David Given Schwarm

One of the nicest side effects of a huge creative challenge like a monthlong novel is the way it breaks routine, altering the overly familiar time-tables of our daily lives. As you head toward the fourth week of the escape, you’ve likely created a host of new schedules and routines to help cram writing time…

Hippocrates, the philosophical founder of modern mediciine, inspired many good things, including an oath that makes doctors promise not to kill their patients. One of his lesser-known tips to doctors, though, is that doing nothing can also be the perfect remedy for some of their patients’ afflictions. Maybe you’ve come to see some aspect of…

The Billboard Liberation Front is a group of pranksters who monkey with high-profile billboards posted around the San Francisco Bay Area. The BLF’s intricate changes to the signs, done in fonts and colors identical to the ads they’re altering, often take place in broad daylight, yet the group is rarely caught. The secret: Members wear…

Hey! You’re more than halfway done! If Week One was a crisp autumn and Week Two a brittle winter, then Weeks Three and Four are the kinds of mild springs and humidity-free summers that people pay California rents to enjoy. Good things are coming on teh winds, my friend. You’ll begin feeling them this week.

Painters seeking the proper light and dark tones in their works sometimes employ a powerful, affordable tool that is built right into the human skull. It’s called The Squint, and it requires you to stand aback from the work in progress and, well, squint. Why all the blurring? Because doing so lets you see if…

Novelist Amy Bender surrounds her writing desk with a dozen synonyms for the word “faith.” Why? It helps remind her that, however confusing her story may seem at the moment, its point will become clear if she just keeps writing. And it always does.As you enter your fourteenth day of writing, make and post a…

Recent studies of marine mammals have revealed the perplexing fact that baby killer whales don’t sleep at all during their first month on Earth. The explanation concocted by scientists is that the whales are at risk of freezing to death in the inhospitable waters until they acquire the blubber that insulates them. As you head…

One of the most famous mountain climbers of the last twenty-five years is Joe Simpson, known not for the number of peaks he’s scaled, but for the nightmarish climb gone awry in 1985. As captured in his book (and later the movie)Touching the Void, Simpson shattered his leg on a snowy, storym descent, and fell…

Among the weird places where writers find inspiration, the shower is one of the more common. “Your body is totally relaxed and your mind is totally relaxed,” says Ray Bradbury of his trips to the steamy plot chamber, “then the little explosions, the little revelations come.” Spend some time today investigation those places and situations…