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The Writing Life

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Creative Risk Taking

I’m sitting in front of my typewriter, in my apartment in Denver. It’s 1994, and I’m embarking on my writing life. Working on an article, I fervently hope that an editor will accept it.

Things sure have changed for writers, haven’t they? Fast-forward seventeen years, and we’re seeing writers freely publishing on their own and others’ blogs, and writers of all genres succeeding at the game of self-publishing. As creators, we’ve never had more power and more access to our audience than we do now.

Taking risks for writing

Creating anything for others is asking them to take a risk on your work. Buying a book, spending precious time reading a blog, getting a ticket to a movie – they’re all risks we take. Minor risks, most of them, but with so many things vying for our time, energy and resources, we must be choosy with the risks we take.
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Following in Sylvia’s Footsteps to Paris

In 1919, young American Sylvia Beach moved to Paris and opened a bookshop, Shakespeare and Company. She’d been to Europe with her family as a girl and as a young adult, yearned to live in Paris.

When I read about this pioneer in Noel Riley Fitch’s Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation, I found a female role model for living an unconventional life. A bookish woman who moves to Paris to live a literary existence – that’s my kind of heroine.
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This Writer’s Life at a Crossroads

We’d like to think that things move in a steady trajectory onward and upward. That in life and art we steadily improve, increase our skills and capacity, and ultimately arrive, fulfilled, at some better place than where we started.

But it seems the real path is circular, a spiral that moves forward but can bring us back to where we started. Or maybe it feels more like a squiggly Picasso line.

When clients come to me, ‘stuck’, they worry about their ability to move out of a rut. I assure them that ruts are a normal part of the creative cycle. It’s normal to arrive at a need to renew and refresh your commitment to your art.
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Liberate Yourself from Old Projects

There they are – bulging in the file cabinet, collecting dust: your old writing projects. Some are complete, but most are 80% finished.

When you look at them, you feel a mix of emotions:

  • Despair that you never finished that great story
  • Hope that someday you might finish that great story
  • Excitement – when you revisit the idea, you really like it. There’s some good writing in there.
  • Overwhelm – where do you start?

You close the drawer and try to forget about these half-bakeds. You want to write new things but after seeing this logjam, you lose confidence that you can ever complete something.

It’s one of the most difficult decisions to make – revive a project or abandon it. Use my coaching questions to help discern whether the project(s) can be resumed or are ready to be dropped.

1.        Where did the impulse for this project come from? Was this your idea or someone else’s?

2.        What is your motivation now? What is important about completing this project?  Get clear about what you expect completion of this project to do for your life.

3.        How has the project changed? Is this piece still in the same genre? Has the focus of the work changed?

4.        How have you changed since you began this project? Take a look at your circumstances. Assess your maturity, your commitment, and your other obligations. Is there still room for this project?

5.        What tools or skills do you need to finish? Assess required time, space, and resources to get a realistic picture of what you need to complete the work. Locate the support, books, and other reference materials that will help you to complete the piece.

6.        What are your strengths? Where else in your life have you stayed with a project even when you didn’t know you could? Take stock of your completion history and know that you can complete a project.

7.        What would it feel like to set this project aside? Check in to see if you are ready to let this project go. Notice if you feel regret, remorse, or relief when you consider shelving this project.

8.        What does your gut say? Respect yourself. Do what you need to do to feel that you are doing the right thing for you, right now. Trust your instincts to guide you in making decisions that you can live with.

Incomplete projects may be costing you more than you think. Lack of confidence, inability to focus, fear of starting new projects can all be caused by these partial projects that are clogging the queue.

List your unfinished projects and use these questions for each of them. Do the work or let go, and open yourself to new creative energy in your life.

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Rebel at the Peril of Your Creativity

If you’re like my clients, you’re a bit of a rebel. You don’t like being told what to do and you’re happiest when you’re doing your own thing.

This rebellion might feel good, powerful, even, but if you’ve turned this rebellion upon yourself, you may be sabotaging your creativity.

Are you self-sabotaging?

You say you’ll write for an hour on Saturday morning. Once your writing time rolls around, you ‘don’t feel like it’ so you do something else. You chafe against structure so you never end up finishing your articles, stories and book.

Or…

You set up studio time, and choose a specific focus for your work. But once in the studio, you pass hours not getting anything done. You assert your right to ‘flow’.

Often creative people internalize the obstinate stance. We become so accustomed to positioning ourselves against something that we struggle against ourselves.

