Sara Mansfield Taber
Life Coaching & Creativity Advising
This is my invitation to you: Come and talk about the life you want to have and the work you want to create. We will work together to make your visions real. Sessions may include discussion of such issues as: creative aspirations and creativity blocks the isolation of the artist’s life resistance, rejection, recognition, comparison, envy, and other artistic perplexities work-family-creativity balance life transitions child-rearing and parenting sandwich generation challenges: caring for elders, children, and partners, while trying to do one’s creative work During the life coaching-creativity advising sessions, I provide, according to each person’s need: close listening, mentoring, structure, assignments, writing instruction, writing exercises, art-making activities—or a blend of them all. LIFE COACHING & CREATIVITY ADVISING
I have learned, on my journeys, that if I let a day go by without writing, I grow uneasy. Two days and I am in tremor. Three and I suspect lunacy. Four and I might as well be a hog, suffering the flux in a wallow. An hour’s writing is tonic. I’m on my feet, running in circles, yelling for a clean pair of spats. -Ray Bradbury Creating is bliss. It offers deep satisfaction and the purest and most dependable joy. On the other hand, sometimes being a person with an urge to create can be extremely challenging. The work itself may be frustrating and elusive, and it is often difficult to hold to a life structure that includes time for the creative work we most want to do. All sorts of things can get in the way. As a creative person—a writer—I have led a life full of passionate interests and the need to translate experience into words. It has been the typical artist’s life: that is, a voyage into unknown seas, undulating with deep troughs and swelling crests—a mix of satisfying, hard work; frustration, disappointment, and struggle; and exhilaration. There have been long passages through calm waters, nights of fierce tempests, and deadening doldrums—and blissful days when the sailing is brisk, the wind at my back, and the sea and sky seem huge and bright and new, and full of limitless possibility. As a writing instructor, trained as a social worker, psychotherapist, and human development specialist, I have advised and mentored writers and other creative people for many years. One of the things I enjoy most is to help people be creative, live creative lives, and bring out their creative work—in the midst of the inevitable obstacles life throws at us all. Talk with an experienced professional, trained to listen well, and who understands the travails of the artist, can help writers, artists, and others of a creative bent to keep going—to live the sort of life they want to live and to bring forth the work they’ve been put on this earth to create. Conversation itself is a precious thing: thoughtful, focused talk about your life and art can be healing, inspiring, and galvanizing—and key to getting your creative work done. In my work as a life coach and creativity adviser, I am flexible in terms of session lengths and frequency. We can meet as frequently as needed to help you fulfill your goals. Advisory sessions may be in person, by phone, or by Skype. To schedule a session, contact me at sara@sarataber.com. There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action. And because there is only one of you in all time, the expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares to other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channels open. -Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille You may enjoy these resources I've linked to below. BOOKS ON WRITING EXCELLENT BASIC TEXTS Carolyn Forché & Philip Gerard, WRITING CREATIVE NONFICTION: Instruction and Insights from the teachers of the Associated Writing Programs Julie Checkoway, CREATING FICTION: Instruction and Insights from teachers of the Associated Writing Programs David Jauss, WORDS OVERFLOWN BY STARS: Creative Writing Instruction and Insight from the Vermont College of Fine Arts M.F.A. Program Brenda Miller & Suzanne Paola, TELL IT SLANT: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction Robert L. Root & Michael Steinberg, THE FOURTH GENRE: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction OTHER GENERAL BOOKS ON CREATIVE WRITING Robert Pack & Jay Parini (Eds.), WRITERS ON WRITING Brenda Ueland, IF YOU WANT TO WRITE: A Book About Art, Independence, and Spirit Willian Zinsser, ON WRITING WELL William Stafford, WRITING THE AUSTRALIAN CRAWL: Views on the Writer’s Vocation Will Blythe, WHY I WRITE: Thoughts on the Craft of Fiction Christopher Vogler, THE WRITER’S JOURNEY: Mythic Structure for Writers Anne Lamott, BIRD BY BIRD BOOKS ON MEMOIR WRITING Sue William Silverman, FEARLESS CONFESSIONS: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir Tristine Rainer, YOUR LIFE AS STORY Judith Barrington, WRITING THE MEMOIR: From Truth to Art Patricia Hampl, I COULD TELL YOU STORIES: Sojourns in the Land of Memory Lisa Dale Norton, SHIMMERING IMAGES: A Handy Little Guide to Writing Memoir William Zinsser, INVENTING THE TRUTH: The Art and Craft of Memoir Vivian Gornick, THE SITUATION AND THE STORY: The Art of Personal Narrative BOOKS ON ESSAY WRITING Phillip Lopate, THE ART OF THE PERSONAL ESSAY Joyce Carol Oates, THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS OF THE CENTURY John D’Agata, THE NEXT AMERICAN ESSAY BOOKS ON LITERARY JOURNALISM Jon Franklin, WRITING FOR STORY: Crafting Scenes of Dramatic Nonfiction Norman Sims & Mark Kramer (Eds.), LITERARY JOURNALISM Norman Sims, THE LITERARY JOURNALISTS Kevin Kerrane & Ben Yagoda, THE ART OF FACT: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism BOOKS ON FICTION WRITING Wallace Stegner, ON TEACHING AND WRITING FICTION Raymond Obstfeld, NOVELIST’S ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CRAFTING SCENES Jesse Lee Kercheval, BUILDING FICTION: How to Develop Plot and Structure Ansen Dibell, PLOT James Moffet & Kenneth R. McElheny, POINTS OF VIEW John Gardner, THE ART OF FICTION Thaisa Frank & Dorothy Wall, FINDING YOUR WRITER’S VOICE Ursula LeGuin, STEERING THE CRAFT: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew BOOKS ON PUBLISHING Betsy Lerner, THE FOREST FOR THE TREES: An Editor’s Advice to Writers Susan Rabiner & Alfred Fortunato, THINKING LIKE YOUR EDITOR: How to Write Great Serious Nonfiction—and Get it Published Susan Page, THE SHORTEST DISTANCE BETWEEN YOU AND A PUBLISHED BOOK: 20 Steps to Success. Annik LaFarge, THE AUTHOR ONLINE: A Short Guide to Building Your Website, Whether You Do It Yourself (and you can!) or You Work With Pros |
|
