There are life lessons in everything. And sometimes the biggest life lessons are found in the least expected places. Here are the 12 Life Lessons I’ve learned, so far, from watching American Idol.

Laura Miller at Salon.com offers writers advice on how to write better fiction.

Toni Morrison said, when she started writing, “It was as though I had nothing left but my imagination. I wrote like someone with a dirty habit. Secretly. Compulsively. Slyly.”

Let’s face it; life has a way of bending, stretching and compressing us, even when we do our best to avoid it. Resiliency is a trait that can be helpful to everyone on the planet. But it can be especially helpful to writers, artists, and creative types.

One thing that it is commonly agreed upon at writer’s and artist’s conferences and books about craft is that those who somehow make it in the art and book world are those who possess one trait above all others: perseverance.

Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World

This inspirational quote from Marianne Williamson has been making the rounds for years. But I will reproduce here, just in case someone needs to hear it or experience it again or for the first time. Writers, artists, and creative types (especially women) are notorious for “playing small” and not seeing their worth.

8 blessings for writers and the artist within each of us

To all you creative types. Have you checked out Inked-In? It is an international social-networking communitiy for writers, musicians and artists.

How often do you get one of those truly great ideas in life and you forget to write it down? So many good ideas, even epiphanies, come to us at inconvenient times: the middle of the night, the middle of a meeting, in the shower, or whenever. Our muse has a mind and a schedule of her own that doesn’t always respect or honor our timing of things.