink the fundamental social blueprint that our lives are built upon.'As an 18-year-old, black, broke, lonely, insecure, university drop-out, from a bankrupt family, I wrote in my diary that I wanted to be a 'Happy Sexy Millionaire' by the age of 25. By 25 I was a multi-millionaire having created a business worth over $300m dollars. Ironically, in achieving everything I set out to, I learnt that I was wrong about almost everything... The world had lied to me. It lied to me about how you attain fulfilment, love and success, why those things matter, and what those words actually mean.In this book, I'll dismantle the most popular, unaddressed lies about happiness that we've been led to believe. I'll expose the source of these lies, examine the incentives that fuel them and replace them with a practical set of scientifically proven and unconventional ideas that will help you to live a truly fulfilled life, a life full of the love you seek and the success you deserve.'

     In The Sound of Paper, Julia Cameron delves deep into the heart of the personal struggles that all artists face. What can we do when we face our keyboard or canvas with nothing but a cold emptiness? How can we begin to carve out our creation when our vision and drive are clouded by life's uncertainties? In other words, how can we begin the difficult work of being an artist? Drawing upon her many years of personal experience as both an artist and a teacher, Julia Cameron guides readers to a place where they can find the strength and courage to create. Demonstrating how this involves a process of constant renewal, of starting from the beginning, she writes, "When we are building a life from scratch, we must dig a little. We must be like that hen scratching the soil: 'What goodness is hidden here, just below the surface?' we must ask." With exercises designed to develop the power to infuse one's art with a deeply informed knowledge of the soul, this book is an essential artist's companion from one of the foremost authorities on the creative process. Julia Cameron's most illuminating book to date, The Sound of Paper provides readers with a spiritual path for creating the best work of their lives.

    With simple but provocative questions, All About Me is a great tool for self-reflection that spotlights everything your loved ones would be interested to know about you but never thought--or dared--to ask. Such as: Name a friend you should not have kissed. Describe a moment when you achieved absolute happiness. Recall a compliment that made you blush. Write about your most beautiful and your most horrifying memory of your parents. Does a naked photo of you exist? The wide-ranging questions--from short yes/no's to open-ended ones that probe your psyche--are personal, direct, and addictively fun to answer. The basic specs, including blood type and annual salary, are also covered.If you've ever wished that you or your loved ones had been born with an operating manual, your wish has been granted. Filled in or left blank, All About Me is a perfect gift for everyone you care about--friends, relatives, mentors, and lovers. Published just in time for Valentine's Day, but also ideal for Mother's Day, Father's Day, graduations, birthdays, showers, and weddings, this unique book gives the best present of all: the gift of you.

    204 pages.

      We have been spoon-fed the notion that creativity is the province of genius -- of those favored, brilliant few whose moments of insight arrive in unpredictable flashes of divine inspiration.  And if we are not a genius, we might as well pack it in and give up. Either we have that gift, or we don’t.  But Allen shows that simply isn’t true.  Recent research has shown that there is a predictable science behind achieving commercial success in any creative endeavor, from writing a popular novel to starting up a successful company to creating an effective marketing campaign.    As the world’s most creative people have discovered, we are enticed by the novel and the familiar. By understanding the mechanics of what Gannett calls “the creative curve” – the point of optimal tension between the novel and the familiar – everyone can better engineer mainstream success.    In a thoroughly entertaining book that describes the stories and insights of everyone from the Broadway team behind Dear Evan Hansen, to the founder of Reddit, from the Chief Content Officer of Netflix to Michelin star chefs, Gannett reveals the four laws of creative success and identifies the common patterns behind their achievement.

    This stunning new coloring book by Johanna Basford takes readers on an inky quest through an Enchanted forest to discover what lies in the castle at its heart.There are drawings to color and embellish and hidden animals and magical objects to be found along the way.Happy coloring!

    Ordinary art. Ordinary art means something like: all art not made by Mozart. After all, art is rarely made by Mozart-like people; essentially-statistically speaking-there aren't any people like that. Geniuses get made once-a-century or so, yet good art gets made all the time, so to equate the making of art with the workings of genius removes this intimately human activity to a strangely unreachable and unknowable place. For all practical purposes making art can be examined in great detail without ever getting entangled in the very remote problems of genius."--from the Introduction