Making Room for More

This is the title of my presentation on creative writing in the life of a physician that I gave at the Examined Life Conference in Iowa City. It was scheduled for the last time slot on the last day, but in spite of that I had a great turnout - about twenty people, about as many as the room could hold comfortably.

I talked about some tricks that I learned from Sarah and from other creative writing courses. People appreciated the practical tips such as writing first thing in the morning, writing every day, handwriting the first draft, or using OmmWriter to transcribe. 

I mentioned different sources of prompts including Sarah's daily prompt, various books of prompts and the Writers' Digest website. We did two writing practices using Sarah's prompts. I was amazed that one of the participants wrote a poem!  I loved that! 

I told everybody who wants to be a writer to read Natalie Goldberg's book "Writing Down the Bones."

And afterwards people came to me to ask my advice about writing!