7 Inspirations for Your Daily Practice: Creating and Giving

"I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each, it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes, in some area, an athlete of God."

~Martha Graham

Do you ever have weeks where a word, image, or idea keeps popping up? When it happens to me, it usually means that I need to pay attention, and tell your guys about it. For the past week, examples of daily practices around creativity and giving have been showing up, so I thought I'd share them with you.

I don't know what it is about November, but there are a bunch of challenges for creating and giving coming up:

30 Days of Gratitude

Carla Kay White, creator of the Gratitude Journal app, is encouraging folks to record 30 days of gratitude in their journal, with her app, or as a photo journal on Instagram. If you decide to share what you are grateful for on Instagram or Twitter, use the hashtag #novembergratitude

Art Every Day Month

The lovely Leah Piken Kolidas started Art Every Day Month 10 years ago as a challenge to herself to create art every day for a month, and post it on her blog.  You can sign up on this page, to join this year's AEDM. Most people post a photo of what they made on their blog, or Flickr.  If you share your posts, or photos on Instagram, or Twitter, use the hashtag #aedm2012.

You can listen to my October 2010 interview with Leah on the Arts and Healing Network Podcast, and view my Flickr set from participating in 2010.

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)

Leah was inspired to create Art Every Day Month by NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). The first NaNoWriMo started 13 years ago with a group of 21 writers. Last year, 36,843 writers participated!

Check out their website. It's full of fun resources and ways to connect to fellow novelists. Lots of folks are sharing tips on Twitter with the hashtag #nanowrimo

I've also been noticing a number of books about 365 days of creating and giving (I haven't read any of them, by the way):

One Good Deed a Day (Diary) by Chronicle Books

Craft-a-Day: 365 Simple Handmade Projects by Sarah Goldschadt

365: A Daily Creativity Journal: Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life! by Noah Scalin

One Good Deed: 365 Days of Trying to Be Just a Little Bit Better by Erin McHugh

All of these challenges and books make me want to try a creative and/or giving practice during the month of November, or in 2013. Howabout you? Do you already have a daily creating or giving practice?  If not, do you want to try one?

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