List Your Creative Self: Listmaking as the Way to Unleash Your Creativity [Hardcover]

Ilene Segalove (Author), Bob Velick (Draft Writer)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing (October 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0740702084
• ISBN-13: 978-0740702082
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,062,888 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gets you exploring YOU!, February 8, 2002

By 

Michèle et Pete (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: List Your Creative Self: Listmaking as the Way to Unleash Your Creativity (Hardcover)

In short prompts, this book gets you to explore your past, your dreams, your secrets, your hopes, what you think others think of you, etc. It digs up memories long forgotten, and pushes you to reflect on your secret hopes for the future. All of which has helped me appreciate my past, present, and future, and provided fodder for journaling and creative writing.

I don't complete the lists in the book, though, since I personally think the hardcover book is "too nice" to write in. I copy the prompts into my journal and create my lists there. I simply put a check in the book by each list that I already completed in my journal. It really does give inspiration to expand on my journal entries, and if I am stuck for something to journal about, serves as a great place to start. I believe it would also be a good starting point for the begining journaler who may think, "What can I write about?" You have plenty in you, this book pulls some of it out.

I give 4 stars out of 5 since some of the prompts are a little repetitive. But overall, this is a simple and interesting self-examination tool.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creative Expressions, April 9, 2000

By 

Melissa A. Waters (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: List Your Creative Self: Listmaking as the Way to Unleash Your Creativity (Hardcover)

The format of these books, written by Segalove and Velick are extrodinary. As you begin listing on each topic, you begin to realize things about yourself that you never knew, hadn't thought about in a long time, or tried to repress. I have written in these books whenever I have been happy, stressed out, or just when I wanted to take a stroll down memory lane. "List Your Creative Self" brings about many emotions and wonderful realizations. Check it out.....you'll laugh, be mad, cry and be amazed! I love these books and have three different ones. I take pride in giving them as gifts to friends and family. IT is true SELF-DISCOVERY!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You Too CAN Unleash Your Creativity with Listmaking!, February 29, 2004

By 

Amy Graham (Scottsdale, AZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: List Your Creative Self: Listmaking as the Way to Unleash Your Creativity (Hardcover)

Well...as I began preparing to review this final book in the List Yourself series, I saw this:

"The List Yourself book series and calendars are the creation of Ilene Segalove and Paul Bob Velick. These listmaking tools invite the reader to become the writer, offering an interactive approach to self-discovery."

I did not see this in the previous books...but it really struck me...it's VERY true...this book (and the others in this series) really do give YOU the chance to become the writer and they ARE interactive...and I truly LOVE that about these books...List Your Creative Self is no exception. The most striking statements I found in the introduction are:

"List Your Creative Self gives you the green light to enter the zone where your creativity lives and encourages you to explore. Through the pages you'll find a rich collection of one hundred list questions aimed at inspiring, releasing, and expanding your creative powers simply by listing whatever comes to mind."

"It is a safe harbor where you can poke around, fine-tune, and tweak your creative impulses."

All-in-all, I do believe that these statements ARE true...the only way you can actually SUCCESSFULLY use the lists in this book (and/or the others in this series) is to allow yourself to SUSPEND ALL JUDGMENT -- this is for your eyes only...and you MUST let go of embarrassment, self-consciousness, and feelings of worthlessness or unworthiness to make the best and most successful use of this material...in this respect...all ways are the RIGHT WAY in creating your lists!!

I do agree that it might be fun (as suggested by another reviewer) to use this book with a friend or journaling group, allowing you to "compare" lists and discuss varying topics with regards to creativity...with the right group of people, this could be a very fun, educational, and rewarding experience! Of course, you'd have to have an explicit agreement of confidentiality for this to work!!

The authors go on to say:

"List Your Creative Self helps you recognize that creativity is built into your system." and that you can access it by "Just filling in the blanks..." saying that this "...will release your creative juices."

I especially enjoyed the section "Says Who" which is full of list topics that allow you to explore all the reasons you don't feel creative or feel you should not or cannot feel creative -- VERY INTERESTING!!!

The lists topic areas include:

Your Favorite Things
Who Says
You've Got the Power
Hero's
Those "What-Ifs..."
Pride and Joy
The Light Bulb
Brave New World

Like More List Yourself, List Your Creative Self has a short introductory chapter -- nine pages with fairly large type. I compared...the type is in fact larger than that of the previous two books...one would assume to make the introductory chapter appear larger than it actually is. While I find this somewhat annoying and more than a little deceptive...I don't have a problem with the actual content...it is full of good, helpful information -- your not going to find anything terribly profound in these nine pages -- but as with List Yourself and More List Yourself, it's more than enough introduce you to how listmaking CAN help you tap into your creative potential while at the same time allowing you to get started quickly!!

Of the three books in this series, this one is the smallest -- it's about 1/3 the size of either List Yourself or More List Yourself AND it has the very same features I found annoying!! It has the same hard cover binding (PLEASE THINK SPIRAL or LIBRARY BINDING) and is just a bit too small for writing in comfortably -- and a date line would be nice too!! Even though it IS much smaller in size and content...what it does have is quite useful and I seriously doubt that it would be effective if it had more lists than it does...after reading over all the topics and giving it a great deal of thought...I think the authors covered what is necessary, desirable and most importantly helpful to the exploration of your creative potential!!

As I've stated in my other reviews...I believe that this best use of this book is for the "time challenged" journaler...but I DO strongly feel that it is a fun and exciting resource for even the most experienced journaler -- especially if you use these topics as inspiration in a "regular" journal...I think you can get a greatly expanded use out of the material this way!!! I'd even recommend getting all three in this series: List Yourself; More List Yourself, and List Your Creative Self...and use them together...keep them by your bed (for restless nights) or near your favorite spot on the couch (for when there's nothing "good" to watch)...and I can almost guarantee that you'll pick one of them up and find a list that fills a need in your life right now!!

I give list yourself an A for content and a B- for usability (same ol' story about the binding and size)...I think this is a great addition to any journalers library!

I give list your self a B- for price...it's a great deal smaller than the first two, but has a list price of $12.95 -- that's two dollars less than the list price on the first two (currently $10.36 on Amazon)...I'd really expect to pay about $10.00, maybe a little less for a book this size...but that's just me...I do think it's worth the price based on the list topics alone!! What I'm saying is that it's worth the price...but if I'd come across this at the bookstore...I probably would have passed it up based on the price alone, and gone on to look for something a little less expensive!