Nicole Bianchi

Writing, Copywriting, & Marketing Strategies

Are You the Greatest Enemy of Your Creative Success?

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Book Illustration Depicting Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in a Train Cabin
Arthur Conan Doyle disliked writing detective stories so much that he killed off Sherlock Holmes. | Illustration by Sidney Paget

Have you ever started writing a story or a blog post and felt like it wasn’t turning out the way you had envisioned it in your head?

The words aren’t flowing quite the way you would like. Yet, you spent so much time working on it, that you decide to hit publish.

And your audience loves it.

In fact, they love it even more than anything else you have written. They demand more of the same.

What are you to do? Is your writing really as bad as you think?

Something similar happened to Arthur Conan Doyle. [Read more…]

Why Creatives Need Creative Friends: Musings on a John Singer Sargent Exhibit at the Met

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MET_-_The_Great_Hall_-_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art,_New_York,_NY,_USA_-_2012

Several weeks ago my friend Rebecca and I were caught in a rainstorm while strolling through Central Park. Naturally, we made a mad dash for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

We had no umbrellas and so arrived soaking wet, but we were not the least bit disappointed by this unexpected turn our day had taken. No matter how many times I visit the museum, those wide echoing halls and long corridors always hold something new to see.

On this particular afternoon, my friend and I headed to a special exhibit on the American painter John Singer Sargent (1856–1925). He is known as the leading portrait painter of his generation, producing some 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors in his lifetime. The exhibit in collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery in London displayed just 90 of them: gallery after gallery of some of the wealthiest and most brilliant minds of the Edwardian era.

[Read more…]