October 1, 2015
Life of a Creative-Part 23
Mormon Lake, Arizona
Photo by Michele Venne
In Natalie Goldberg’s book, Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life, she offers advice on how to write, why we might write, the difference between monkey mind and wild mind, and how to travel from one to the other. Because I agree with many of her thoughts about writing, I’ve been sharing them for quite a while. This is the last post. It’s time to move on to other thoughts about creativity.
If we’ve been creative…
Perhaps we’ve been practicing art. Maybe we have notebooks full of stories and poems, or maybe we have a published book in our hands. Perhaps there are canvasses stacked in our living room that we’ve painted. Friends and family have accepted our photographs, have shown up at open mic to hear us music, have been by for Sunday dinner to sample our latest creation. Awesome! We’ve decided to make art a priority in our life. We’ve practiced, so we’ve become experienced and confident. Maybe we’ve experimented and found other rituals and processes that work for us, and we’ve certainly found others that don’t.
So we may be thinking what Goldberg once did, “Well, when do I get to live my life?…You don’t. Not in the small-minded way. A bigger life happens.” Once we traverse into wild mind, it becomes tempting to go back. The more time we spend there, the bigger our lives become. All those stories and poems, the paintings, the photographs, the music, the food, whatever we’ve created thus far, is still the beginning, maybe the middle, but it’s not the end. Even if we decide to stop making art, it’s not the end. It only ends when we take our last breath.
What an artist needs to create…
Every artist has created alone. I won’t say in isolation, because we’re never isolated. We carry our past with us, even if we’ve developed ways to remain in the present. Oftentimes, being alone when we create is best. I write once a week in the presence of other writers. There’s a different energy there, and I’ve written in the past about that. A fellow writer mentioned that she’d seen a road called ‘Hermit Way’, and was tempted to drive there and live. Goldberg quotes from Second Sex, “In order to be an artist, one must be deeply rooted in the society.” Artists interpret society. The good and the not-so-good parts of it. Our experiences cover nearly every corner. If we weren’t part of society, we couldn’t create art. There would be no need to create anything to share our perspective, our past, our beliefs, our ideas.
For the love, for the money…
Whether we’re able to make a living with our art, or we keep our day job and create on the side, for some of us there is the dream that what we love to do, what we’ve practiced and developed a talent for, might one day be what sustains us in this society. In the meantime, there might be stress about finding an agent, an editor, a gallery owner, a producer to sit and watch while we’re playing at a gig, a restaurant willing to take a chance on us. “Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath…I felt tension between those responsibilities and wanting to write…Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.” Stress takes us from the present because we forget to breathe. When we breathe, we’re able to balance the responsibilities of living in society with a day job and our wanting to create.
Goldberg has much advice for living the writer’s (or any artist’s) life. We venture into wild mind. We practice. We give our art to the world. It’s a part of us, but not all of who we are. Once we begin this journey, it’s difficult to turn back. Occasionally, the rewards are monetary. Most often, we’re rewarded with knowing ourselves, healing ourselves, sharing ourselves. We invite the Muse to dance, and we’re moved by joy.
The invitation to visit my website so that I may share joy with you, is always open: http://www.myjoyenterprises.com
Have you turned your life over to creativity? How have you been able to balance societal responsibilities with art?
September 30, 2015
Life of a Creative-Part 22
Juniper and Yucca
Navajo National Monument, Arizona
Photo by Michele Venne
How do artists create?
I’ve shared before, and still believe, that for every person that listens to the Muse and decides to try creativity and see how it fits them, there are that many ways to go about it. I’ve talked with musicians. Some begin with lyrics, others with a rhythm or melody. With chefs, some begin with the venue, the people who will be enjoying the meal, or what items are available. I’ve written numerous times before about what artists can use to entice the Muse, to play, to tap into their imagination. According to Natalie Goldberg in her book Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life, “The problem is that there are no good maps for the journey of a writer; each one goes it alone…We, as writers, need to legitimize our way as a path that we have taken. Instead, a lot of writers act like victims plagued by the agonies of writing. We are actually great warriors facing the barriers to truth. We are digesting experience for society.”
For me, and for other writers and creative people out there who share their experience in blogs and books and workshops, we’re offering a map to others. It may not take them exactly where they want and need to go, but we can, at least, give them signposts. Sometimes we can borrow courage from others who have gone before. We read about how they traveled, and our interest is piqued enough to try it ourselves. When we begin, we might copy what others did. If we pay attention, we find what works for us. We tweak another’s suggestion. We try something someone else mentions. We practice. We develop our own rituals, our own dance steps with the Muse.
