One Little Idea, Two New Books, Hundreds of Sketches and a few Halloween Martinis!

Creativity leads to more creativity - Ideas feed on possibilities!

Have you ever noticed that when you open your mind to possibilities your mind opens up to you? I've always known that my artistic creativity fed on itself and the more I involved myself in being creative the more creative I became.

I've discovered in the last couple of months that this creatvity flows over into the "non-artistic" parts of my life if I pay attention.

Case in point, I am working on a Martini Recipe book. I am either at or very close to the 100 recipe mark at TheMartiniDiva and I promised myself that was the magic number for a book. I knew I was going to do art for the book - hey, I don't do anything without art - but an interesting thing happened along the road to the book's concept.

Here is the scenario. I write a Retro Pop Culture blog and relate a lot of my posts to my life growing up in the fifties, sixties and seventies. It would have been wonderful to post old photographs of my life and my family, but I do not have any of my photos with me, they're all in storage in California. So, I did a quick little pencil sketch for one post which evolved into a cartoon of me in the eighties.
I took one look at the sketch and realized it would be a wonderful chapter illustration for a book I was thinking of writing about growing up a baby boomer and my illustrated "comic, retro graphic novel" began!

Then I realized that this could be a great way to bring art into my Martini Book as well and did a quick sketch of a martini glass. But the really cool thing was this sketch inspired a little one page story and all of a sudden my Martini Recipe book evolved into something much larger.

So, I am in the middle of writing and illustrating two books and it all came from the fact that I didn't have a photograph to post to the PopArtDiva Retro Pop Culture blog.

Of course, this all comes at the same time as a big ad campaign that I'm designing for so my work load has increased on an exponential level! But the busier I get, the more organized I get and the more I get done. Amazing what can be done when it has to be done and when you let the possibilities in!

Not only that but I am gearing up for the holidays. Today I designed this year's Halloween Martini Recipe Card and completed the last 9 of my 14 Halloween recipes for posting in October. Next weekend I'll start my holiday designs for The PopArtDiva Boutique!

VISUALIZE VISUALIZE:
I am already checking out format options at Lulu.com for publishing my books. I can actually see the finished books in my mind! That's powerful visualization. I'm really excited and this encourages me to continue the sketches and the stories.

IT'S ALL IN HOW YOU LOOK AT IT:
I didn't plan to get back into a lot of advertising design when I "retired" from the art shows, but it seems I'm in demand and I've always enjoyed the challenge of turning crappy input into decent graphic design. And you get a lot of crappy input sometimes. But instead of doing my usual complaining about how no one understands what it takes to turn crap into art, I've decided to treat each project as a challenge to develop a visually appealing layout no matter what kind of input comes in or how disorganized it is. I'm getting paid by the hour so if they want to pay me graphic design rates for basic office work, fine by me!

This new view of "crappy input" as "input challenge" has eased my stress and detoured me away from my usual path to bleeding ulcers!

ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE:

• I am grateful for the graphic design work because it means income.
• I am grateful that I didn't have easy access to my old photos because the sketch I did turned into something that is going to be a joyful project and, possibly, a profitable pair of books.
• I am grateful that I was able learn a new attitude towards an old irritation.
• I am always grateful for Pixel and her daily playtime needs because she makes me laugh and teaches me to always spend a little time every day to play!

Happy October - I love Halloween and it's coming up - oh, just think of all the purples, greens and oranges I get to color this month and all the monsters and goblins I get to draw!
Halloween Designs coming soon to The PopArtDiva Boutique!

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DO YOU HAVE TO ASK?

This image is entitled "Why Me, God?" and is available as a free download for personal use only as a 5"x7" card image at PopArtDiva.com.
Post images Copyright 2008 by PopArtDiva.com. All rights reserved. No permission is given to copy, distribute or reproduce without written permission from PopArtDiva.com.
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Hey, You Big Chicken! ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE!

You'll have noticed I've been absent the last couple of weeks. Not really out of choice but out of a case of what I call "the blues". I won't give it that other word that starts with a "D" - it's like if you name something you give it life so I refrain from that as much as possible!

