Exercise your imagination and explore who you are
A few years ago I taught myself to self-publish books, not because I had writing a novel in mind or even a thought to publish my own story in full, which I will do one day. No, I was just curious, the result of being trained as an engineer I suppose. The curiosity bit was learning how to do almost everything to do with the publishing of my words - writing, doing the digital typesetting bit - creating text and graphics that use available print surfaces efficiently - designing the front and back covers, providing the required publishing info, working out how I will embed advertising in my new range of culture vulture diaries for travellers and so on. As with everything in the "making" field it pays to understand how to do it yourself - it opens the mind to countless possibilities - and saves lots of cash at the same time.
Since then I have self published three creativity work-books, all of which are available on Amazon.
My "We are many people" green Colouring Book was my first perfectly imperfect colouring book for adults.
It consists of 25 unique drawings for you to colour - raw, hand drawn images .... each drawing suggesting a different story for you to tell. The way you apply your colours will create different stories, just watch. At the beginning of each section of the book is a selection of quotes which helped me in good times and in not so good times, quotes that inspired me to make progress. I hope you will enjoy them as well. The drawings to colour-in are set in the middle of a page, with a wide border, allowing you to extend the drawings and to develop the stories in any way your imagination takes you. BUY HERE
My pink "We are many people" Colouring Book and Journal was my second, it combines a colouring book with a journal, the sort of book that's really good to have in your bag when travelling. How often do you think back to that something, that place or that person and wish you had made a note of the ........Journals are to create future memories which will bring a smile to your inner-self when you read them years later. BUY HERE
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I created " Be a creative explorer" Creativity Workbook, my third, to give your imagination a real gym work out. This is important because, like most parts of our bodies, imagination benefits from regular exercise - innovative prowess is no different. If you keep exercising these parts of your mind you will not be surprised when you start turning a bowl upside down to see whether it could be used for another purpose - that really gets you going and all you want to do is invent things and change the world, the "why not" or "what could be" becomes a normal way of looking at things and situations, even problems to solve.
So, in my Creativity Workbook I give you work out exercises in:
- creative writing through keeping a journal, a great way of creating short stories about your day - which actually help builds the skills you will need to become a new author, yes it does, and;
- collage making exercises, a way of telling stories that teaches you to increase the IMPACT of a story because not all of us, or all our messages, are best communicated just by the written word (see what I mean below with my Youtube movie about my green colouring book), and;
- colouring including colouring-in exercises - don't think that this is just for children, it's not, it's also about learning about colour language, learning which colours work well together, which don't, how density of particular colours can change the whole sense of the image - so if you want to become an artist who works with the colours of life, colouring-in is a great learning programme. BUY HERE
My latest book, “Self Explorations”, is a practical, creative thinking workbook which will help you to understand your real values -and remind you to take pride in all your achievements - all this by responding to the many creative prompts I pose in many pages of personal reflections.
BUY HERE
The workbook will act like your personal coach, it will encourage you to build a gratitude practice for a month, it will help you relax through creative colouring and through making inspiring collages based on suggested prompts. The world has been through lock-down, an unprecedented moment in modern history, when it did not matter who you were, what social class you belonged to, whether you were part of a big family or a tiny one, whatever nationality you were, rich or poor ... ....we all had to obey other people’s rules, to stay indoors, doing the best we could to keep ourselves sane, fully occupied and mentally balanced. For the first time in a long time we had to discover our inner resources, to survive the rainbow of emotions that nobody is immune from ... from joy to desperation, from hopelessness to empowerment .... we've been through all of that and more.
So while it was a great time to remind ourselves of what we loved about our nearest and dearest, it was also a time to discover our coping mechanisms, to discover what really mattered to us, to understand what we want or do not want or need anymore in our lives. This is the journey that Self Explorations takes you on, ending in a virtual collage of thoughts and experiences that represents the totality of who you are, who you have become.
You can purchase all of my books from Amazon worldwide