Welcome to Wishful Blogging!

Thank you for visiting my blog, I hope you find something to inspire you.

My work is slightly unusual, so maybe a few words of introduction are in order. I’m a coach specialising in working with creative professionals, which means I’m lucky enough to spend a lot of time listening and talking to talented people engaged in fascinating work. They include freelance artists, writers, actors etc. as well as teams in creative businesses such as design, advertising, computer games and so on.

I’ve always been passionate about creativity of one kind or another, and believe it is essential to any truly rewarding work. So I found myself drawn to working with people who make creativity their full-time (or passionate part-time) business in this world.

These days, of course, creativity is becoming recognised as an essential ingredient in any successful business, and the ‘creative industries’ are becoming more significiant contributors to the economy in many countries. So my goal with Wishful Thinking is to help people take advantage of this opportunity and express their creativity to the fullest through their work – whether in an ‘artistic’ or ‘business’ context.

So creativity will feature prominently in this blog – ideas, stories, discoveries, even a few tips and techniques. Most of my coaching work is obviously confidential, but there may be projects I work on that other participants are happy for me to write about on this blog. I’m also nearing the end of a part-time MA in Creative and Media Enterprises, which will no doubt provide material for several posts.

Apart from coaching my own creative medium is poetry, and I’m rarely happier than when I’ve just finished a poem (or grumpier than when I can’t get the words to flow). I read a lot of poetry and have a little evangelical part of me that wants to share my enthusiasms, so expect a few mini-reviews of poets I enjoy.

As a coach, I’m very aware that a conversation is infinitely more creative than a monologue – so please feel free to pitch in with your opinions and experiences relevant to anything in my posts. And let me know if there are any subjects you’d particularly like me to cover.

With best (ahem) Wishes,

Mark