Interview with Self:
Me: What are you afraid of?
Myself: I’m afraid of being a bad writer.
Me: But people have complimented you on your writing; it can’t be all bad?
Myself: Yes, but that’s after many edits.
Me: But writing is editing.
And I come back to that over and over again as I meet the blank page. Getting beyond the resistance, actually doing the work—that’s what matters. And the love of doing it. I’m identifying with this stage of writing as I’m doing first-draft work. I’m trying to stay loose and get words on the page as the story takes shape. But loose writing can also feel like bad writing. The trick is taking that writing and making it better: editing. But we can’t get to editing if we don’t break through resistance and get to the page.
“We have met the enemy and the enemy is us.” –Pogo
Most successful authors give the following advice: show up and write. If you have a schedule, the muse will meet you there. If you keep writing, and do enough writing, breakthroughs will come. (They say the same about meditation.) And that becomes the struggle of the artist, no matter what the discipline: Fighting down resistance and its accomplice, rationalization. We rationalize with all the other things we have to do. And if you’re anywhere around mid-life, you probably have a whole load of responsibilities to take care of and some of them will take money. Which means you have a day job, writing is something you “fit in”.
“I write only when inspiration strikes, he replied. “Fortunately, it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.” – Somerset Maugham
This quote and some of these ideas are from, the War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, by Steven Pressfield. From the back blurb: “…bestselling author Steven Pressfield shows readers how to identify, defeat, and unlock the inner barriers to creativity.”
I also recently listened to the audiobook: Leap First, Creating Work that Matters, by Seth Godin. I wasn’t familiar with his work, but have come to learn he is a famous business writer. Yet his audiobook spoke from the soul about being an artist, or a visionary in your field.
“Is your goal to be better, or to be safer?” –Seth Godin
It’s easy to be comfortable, to seek security. But an artist has to push themselves beyond, they have to do things that make them uncomfortable. They have to do something they may never be paid for. They have to get off their lawn chairs and go do something when it would be so much easier not to. [Caveat: I’m talking about the luxury of writing, not the necessity.]
“If it can’t fail, it doesn’t count. It’s not art if it can’t fail.” –Seth Godin
The bottom line is, there’s nothing to be afraid of. There is only doing. Godin tells us to, Do It. And by doing it he means showing up. Make a commitment to yourself and your time and your love of writing or whatever it is you love to do. You may not have all day to write, or four hours at a time— or even ten minutes. Whatever time you can squeeze out, csommit to it and show up. Even if you write garbage, you can come back the next day and make it not garbage.
The struggle is the process. It’s the journey not the destination. We do it because it’s what we love to do. It doesn’t matter if you feel like it.Do it.
