The best way to have creative courage as you work is to forget about creativity, courage, fear, or imagination, and simply SAY WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY.
The inner shakiness a lot of artists get is a lot like fear of public speaking: once the focus shifts to getting out what we have to say, with that becoming more important than how we're feeling, then the fear evaporates. Which we may not even realize until later.
Ever looked up and found that the time had passed and the work was done? (Well, a first draft of a piece of it, anyway.) It's a great feeling.
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Tuesday, April 29, 2008
A Positive View of Problems
Yesterday I paused at my local metaphysical bookstore Dancing Moon to buy a couple of birthday/housewarming presents. While checking out, I pulled one of the cards from the deck on the counter, the idea being that I would be guided to select one that would apply to me and my situation.
What the card said, in short: the problems you run into are chances to develop strengths and grow.
Okay, I'm willing to view dealing with the vast complications of the book business as weight-lifting. I don't know how long that attitude will last, but it did give me a brighter perspective yesterday that has lasted at least until today.
The attitude gibes with that of the admirable Ralph Waldo Emerson. From the Emerson on Man and God which was a gift to me in high school: "Difficulties exist to be surmounted. The great heart will no more complain of the obstructions that make success hard, than of the iron walls of the gun which hinder the shot from scattering. It was walled round with iron tube with that purpose, to give it irresistible force in one direction. A strenuous soul hates cheap successes."
I don't know any artist--or anyone, for that matter--who thinks of his or her successes as too easily won. Still, the obstacle-as-strengthener idea can take away some anger. I've developed an unnatural patience and a certainty of my own purpose through the years of obstacles (huge pain-in-the-ass interferences) that publishing so often presents.
If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.
What the card said, in short: the problems you run into are chances to develop strengths and grow.
Okay, I'm willing to view dealing with the vast complications of the book business as weight-lifting. I don't know how long that attitude will last, but it did give me a brighter perspective yesterday that has lasted at least until today.
The attitude gibes with that of the admirable Ralph Waldo Emerson. From the Emerson on Man and God which was a gift to me in high school: "Difficulties exist to be surmounted. The great heart will no more complain of the obstructions that make success hard, than of the iron walls of the gun which hinder the shot from scattering. It was walled round with iron tube with that purpose, to give it irresistible force in one direction. A strenuous soul hates cheap successes."
I don't know any artist--or anyone, for that matter--who thinks of his or her successes as too easily won. Still, the obstacle-as-strengthener idea can take away some anger. I've developed an unnatural patience and a certainty of my own purpose through the years of obstacles (huge pain-in-the-ass interferences) that publishing so often presents.
If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.
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