Biting Dogs & Creating

A dog bit my friend. He needed stitches.

When I was a kid my neighbor asked me to feed their two dogs while they left town for several days. I agreed. Half-way through the week a friend was over and when it came time to feed the dogs he decided to join in. He was a dog guy.

One was a Saint-Bernard. The other a sixty pound mutt.

While I was feeding George, the Saint-Bernard, my friend was attacked by the other dog - bitten on the arm in several places in the blink of an eye. Rascal was protecting his food bowl thinking my friend was there to steal it, when in fact he was simply trying to fill it.

In your creative pursuits, your journey toward your goals and your vision...do you know when it's appropriate to protect and defend?

Do you know when it's time to sit back and be thankful?

Can you tell when someone is helping or hurting?

Are you able to do both at the same time?

Wrapping Up Book 2 in the ROTG Series

The Edge: Book One of the Return of the Guide Series (grab one HERE) was written during the wee hours of the morning, before my son rose to prep for school. I'd write until he ventured downstairs, packed his lunch, then joined me at the dining room table for breakfast.

We'd spend the next half hour talking about life, faith, and random bits of, well, randomness.

But here I am waiting on the final approval for The Chain: Book Two (read chapter one HERE) in the ROTG Series.

This time around, writing found its way into another space in life - my afternoons. Somewhere between 1 and 5pm, time for writing would free up as coaching and design projects concluded. The sheer amount of joy I've experienced while sitting down to discover what Heschel, Joanna, and Chih were up to as the glow prompted, tugged, and pulled their stories in wild directions at Compound 40 has been incredible.

Seasons change.

Schedules change.

But the clarity, confidence, and courage to continue developing a story that needs to be told, even in a moment of doubt or disappointment, this clear mission to seek and share moral, spiritual, and cultural truth alongside Heschel and Joanna will nevertheless march forward.

How are you doing in your creative habits? How are you adjusting to change?

The Blockenhower Flow

You've never heard of The Blockenhower Flow?

Seriously?

Alright...alright...here's the deal. After several years of helping creatives put together simple systems for creative habits, I've landed on a handful of interconnected tools that build into, onto, and through one another.

Grab a free downloadable tool HERE. Here's the premise - and let me just say that in one form or another, this little ditty (or series of ditties) has helped shaped the game for many an artist.

The Blockenhower Flow:

1. Block: You know it. The old block schedule. This is the foundation of the building you'll be constructing. It's the structure by which all other planning will be engaged upon. Vaguely familiar? Punch Block Scheduling into YouTube and choose your own adventure.

2. Matrix: Not the series. Look, creatives plan. And we plan with the help of sweet and simple tools like the classic Eisenhower Matrix. Important & Urgent baby! At the start of every week, take stock of your projects, run them through this matrix, then plug them into your block for the week.

3. List: The old school daily planner. You know what? Still works. Only now, this little daily list of unexpected tasks, opportunities, meetings, challenges, etc. is worked into the plan you put together ahead of time, leaving room for these surprises. That's right, your block schedule was prepared. Go figure.

Put all three together in a workable form and shape your own Blockenhower Flow.