Home > Media > Books > Carol Lloyd - Creating a Life Worth Living: A Practical Course in Career Design for Aspiring Writers, Artists, Filmmakers, Musicians, and Others Who Want to Make a Living from Their Creative wor
Carol Lloyd - Creating a Life Worth Living: A Practical Course in Career Design for Aspiring Writers, Artists, Filmmakers, Musicians, and Others Who Want to Make a Living from Their Creative wor
rmthunter's Full Review: Carol Lloyd - Creating a Life Worth Living: A Prac...
I don't do twelve-step programs or self-help books. I just don't have that kind of mind: it just seems that most of them are designed for linear thinkers, who can be happy just taking one step at a time and actually get something from it. I've never really understood why you have to go through B and C to get from A to D -- used to drive my math teachers nuts. Carol Lloyd has found a way around this (well, not really, but she leaves the possibility open). Creating a Life Worth Living is specifically designed for creative people who want to live their lives creating.
The beauty of this book is that you can either go through it chapter by chapter, doing the exercises and having a new life in eleven weeks, or you can go back to it when you need to, when it's time for you to make another step toward living the way that is best for you.
Lloyd's introduction is itself almost worth the price of the book. Her description of how she finished college with no clue as to what to do next, and consequently stumbled around until she figured it out, is rendered with wit, humor, and enormous clarity. She is very generous, as well, in acknowledging the contributions others have made to her career, including this book.
In fact, the generosity of those who have contributed to this book is really heartwarming. There are numerous interviews and sidebars that discuss how various people -- writers, producers, entrepreneurs, dancers, magazine publishers, actors -- have structured their lives to focus on what is most important to them: creating. These alone are immensely helpful to those who are trying to get their feet under them in order to leave room in their lives for what they need to do.
This book actually grew out of a series of workshops that Lloyd held, so the techniques have had their field test. It's all laid out very sensibly and workably: she starts by showing you how to give yourself the freedom just to take some time and let it all cook -- the "daily action," which can be anything you want to do that involves basically doing nothing for fifteen minutes every day: no concrete results allowed. You go on to techniques to keep track of all those ideas you have, so that you can haul them out when you need them, or look at them again and decide that they were bad ideas. The key point is that she helps you remove the pressure: the ideas are there, you can keep having more (you will have more), but you don't have to realize them all right this minute.
She goes on to show how you can tap into your sources of inspiration pretty much on demand, understand how your creativity works. The section on creative profiles is a gift: are you a Teacher, an Interpreter, a Healer? Or are you a Generator, Maker, or Thinker? Or some combination? Fascinating and terrifically helpful.
And she pays attention to real-life concerns: OK, how do I stay alive while I'm doing this? How do I pay rent? Buy catfood? She makes the very important point that having money is necessary, and then goes on to discuss the possible relationships between "aspiring artist" and "day job."
Lloyd deals substantively and realistically with goals, with ways to deal with your security level (do you really need $1,000 a week to live?), and with those voices in your head that keep telling you to go out and get a real job and stop this nonsense. This is a book that I can honestly recommend, because the "help" is realistic and intelligent, and like science, does not rely on supernatural agencies, and you can deal with it in the way that works best for you. Throughout, you get the sense that this is coming from someone who's been there and knows whereof she speaks. She also speaks with humor, wit, and charm that only reinforce her no-nonsense advice. Which doesn't hurt.
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