Happy August 20th!

I know, the day might not mean a whole lot to you. However, it was one year ago today when the seeds of possibility for Collective Inkwell were first planted when David and I met via email. We are now five months into our first joint web site and ready to shed the first skin so we can step into another.

Here is Collective Inkwell 2.0, a different focus and a new, lighter, cleaner look.

When we first started Collective Inkwell we had one certain goal: we craved an online space that could serve two masters; to plant a flag in our business while establishing an online workshop where the two of us could work in tandem. We work well together. Our strengths and weaknesses compliment one another’s perfectly, allowing us to work efficiently and creatively in ways it would take far longer to do solo.

At roughly the same time we started dipping our collective quills into the Inkwell, we were also establishing a different, business-minded domain over at Ghostwriter Dad. The two sites were each founded with an opposite approach, allowing us to experiment and run with the one which worked best. Ghostwriter Dad was built as a niche site, quietly bringing in business in the background, dependent on the strength of SEO alone. Collective Inkwell was less business-like, allowing us to reveal a more personal side of our creativity.

The overlords of optimization are a fickle brigade for sure, but at the time of this writing, Ghostwriter Dad shows up on the first page for the search term “ghostwriter.”

This has kept the two of us occupied with a desktop filled with a steady stream of direct response content creation. It makes perfect sense to send all our business there, thus clearing the clouds for a new sky here at the Inkwell.

We have tons of tremendous stuff planned for the site’s immediate future and already know what 3.0 will entail. In the meantime, the main thing we want from the site (for both ourselves and you, our valuable reader) is FUN.

Our calendar is inked with many surprises scheduled across the next couple of months, starting next week with a BIG announcement about the next phase of our overall plan for Available Darkness, as well as the release of a wonderful little piece of personal writing we’ve been working on a while.

If you are one of our readers interested in the business side of things, please subscribe to Ghostwriter Dad and keep in touch with us as our online content creation and marketing skills continue to evolve. If you care to see a sample of our content work, you can check out our potty training help site, Potty Training Power.

Together, we are responsible for 100% of the content, design, marketing and success of the site and its attached product.

Before we go, we’d love to ask you a small favor. Michael Stelzner has opened nominations for his fourth annual Best Writing Blog award. If you love the Inkwell and feel we are deserving of a nod, please head on over and drop your thoughts in the comments. We would really appreciate the support. : > )

While Writer Dad and Blogger Dad capture us as family men and Ghostwriter Dad is us at the office – pure professionals, Collective Inkwell is us as artists and friends, hanging around and talking about those things that inspire us most. And we’re glad to have you here to join us. It wouldn’t be the same without you.

Here’s to clean pages yet to be filled…

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I like to watch people.

Okay, that probably sounded kinkier than planned, but that’s okay, we’re all friends here. The point is, I love people watching. One of my favorite places to have done this was New Jersey, where I saw a wider variety of people than I’d ever seen before. It was a people watcher’s paradise!

Usually when I watch people, I try and imagine their lives. Either what they are doing or thinking at the moment or what their lives are like. I like to think I’m accurate in my guesses, but the only way to know is to follow them around. And usually the police get upset when you do that. When I was younger and didn’t have a car, I took the bus a lot and would write about the imagined lives of the people on the bus. Man, some of those people had incredibly bizarre lives!

So, what does this have to do with you?

The name Collective Inkwell isn’t just our chosen online studio name. We want to help inspire and foster creativity in our community.

Following suggestions and positive feedback from our story contest earlier this year, we want to invite you to take part in more creative writing exercises. We’ll try some different things from time to time depending on how popular they are.

First up, the photo story prompt.

Here’s the idea. Using the photo below as your prompt, you leave a comment with a short story describing the scene below. Feel free to use this only as a launching point, if you like. Be creative.

We look forward to seeing how you interpret this scene.

Please tweet this post and help spread the word.

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Iwrite full time. Ghostwriting, blog posts, comments, emails, tweets. You name it and my fingers might have made it happen. When I first started to write, I had no aspirations for a writing career. Weaving words was merely salve to sooth an aching heart, dulled by my daughter leaving the nest for Kindergarten.

I spent afternoons filling pages for a novel I was shocked to be writing. I wrote every day until four months had passed and I found myself with a finished book and quickly evolving identity.

Those days of discovery have passed, new exploration has taken their place and my love for the art of writing has moved from playful hobby to serious career. The days of verbal doodling have taken a necessary reprieve, but I know there is much I can do to keep the embers hot. Since my heart first began to beat with the blood of a writer, I have longed to bloom words into worlds. Conversation with my muse has never been difficult, it is the time I need to fully engage her when faced with the necessary jobs that see me writing SEO copy about auto insurance, lawnmowers and little league.

