Cynthia Morris

Back to school time! Are you like me, with fond memories of school supply shopping? Do you love the fresh slate of a new class or semester?

It’s hard to rally that focus on our own, but it’s possible. You don’t have to get all fancy or formal. Just focused. Below you’ll find the inquiries I give my clients when they want to focus on learning and making and growing.

What do you want to learn? This is a great way to narrow down options and get excited about specifics. What is your creative edge, the thing you want to get better at or learn about?

What resources will help you learn this? What books, podcasts, courses, or lectures meet you where you are and help you with what you want to learn?

This is a good question to ask when those random opportunities arise. The irresistible class. A great new book. The OMG she launched that THING and I gotta do it! It’s all too easy to sign up for everything and then do nothing. To feel like we have abandoned the thing we wanted to focus on.

When opportunity knocks, simply ask: How does this help me focus on and meet my goal? 

Speaking of goals, what is your desired outcome? (I don’t really go for goals; instead, I work on projects and set a deadline for when I want to launch or finish them. That feels better for me, but you may prefer the word ‘goal’.)

• Do you want to make something and put it out into the world?
• Do you want to monetize your thing?
• What is your ultimate aim and what is your deadline?

When designing your own course work, ask yourself this:

When will you study and work? Determine how much time you will have for this and when it’s right to do your coursework.

Where will you study and work? Sometimes it helps to have a space that’s outside the norm. I get a lot done at the cafe, but you may prefer a quiet corner in your home.

Who will help you? Perhaps you sign up for a class or have a buddy. We often go further together, but maybe you prefer your own private Idaho.

What supplies will you need? I always LOVED back-to-school shopping. But now, as an adult, I realize that we usually already have everything we need to do the work at hand. I believe that consumerism is the weakest form of creativity, so don’t go buy stuff when what’s really called for is sitting down and doing the work. That said, if you really need a new notebook or gear to do the work, what would that be?

How will you determine your satisfaction? How will you ‘earn your A? This is a concept from Benjamin and Rosamund Zander in their book The Art of Possibility. I have adapted it for my Atelier program. Instead of earning an A, I ask what participants need/want to do to earn their JOY. This helps remove any striving or perfectionism.

Keep it simple. Don’t spend too much time planning. Just enough to get focused. Trust yourself to know what’s right for you.

What else would you add to your curriculum? Make it fun, make it yours and make it meaningful to what you want to write.

This fall I will be bringing back something I can’t wait to share with you. I am at a creative edge and it’s thrilling. I’ve been studying and focusing and I enjoy the feeling of being a student again. I’m using my Atelier to keep me on track.

What do you want to learn this year? Check out the workshops I have for writers this fall – I bet one of them is perfect for you.

Share your thoughts and curriculum plans below.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a movie that energized me like few others. Pieces I Am is a documentary about the novelist Toni Morrison. I saw it again last night, and got even more from it.

I googled Toni after I got home and discovered that she is 88. Wow, I thought. That’s impressive. Then, last week, I got word that Toni had died.

I found it hard to feel sad. 88 is a long life. And Toni had done so much. She wrote many books. Since I read her novels in my early ‘20s, I’ve been inspired by her talent. Toni’s writing was evocative and she shared stories of the African-American experience that I hadn’t known before I read her work.

But the documentary filled in the picture of her life. Toni was an editor at Random House. There, she focused on publishing the work of other African-American women writers like Angela Davis and Toni Cade Bambara. She worked full-time, wrote novels and raised two sons as a single mother.

Through her talent and determination to write her stories, she earned a Pulitzer Prize. And, she was the first African-American woman to receive the Nobel Prize. What an amazing life and career! Rather than feel sadness that she is gone from the earth, I celebrate and am grateful for how she lived and what she did for American literature and for African-American people.

It might be easy to see this legend and think, oh, I could never do anything like that. And, for the most part, it’s probably true that neither you or I will get the Nobel Prize. (But you never know!!)

I want to underline four things I gleaned from Toni’s life for us:

Toni had an unshakable passion for writing and confidence in herself and her stories. Facing criticism that she didn’t include white people in her stories, she stood her ground. She wrote about and for African-American people. Her stories that did not center on or include the white gaze. This was groundbreaking and lit the way for other authors to stand in the truth of their vision. I am taking this inspiration now in the project I am writing. What stories must you tell that others might criticize you for? How will you set aside perceived pushback to write your truth?