We like being bad, even if it’s damaging our creative power.

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Draft Your Writer’s Obituary to Have a Great Creative Life

I know no one wants to talk about death, but sometimes staring at the reality of our mortality can help us live our juju a bit more.

If I were to open Poets & Writers, or Writer’s Digest, or Writer of the Year magazine and saw your writer’s obituary, what would it tell me about your writing life?

Often, creating a vision for our creative work can help us choose what to focus on and what to discard.

Clarifying what we ultimately want to be known for helps us make powerful decisions for our creativity.

Try this: Cast your vision to the end of your life and reflect upon what you accomplished by drafting your Writer’s Obituary. Include some or all of the following:

  • What will you be known for as a writer?
  • What genres have you explored?
  • Include publications, awards and any accolades you would like to garner throughout your writer’s life. Include the impact you will have upon your readers.

Artists of all genres can play with this. Let this be playful instead of morbid. Create a really big and outrageous vision. Don’t overwork it – just write whatever comes to you, letting yourself be surprised. Write a juicy one for yourself!

Here’s mine:

Cynthia Morris wrote and published widely. Her articles and books about the creative process inspired millions to be more empowered and expressed. Her novel, Chasing Sylvia Beach was a global bestseller and the basis of the hit film of the same name. She was in great demand as an entertaining speaker and workshop leader. Morris died from a giggle fit at 89 in her home in Paris.

Try it

Keep it to 200 words or less. Post it on your blog and include a link in a comment below.
Drop a comment below and let me know what you learned from doing this.

 

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Dumping Mr. Perfect

He’s busy inside your mind, squirreling away on a treadmill that never ceases. “Again!” he cries, never satisfied. “Better!” he urges, and you comply, re-working that sentence, re-painting that corner.

He is Mr. Perfect, and if he rules you, your creativity is at high risk. Your perfectionism gremlin is actually not helping you – he’s draining your creative vitality.

Mr. Perfect is a sneaky gremlin. He has you convinced that perfectionism is a good thing, that re-working something endlessly means you have integrity and high artistic standards.

The problem is, more often than not, Mr. Perfect grinds away at you for so long that you end up never completing that draft or that sculpture. Because it’s never perfect, you never feel satisfied and you don’t advance your creative career.

Mr. Perfect tries to dominate my clients’ creative process. They proudly and sheepishly proclaim that they are perfectionists, sensing Mr. Perfect isn’t good for them, but feeling unable to escape his grip.
Why do we labor under this illusion of an attainable perfection? [Read more…] about Dumping Mr. Perfect

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Got the Creative Blues? Write Your Acknowledgement Page

There comes a point in the writing of your novel when it’s just a slog. You’re close to the end but you don’t feel like you’ll ever see that finish line or hold your book in your hands.

This creative despair can be crippling. Time to lighten things up with gratitude.

The quickest way to gratitude is to write your acknowledgement page. If you’ve written a book, you know that this page isn’t just a nicety. Finishing a book really does require all those people, and even though it’s your name on the cover, the names on the acknowledgement page are equally important.
They’re especially valuable when you need to gather encouragement. You may not be able to invite them over to soothe your writer’s soul, but you can bring them together by drafting your acknowledgment page. [Read more…] about Got the Creative Blues? Write Your Acknowledgement Page

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Not Getting Things Done? Enter the Deadline Zone

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a focused space in which to write your book or finish your project? You often yearn for that far-off creative zone, an idyllic escape where you can focus on your work without daily distractions, tempting dates with friends and other seductive projects.

A mountain getaway would surely help you stay focused on one project. You may even replace Julie Andrews with an image of yourself, singing blissfully to the sky because you’re so tuned into the creative flow!
Sigh. Maybe you can’t escape your daily grind, but you can create what I call The Deadline Zone. This is less a place than a practice – and your ability to shut off distractions to complete projects is a key factor in your success.

Something about the word ‘deadline’ strikes fear in the hearts of many. Most people understand the urgency and focus of a deadline. [Read more…] about Not Getting Things Done? Enter the Deadline Zone

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Love It Daily: The Benefits of a Regular Creative Practice

You hear it all the time: If you’re serious about your art, you plug away at it EVERY SINGLE DAY.

I’m on the fence about whether this advice is useful. I know that if we’re being honest with ourselves, we rarely manage to do something daily. Yet we try and when we don’t succeed, we harangue ourselves for not measuring up.