Though I have kept a journal intermittently throughout my life, it was only after suffering the loss of unbridled daily creativity when I knew I had to do something to satiate the desire to deposit my ideas. Now I am neither novice or veteran, but I’m quite sure there is no ritual better for a writer than daily pages. A few hundred syllables or a few hundred words, it is the routine that is necessary.

My schedule over the last six months has been haphazard at best; swollen with constant transition. I can’t pretend I’ve kept to my routine with religion, or written words in my journal without fail. I do solemnly swear however, that those times when I’ve ignored my daily pages are also those days when my writing starts to suffer. Even when my pages are filled with nothing but scribbles or rants and ramblings, they are a vessel to harbor the engagement in my mind.

Every river must eventually spill into a sea.

Daily Pages are an excellent avenue for the pent up emotions of a well worn life, those things that bog you down like an iron ball snaked around your ankles. If you maintain your daily drain, then those moments when it’s just you and the bright white of an empty page will be more likely to find you in the throws of a passionate affair with your muse, rather than the cold silence of a slowly dying love.

Methods do not matter. Everyone journals differently. I happen to use whatever is on hand. Sometimes it’s a ten cent notebook or the back of an envelope I transfer to the hard drive later. My favorite place to store my thoughts is in a little desktop app called MacJournal. This journal allows me to stash anything I want and in any format. This is golden for a writer, as we are all pack rats of thought. Whether I birth an idea for a post, a letter for my wife, an poem for my children, or the full outline for a future best seller, I can stuff the journal and feel a creator’s high knowing my muse has been fed and is lying in wait.

Sometimes paradox begets productivity. By emptying your mind into your pages, you are also refilling the well of ideas. Creativity is rarely born in the clutter of one’s mind, though film and legend might try to convince us othewise. Images, scents and sounds will coalesce to burn new ideas into your mind’s eye. Getting truly lost in your pages, even if it’s only for a moment, might be all you need to thicken your thoughts.

This is tired advice, but only because it has had to work so hard. To be your best writer, you must write. I cannot count the number of words I’ve written in the last year, but it’s somewhere well over a million. Some were born from a freelance job where I tried to turn bullet points to brilliance. Others came from deep inside me and are like portraits lining my hallway wall. The common denominator has been my pages, the daily record of who I was, who I am, and who I will someday be.

We can never know for sure where life has taken us, but it is an amazing thing to keep a record of where we’ve been before.

Collective Inkwell Community Question: Do you keep a journal or write daily pages? Could you see the value in doing so?

Sean

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7 Easy (And Fun!) Exercises to Boost Your Creativity

NOTE: This is Collective Inkwell’s first guest post, written by Sherice Jacob of ielectrify.

Are you stuck wondering how you can even think OUTSIDE the box when you’re stuck IN the box?  Whether you’re tackling a difficult problem or are suffering from complete burnout, these seven creative exercises are guaranteed to spark your creativity and give you a lot more brain with a lot less storm!

1. Doodle! Did you know that our random, seemingly “mindless” doodles actually reflect what our subconscious mind is thinking about?  Doodling is a great way to get in touch with that innovative side of your brain, so grab a pen and paper and go for it.  It doesn’t matter if you can’t draw a stick-man, no one is judging your artistic creativity here.  Mull your problem over in your mind and start sketching out what comes to mind.  You might be facing a blank page at first, but eventually ideas will start to flow more readily.

If it helps, you can also discuss your problem with a friend or colleague and doodle while you talk about it.  Do this exercise with someone who isn’t in your immediate brainstorming circle – who possibly has never heard of the issue you’re trying to address.  Sometimes two heads are better than one – and you may find an innovative solution you never would’ve uncovered!

2. Write it Down – This is my personal favorite and the one I use constantly.  Just like with a diary, sometimes it really does help to get it all out and “on paper” (or screen).  Start writing about your problem.  Write how it makes you feel, how you hate being stuck, what you wish you’d rather be doing.

Don’t stop to analyze or edit your writing – just write!  After a few minutes of venting, you’ll not only feel better, but real ideas will start to stick their heads out as you clear out all the stress and mental clutter that’s been jamming up your creative pipes.

3. Ask the Dictionary – This is a sure-fire idea generator.  Open up a dictionary and choose a random word.  Now think of new ideas around that word.  What images come to mind when you think about the word?  For the purpose of this article, I tried this myself and the word I ended up on was “chemical”.  What comes to mind?  Harmony (or explosions), interactions, science, beakers, teamwork.  Try it yourself!