Toni knew and trusted herself. At the time, she was one of the few women in the publishing world and certainly one of the few African-American women. But when faced with a room of white male colleagues, she didn’t waver. “I knew I was more interesting than them.” She didn’t try to be like them. She owned herself and her place at the table. Now more than ever we are called to stake our place in the conversation. To not back down, to not water it down and to not abandon ourselves. How can you trust your unique gifts and bring them to the conversation?

Toni asserted her authority. As an editor of Muhammod Ali’s book, she was responsible for helping him on his book tour. But he couldn’t really see her. She realized that he had her in his mind as a woman, and that he didn’t regard women as having any authority. When this became apparent to her, she shifted. She moved into ‘mother mode’, dominating him in a way he could understand and accept. Sometimes we have to exert our authority in new ways, but without abandoning ourselves. How can you claim your authority today?

Toni ‘went there’. Her books are so enduring because Toni addressed taboo subjects. She staked a claim for the African-American experience, and didn’t shy away from the bloody parts. Beloved, a novel about a slave mother who kills her children rather than see them return to slavery, shows the deep and absolute desperation of a mother who sees no way out for her children. While many would call a mother like that a monster, Toni saw her humanity. She strikes to the heart of the slave experience in ways that no one else had. Where do you need to take your writing to reflect a deep honesty that may not be expressed otherwise?

I could go on and on. Toni’s life and body of work is a true gift to the American people – to all of us. After I saw Pieces of Me, I felt so energized. I believe everyone should see this movie. Don’t doubt me on this one, friends. Just find it if you can and go see it.

It’s a fun game for budding authors to go to the bookstore to see where their books will go on the shelves. It’s a deep honor for me that my books nestle alongside Toni Morrison’s books. I don’t have any illusion that my talent matches hers even remotely. But I know that we share space in the pantheon of novels. That we have both taken the risks to write about what means most to us.

What has Toni Morrison inspired in you? What creative risks are you willing to take now? Share your thoughts below.

Clients often tell me: “I need to just sit down and write.”

This sounds reasonable, right? I mean, just DO IT!

But there’s something sort of punitive about this. The feeling I get is like being told to sit down and shut up. Be quiet. Toe the line.

Maybe it’s all my formative years in Catholic school with the nuns, but any kind of forcing or punitive vibe one my creating just doesn’t work. I can’t even use the word ‘discipline’ because it brings to mind punishment rather than focus. Dustpan spanking, anyone?

If you’re feeling stuck creatively and hear words in your head telling you what to do, and you’re not following that voice, perhaps it’s because the vibe is more of a punishment than an invitation. I mean, really. Who wants to be told to sit down and do anything, even if it is our own voice?

It may be that sitting down to write is not your style. Perhaps standing and jamming on the keyboard Tori Amos style would be better for you. Or bouncing on a big ball along with your typing.

But, honestly, most of the tips and hacks for getting our work done avoid the real issue. We’re scared. It’s scary to write our truth. It’s daunting to invent worlds and inhabit them with characters we will care about. It’s scary as hell to ‘put ourselves out there’.

What works for me and my clients is to make a commitment. And honor it. And honor our own way of doing things. If writing in the cafe works for you, do it. If writing standing up makes it easier to be with the discomfort, do it.

I invite you to bring pleasure to the process, not punishment. What delights you and your inner writer or artist? Maybe you ‘reward’ yourself after creating. Maybe you sip the cappuccino while you create.

I’m working on a writing project – NOT a book – that is daunting as hell. So I bring extra compassion and kindness. This does not mean bailing on my writing dates. It does not meaning skipping writing when I don’t ‘feel like it’. (We usually never feel like it.)  It means showing up for writing dates in ways that help me focus, follow through and finish – in my way.

This approach to creating is the very foundation of my work as a coach. We each have to find the process that works for us. Take all suggestions and ’tips’ that work for you and adapt them for yourself. Make up your own crazy rituals. And if a dustpan spanking works to get your work done, well, more power to you.

Whatever your rituals for making, make them work for you. Don’t bully yourself into it; you will just rebel against the meanness. As well you should.

What pleasures help you to get your creative work done? Share what works for you below!