Amazon.com (ISBN 0060952431, Paperback)

Many of us don't fit into the conventional career mold, particularly those of us who work--or aspire to work--in creative capacities. Quality-of-life seekers will feel affirmed upon reading Carol Lloyd's Creating a Life Worth Living, in which she posits, "You are actively searching for two things: the creative life you want to lead and the way to create and maintain that life so that you are as sane and as happy and as financially solvent as you want to be." Not just for those engaged specifically in the arts, Creating a Life Worth Living is for everyone who realizes the need to approach their personal and career problems in a more creative way.

"Every life can benefit from the brilliance and thrill of unleashed creativity," argues Lloyd, "but there are some professions that cannot survive without it." Citing fields as wildly divergent as events planning, teaching, and electronic media (as well as those in the arts), Lloyd outlines nothing less than a plan for reinventing a life. The tasks taken from her workshop encourage readers to investigate old belief systems, then generate new ones. Adding to the book's richness and diversity of resources are writing exercises that provoke awareness, art assignments, and interviews with such artists as vocalist Meredith Monk and writer Mary Gaitskill. Creating a Life Worth Living helps readers focus on and respect a part of the self too often lost amidst the larger pressures to conform.