A poem found in the margins of my notes and the story behind it.

Take this queue from the animal world and go wild on the page. Your writing (and your mind) will be all the better for it.

In this 5th writing strategy, I challenge you to turn off the part of your brain that wants everything to make sense, so you can open yourself up to new possibilities. Logic can help with editing, but not with getting the words out in the first place.

Each of the strategies I'm sharing this week are hard, but this one might be the hardest. You tell me.

I hope you find it to be the best medicine for your writing and so much more.

School helped you to become something resembling a functioning adult (hopefully, maybe), but it's don't very little for helping to create self-aware individuals and successful artists.

Assuming some part of you desires to be at least one of those things, try this out and see what happens.

There’s a magic that can happen if you can get yourself to leave mistakes as they are in your writing. Here’s one simple way to allow your creativity to shine through.

If you're struggling to put your thoughts on paper, try this one strategy and see what happens. You might surprise yourself.

You don' have to be a "writer" to write. In fact, sometimes it's easier to write if you're a non-writer. Here's my secret to writing and why I think we should all do this practice everyday.

This one word change can make or break your ability to rise to the occasion when life brings you challenges. Read about one person that did this and transformed their life for the better.

You are whole, yes, but you're also made up of parts.

Both the alligator and the bird have their place, but it's up to you to do the work to allow them to work together.

(Mural by @artist_esh on Franklin St. in Tampa, FL)