7 SARKlists & The MicroMOVEments

By Chris Dunmire | 6/16/22 | Updated 5/22/23

"Creation requires going into the mines. Digging deep. Working hard. Getting your hands dirty. If your act of creation is an image fit for Instagram, you're probably doing it all wrong." —Matthew Dicks

Mango I brainstormed band names when I titled this because I want you to remember the brilliant blending of ideas inspired by a best-selling author.

SARK's known to hand-pen her books* in journal-like fashion with saturating watercolors and accents of art. Each intimate work draws readers into a multi-dimensional creative experience unlike no other. Well, there was that one book she decided to "experiment" with a different kind of type treatment that made playful use of kerning and leading and other designer tricks. Her follow-up book circled back to her signature style. A fascinating case study could be written about this.

Wait! I have to interrupt here to tell you that after I shared my unicorn experience last month I've seen that oversized unisus in various forms no less than six times. I know it's the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon at work, but unicorns are supposed to be rare. And did you know that unicorns don't all have wings? Not that it matters because they really don't exist, but I've hidden one in this issue just to see if you noticed. Can you find it?**

For the longest time I thought a red herring was a bird. That makes more sense than a fish. Me pointing, "Look at that colorful bird flying UP THERE!"

I met SARK in Chicago nearly 20 years ago at a workshop for her Make Your Creative Dreams Real book tour. She made a stop at Transitions Bookplace, and under a full moon hanging low in the big city sky, I learned about MicroMOVEments and headed home with an aspiring list of creative dreams. A few years later, SARK invited me to contribute to her Juicy Journaling e-course.

As fate has it, we've collaborated and arranged for you to experience SARK's skillful coaching and blending methods straight from The Great Book of Journaling by Lynda Monk and Eric Maisel. The book just dropped this week and the excerpt's linked below.

It's good for us creatives to find tools like MicroMOVEments and other small-step methods to help us get started and keep going. Not just for artistic endeavors, but these tools are cross-functional and work in every area of life. Whether you're writing stories, brainstorming seminar lunches, wrangling dust bunnies, or landing moon rockets, you may still only eat naked mangoes after peeling because the skins taste like bitter pine cones. They're also known to force newsletter formats into "experimental" layouts.

*Just the publisher's draft. Not all the best-selling copies. That'd be a lot of work.

**Then they must exist?

SARK

Juicy Journaling and the MicroMOVEment Method

Juicy Journaling contains all the parts of you — not just the easiest or most attractive parts. MicroMOVEments will take you everywhere.

Matthew Dicks

Creativity Cannot Abide Preciousness

Not everything needs to be a thing.

John Eger

Scientists Are Artists Too

Public art can act as a catalyst for community generation or regeneration.

Ellen Joy Johnson

The Oyster and the Pearl: What Motivates Us to Create?

What is it about struggle that motivates and reaps its own rewards?

Meredith Heller

Prompts: Moon Medicine

Considering the dark side of the moon as a time of deep connection with yourself.

Coming Exaggerations:
How to Use Your Creativity to Make a Fortune

This newsletter's weird center justification started right after the mango entered the room. The elves tried to fix it but gave up and said, "Hey, when life gives you mangoes, use them for centering exercises."