In case you are new here, I am a big advocate of blogging. I don’t know of a better way to build a platform than starting with a blog as your “homebase” and building from there. This is especially true for authors.

Occasionally, when I speak on the topic of social media, I get push-back from novelists. “Yes, a blog maybe great for non-fiction authors, but what about novelists? What can we write about?”

Has anyone ever taught you “how” to think? It might seem like an odd question but think about it for a moment. (No pun intended.)

We all think. We’ve all heard about the power of our thoughts. And we’ve all heard about positive thinking.

Several years ago I went through a fairly significant examination of life, work, family, art and where it all was headed. I had just ended a pretty intense season in which I found myself spread thin and a little over-extended, and I knew that I couldn’t sustain the pace indefinitely. Still, it was a critical juncture in my life and career. I was looking for some insight on how to stay engaged and keep moving forward.

During that season, I was in a meeting in which a South African friend asked, “Do you know what the most valuable land in the world is?” The rest of us were thinking, “Well, probably the diamond mines of Africa, or maybe the oil fields of the middle east?”

In my previous post on this topic, I told the story of publishing my first book. I shared the significant amount of work it required and a number of setbacks that I had to overcome. I used this story as an introduction to the talk I gave on the Re:create Cruise on “The Role of Work in Creativity.”

In this post, I want to share the essence of my talk, including the common myths that aspiring writers and other creatives have about the creative life. It is what I refer to as “The Romantic View of Creativity.” It includes four assumptions:

I just returned from the Re:create Cruise 2011. We had a magnificent time aboard the Celebrity Century. The theme of the conference was “The Creative Life.” I was one of four speakers, including Pete Wilson, Ken Davis, and our host, Randy Elrod.

I spoke on “The Role of Work in Creativity.” I began by telling the story of getting my first book published. I will share that with you in this post. In my next post, I will share the four principles, I learned from my experience.

Jason Fried is the co-founder and President of 37Signals and author of Rework. At a recent Ted Conference, he spoke on the topic of “Why Work Doesn’t Happen at Work.” (Thanks to ChurchCrunch for bringing this video to my attention.)

Jason’s presentation got me to thinking, Where am I the most productive? Big surprise: it’s not at the office. Evidently, I am not alone.

Continuing in my series of “20 Leadership Questions,” we come to the fifth question that Michael Smith asked when he interviewed me. This is one is related to the previous question about creativity.

Continuing in my series of “20 Leadership Questions,” we come to the fourth question that Michael Smith asked when he interviewed me. This one is especially important in a world that seems like it is changing daily.

It’s easy to complain our circumstances. But then we meet someone like Patrick Henry Hughes, our excuses evaporate. Recently, Heather Adams, one of our directors of publicity, shared this amazing video with me.

Born without eyes and with a tightening of the joints that prevents his limbs from ever straightening, Patrick has been blind and crippled from birth. Yes, despite these “disabilities,” he was playing requests on the piano at age two. As he grew older, his musical genius became evident. Along the way, he also become an accomplished trumpet player.

Most of us don’t spend enough time thinking. We are so busy doing that we have, I fear, almost forgotten how to think. Yet it is our thinking, more than any other single activity, that influences our outcomes.