Still, there’s some benefit from practicing something on a daily basis. I recently completed a 58-day project. The mission was to do one drawing a day in my Moleskine accordion notebook.

I did this because I wanted the comfort and regularity of drawing, and I liked the idea of recording my life visually. It was great fun and I also gained a lot for my creative life overall.

Here’s what a daily practice taught me that you may benefit from as well: [Read more…] about Love It Daily: The Benefits of a Regular Creative Practice

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Snuggling in for a Creativity Retreat at Home

Winter is cozy season, and cozy for writers often means focused time to nestle in and get a lot of writing done. We dream of escaping to a cabin in the forest for uninterrupted writing time. But not all of us are able to escape the home scene. Good news – you can carve out a writing retreat at home and watch the pages stack up.

If you have even a small window of time this season for a creative retreat, here are some tips that can help you carve out space for uninterrupted writing bliss.

Of course, these twelve tactics work for artists of any medium. [Read more…] about Snuggling in for a Creativity Retreat at Home

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Shed the Suit and Write from Your Soul

When I became a coach in 1999, I went out and bought a suit. I wanted to be ‘professional.’ As a young coach, I felt the need to dress for success, and I thought the suit would ensure that I was taken seriously.
It didn’t take long to realize that for me, professionalism was something else. Professionalism was being completely present for my clients. It was honoring my word and living my integrity. To survive in business, life and writing, one must be authentic. You cannot adopt someone else’s business practices. You cannot take their same steps through life and you cannot parrot someone else’s writing style.

Writing not rooted in your soul goes nowhere. It’s a struggle and it leads only to misery. It’s what we call ‘selling out.’
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Make Your Creative & Graceful Return

When you come home from a trip of any length, you’re not the same person. You’re just not. It’s impossible to go out into the world and not be affected.

If you’re like me, you want to make the most of what the world has given you. You embrace the gifts of the journey – new possibilities, insights and confidence.

But it’s easy for all that to slip away into the ignorosphere – that place where your ideas and possibilities exist but you don’t do anything about them.

I’m just off the plane from Paris – actually two trains, three planes and two busses, not to mention airport shuttles.
I’m still in motion. It’s like that feeling you get stepping off a moving walkway, still cruising but off-balance while you try to integrate the new pace.

But I’m happy to be back in the office and using my tools from my e-book The Graceful Return to get my footing. In this week’s newsletter I want to share what I’m doing to cull the juice from my trip to Paris.

It would be easy to pull an article together from the e-book, and I often do that. But this time I’ll share what I jotted in my journal on the way home.
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The Emotional Labor of Creating: Can You Bear It?

I was thrilled to read the term ‘emotional labor’ in Seth Godin’s book, Linchpin. Finally, a phrase to capture what I consider to be at least half the work of creating anything.

The emotional labor that goes into building a business or developing an art or writing career is enormous. It’s why I have a job as a coach. If it were simply a matter of executing tasks, any monkey could create. It’s the emotional labor that separates those who can succeed and those who give up on their creative dreams.

So what is this emotional labor?  Because emotions aren’t visible, and because we’re often besieged by several unpleasant ones at once, we often don’t recognize the work we’re putting in.

Doing my own emotional labor and facilitating that work for my clients, I’ve gained a sense of what it takes emotionally. When my clients learn to acknowledge and value their emotional efforts, they’re empowered. They know they can overcome fear and resistance. They know that they will be able to manage future conflicts more easily.

Kinds of emotional labor

The following list contains qualities, rather than emotions. Being able to feel, practice and live these qualities is good, hard emotional labor.
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Celebration Is Vital to Creative Success

When you’ve hauled yourself over the line of your deadline, when you’ve gotten the news that your story has been accepted, when a gallery finally sees your brilliance and puts your work on the walls, there’s only one thing to do: celebrate.

Of course. This may seem obvious but we often forgo celebrating, forging ahead to the next goal or project. And when we do, we’re missing out on something that’s vital to the creative process.

Celebrating sends the message to yourself that the time and effort you put toward creating is acknowledged and rewarded. It’s a message of respect and of joy. Celebrating makes you stop and reflect upon what you did to arrive at your goal.

Yet most of us blow past this vital and loving part of the creative cycle. Almost every one of my clients and students needs nudging toward making celebrating part of the creative life. To make it easier for you to bring celebration into your life, here’s a baker’s dozen of simple, inexpensive and fun ways to celebrate your successes.
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