4. Candy + Classical Music – I once had a math teacher who swore this worked, and, being “mathematically challenged” myself, I can say that I really did do better on tests when she used this method on the class.  Pop a piece of hard candy and turn on some Bach or Mozart.  That burst of sugar goes right to your brain as “quick energy”  (but don’t overdo it or it will go straight to your thighs!) and there are countless studies attesting to the positive results of classical music.  Put the two together and see what happens!  Try this with point #1 or #2 above!

5. Mix Up Your Routine – Let’s be honest.  How many times have you gotten up and gotten ready for work and actually stopped to THINK about what you were doing that very minute?  Even something as routine as making a cup of coffee seems so “automatic” these days.

To help bust out of your rut, try something different every day – or even several times a day to get the full effect.  Drive a different route to or from work, brush your teeth with your other hand, buy a random magazine from your local bookstore on a topic you know nothing about and read it.  You’d be surprised at how this can “reset” your brain and give you more interesting points of view you might not have considered before!

6. Explore Your Senses – Sometimes we’re so burnt out by a problem, we forget that we’re concentrating too hard on it.  To help loosen up your creative muscles, take time out to do something small for yourself, but instead of just “going through the motions” of it, explore it with all your senses.  Take time to enjoy the touch and smell of something you’re eating, for example.  If you’re doing point #6 above, take in everything about the new part of your routine.  Is there something you enjoy more or less about it?  Why?

7. Watch Other People – Go to a busy area such as a mall and watch people. Consider what they might be thinking about and make up a life story for them.  What would you do if you were in their shoes right now?  You may discover that your “big” problem was actually rather trivial compared to what someone else is going through – which gives you a renewed boost of energy to tackle it again with a fresh new perspective!

Give these creativity tips a try for yourself and do them often.  Then watch as ideas start to come more easily and new innovations you may never have considered before suddenly appear when you’re “turned in.”  It works!

Sherice Jacob is a web designer, copywriter, and author of Get Niche Quick! You can follow her @Sherice

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Is your blog a GREAT blog?

Does your blog burn brightly or is it just another fading star in cyberspace? Are your readers informed and entertained or are you delivering the same tired copy and uninspired, poorly functioning web design which assaults the senses and insults the intellect of your audience? Does your blog resonate or does it come off like the internet equivalent of cheesy late night television infomercials?

These are the kinds of honest questions GREAT bloggers must ask themselves.

Hi, we’re David Wright and Sean Platt. We’ve created Collective Inkwell to help you create a GREAT blog.

As artists, we are obsessed with perfecting our crafts. We’ve spent countless hours in discussion about our inspirations and critiquing and editing each other’s writing. As a freelance writer or artist, an honest partner who calls things as they are, is an invaluable asset that can only help you tighten your focus and sharpen your voice.

In the relatively short time we’ve been blogging, we’ve developed a close knit circle of fellow bloggers who we’ve come to both learn from and consider friends. We talk a lot about blogging trends, what works and what doesn’t, and what kind of content we most enjoy.

Then we thought, why not widen the circle by creating a site that not only serves as a portfolio to showcase our freelance services, but also serves as an online writer’s room to talk shop? In that shop, we will discuss what inspires us and more importantly, what inspires YOU.

Consider Collective Inkwell your friendly café, to use a term that Chris Brogan has popularized, to talk shop. We hope to enrich both your blog and your life. If we happen to entertain you along the way, all the better.

We encourage readers to post in our comments section and join in the friendly discussions on creativity, blogging trends and whatever topics we post about.

What you can expect

Collective Inkwell aims to offer quality content, lived-in advice, and topical discussions relative to a creative bloggers’ growth. We will also feature a long line-up of interviews with today’s most creative and interesting bloggers and creative masters. We aim to post at least three times per week, but may post more often as time and content allows.

Additionally, we are trying something new for this sort of blog – we are excited to offer up a weekly chapter of co-written fiction, with a fresh installment of Serial and Milk each Friday.

Subscribe to our feed via RSS or email, by clicking on the buttons along the sidebar.

You can follow us on Twitter by clicking on the appropriate button, also located in the sidebar. We will also set up a dedicated Twitter feed for The Inkwell this week. Speaking of Twitter, please Tweet us and let others know to check us out.

If you want to contact us, we’d love to hear from you. Our collective email is collectiveinkwell (at) gmail.com

Thanks for stopping by, please comment, we’d love to hear from you.

We’ll see you again on Wednesday when we announce a killer contest to kick things off! Trust us, you won’t want to miss it!

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