I've been experiencing a block to my creativity or rather a block to the enjoyment of my creativity - something that almost never happens to me! My creativity and my art have been my most reliable saviors. Through the loss of family members, bad economies, broken relationships and all the other "hard knocks" of life I have always been able to use some form of creative outlet to chase away "the blues" or keep them at bay until I could deal with them.

The past two weeks has been difficult for me because, though I worked, I was not enjoying it! To make matters worse I could not, for the life of me, figure out what brought this on. For a control freak like me that's just adding fuel to the fire! Not only was I "blue" I was beginning to get pissed off about it, lol!

So, I ASKED for some prayers and good thoughts from friends. They came through in spades and within 24 hours something absolutely amazing happened! Not only did I realize what it was that was creating this block to my muse, I discovered it was something that had been blocking my way to much of what I have wanted over the course of my life!

What was this block? Simple. It was "ASKING". I have never been able to ASK for anything easily. I had a hard time ASKING for the good thoughts I mentioned above! It was like pulling teeth for me to ASK for just the good thoughts! I spent 2 hours trying to decide if I would ASK. Give me a break!

Whether it is ego (won't admit the need for help) or lack of ego (don't believe the help is deserved) doesn't really matter to me at this point. I could not ASK and if you don't ASK you don't RECEIVE!

But you know what? I freaking DID IT! I girded my loins, looked at the big, ugly block of fear that had barricaded my way to so much of what I wanted in life and I took a flying leap over that ugly Mother of broken dreams! When I looked back I was surprised at how small that road block was! Why it was just a little bit of silliness wrapped up to look like the "Demon of Failure and Rejection"!

You see, what could it do to me? If you ASK, what do you have to lose really? Nothing in the big scheme of things - just the fear of rejection and what is that? Nothing. Fear is nothing. Rejection is nothing. It's only a temporary bruise to the ego and the ego ain't paying your bills or making you happy! Sometimes it's doing exactly the opposite!

ASK! ASK because all people can do is say no and no is just a word! No won't bite you! No can't hurt you if you don't let it. No is nothing. Not if you really want something bad enough! You'll take a No a million times if you have a Yes coming down the pipe!

ABUNDANCE COMETH:
So, how does this relate to abundance? Well, I have a really good idea for a product - I mean a really good idea. But this product would require large amounts of money and some business expertise I don't have.

Dear Me! I would have to ASK for something. I would have to ASK for help! Oh, my ego was having a hissy fit, it was drumming in my head, "No, No, I can't let you do that - you'll embarrass me. You don't have the right to ASK for something. I'm going to make you so sad you won't be able to ASK for anything!"

Something clicked in my head and I screamed back, "Shut up, Ego! Go to your room, you've been a bad Ego for decades and I've had enough of you! You are grounded and I don't want to see you again until you've learned your lesson!" And I sat down and wrote a letter and ASKED.

Whether or not this letter gets me what I desire remains to be seen. But in the simple act of ASKING I have opened up possibilities, possibilities that would not exist had I been to fearful to ASK. And possibilities are the pathway to abundance! Possibilities give you detours around road blocks, possibilities give you hope and hope gives you abundance! All you have to do is ASK!

I kind of like this ASKING. I think I'll do more of it in the future!

VISUALIZE VISUALIZE:
I am going to be visualizing my letter winging it's way into the "right" hands. I am going to visualize millions of bills floating gently down upon my product(s) from the sky. I am going to visualize some food too because right now I'm hungry. ASKING requires calories, lol!

IT'S ALL IN HOW YOU LOOK AT IT:
I don't like being "blue". But if I had not had this bout of temporary "blueness" right now, at this moment in time I might never have seen that silly roadblock for what it was - just a bump and not a mountain.
For the first time in my life I see how the words "bad" and "good" are only concepts we apply to situations. What may be bad now might be a good thing for the future. Bad blues, Good blues? - Yup, it's all in how you look at it.

ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE:
I am deeply grateful that the thoughts and prayers that I ASKED for were sent my way.
I am grateful that I am, once again, free of the "blues" and happily regurgitating more ideas and doodling away.
I am grateful that I finally saw my fear of ASKING for the silly boogyman that it really was.
I am grateful for spaghetti - especially spaghetti with Italian Sausage!

Bye and go forth and ASK!

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