Habits of the Creative Mind

Second Edition©2020 Richard E. Miller; Ann Jurecic

About

Develop the habits to become a more critical and curious writer

Habits of the Creative Mind is not another textbook. Instead, it leads you off the beaten path of five paragraph essays and rote responses, giving you permission to be curious and to follow your interests and research wherever they take you. You are given frameworks to develop persistence in planning, revising, and learning from failure and are introduced to examples of other writers at work on interesting problems to help you reflect on your own writing journey.

Preface
1. Orienting
On Finding Your Feet
On Habits
On Thinking New Thoughts

2. Beginning
On Unlearning
On Letting Go of Writing-By-Formula
On Confronting the Unknown

3. Paying Attention
On Learning to See
On Looking and Looking Again
On Paying Attention to Words

4. Questioning
On Asking Questions
On Writing to a Question
On Question-Driven Writing

5. Exploring
On Going down the Rabbit Hole
On Creative Reading
On Choosing Your Own Adventure

6. Connecting
On the Three Most Important Words in the English Language
On Joining the Conversation
On Working with the Words of Others

7. Working Deliberately
On Seeing as a Writer
On Reading as a Writer
On Reading in Slow Motion

8. Reflecting
On the Miracle of Language
On Making Thought Visible
On the Examined Life

9. Persisting
On Encountering Difficulty
On Learning from Failure
On Thinking Unthinkable Thoughts

10. Organizing
On Structure
On Revising
On Getting Your Act Together

11. Speculating
On Argument as Journey
On Imagining Alternatives
On Complexity

12. Playing
On Laughter
On Bending Conventions
On the Joys of Pseudonymous Writing

Readings
Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence
Michel de Montaigne, How Our Mind Tangles Itself Up
Danielle Allen, What Is Education For?
Rachel Aviv, How a Young Woman Lost Her Identity
Rebecca Solnit, Occupied Territory

Works Cited

Index

Authors

Richard E. Miller

Ann Jurecic and Richard E. Miller have, between them, more than sixty years’ experience teaching writing. They’ve taught in high schools, community colleges, and public and private universities. They’ve trained undergraduates to be writing tutors and graduate students to teach first-year writing; they’ve participated in the administration of writing programs; they’ve run immersive writing seminars for experienced teachers. Ann specializes in the intersection of writing studies, literacy studies, and medical humanities. An award-winning teacher, avid blogger, and poet, Richard has an abiding interest in both apocalyptic literature and apocalyptic thinking. Ann’s currently at work on revising the received history of the essay in the United States in the second-half of the twentieth century. Having just completed On the End of Privacy: Learning to Read, Write, and Think in a Screen-Centric World (UPitt 2019), Richard is taking a deep breath before deciding what to work on next.

Ann Jurecic

Cultivate critical and curious writers