The more an artist practices with their medium, the more truth they are able to tell. Truth about themselves, about their lives, about society. What is it about a piece of music, a novel, a poem, a painting, or a meal that we really enjoy? It has to speak to us on some level. We may not be able to articulate that level, we just know we really like it. I think we really like the experiences that we share with the artist, even if those experiences aren’t exactly the same. We’ve all loved. We’ve all been sad, angry, lonely. Art that expresses those experiences, when they’re close enough to our own, touch us in some way.
What is failure?
When writers begin, many have aspirations to write the next Great American Novel. It’s possible. Possibilities are endless, I believe. But the reality is that fewer artists are able to support themselves with their work. In the realm of novels, there are over 5,000 published every day. It’s a daunting task to think we can compete with the sheer number of other great stories, of other motivated authors wishing for their name on the Best Sellers lists. For some of us, we won’t be able to find an agent, an editor, a publishing company to buy our work. Or the next half-dozen pieces we produce. Some of us will give up. Some will self-publish and wear the hat of ‘authorpreneurer’. Some will be able to sell enough books, create the right kinds of relationships, in order to have their writing dreams come true. Others won’t. That’s the way of the universe. Goldberg suggests, “Have compassion for yourself when you write. There is no failure—just a big field to wander in.”
If you’re interested in how I create, you can visit my website: http://www.myjoyenterprises.com
How do you create art? Have you been successful, or have you found “a big field to wander in”?
September 24, 2015
Life of a Creative-Part 21
Cottonwood Tree in
Cottonwood, Arizona
Photo by Michele Venne
How to Create Art
There are as many ways to partake in creativity as there are people who create art. I don’t think there is just one right way, and probably not too many wrong ways, to be artistic. For most, it’s easiest when art is made a priority. Then time is given to practice in order to develop a familiarity for the medium. As the importance of art grows, so does the time we devote to it. We may begin with small sketches, small paintings, haikus or other poetry, a bit of a riff on an instrument. From there, it can expand to larger canvasses, narrative poems, full compilations, and novels. With practice, trust, making friends with fear, and embracing our courage, we grow our roots deep and spread our branches wide.
Ego vs. Inner Critic
Natalie Goldberg, in her book Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life, has this to say about writing a novel, “A novel is a big dream, a whale of a dream. You have to go under for a long time into the dark waters of the mind and stay there. Poetry…was easier. I could go under and pop back up. With a novel…I had to tell a story. It had to connect from one time I wrote to another time. I had to leave myself, my will and control, and let the story come through me. I had to become egoless.” Goldberg and I have something else in common besides the fact that both of us write. She’s buddhist and spent years studying with a guru, and I’m a yoga practitioner. So when she says ‘egoless’, it clarifies what the space looks like that every creative taps into when art is brought forth.
If we continue to interchange ‘ego’ and ‘inner critic’, then Goldberg’s quote ties into other posts I’ve written regarding the inner critic/ego. How do we tell the difference between the critic and the Muse? The ego speaks louder, and more negatively, than the Muse. I’ve shared before ways to placate the inner critic, to silence it, to use it, to ignore it, to trick it. When we are in the state of creating, and if we hear the inner critic commenting on what we’re doing, then we’ve come up for air. We are no longer in that dark, deep space, far below the surface of where the ego functions. When we are deep, we are ‘egoless’, as we are then with the Muse. We can’t be with both the ego and the Muse at the same time.
“I was afraid of that egoless state where nothing was happening. I thought I existed only when I created activities, universes, dreams. In the novel, the writer stops existing. She gives her life over so her characters speak through her. We are not used to that egoless state. It is scary.” This explains why so many writers begin a novel, but never finish. Having finished six novels thus far, I understand that feeling of not being in control, of being pushed or pulled by some unseen force to finish the story. When we first begin to create, we think we are in control, that we (the ego) are deciding what’s going to happen in the story, what colors of paint to use, which flavors would work best in the meal, or which notes would make the piece of music the best it can be. But all of that only happens when we dive under the ego, when we leave the inner critic behind so its whining and harsh comments can’t be heard. We willingly join with the Muse, and then the art is authentic and flows.
Interested in where my egoless state has taken me? Visit my website:www.myjoyenterprises.com
Who do you hear when you create art? How deep do you go when you’re being creative?
September 17, 2015
Life of a Creative-Part 20
North of New River, AZ
Photo by Michele Venne
Be a Zen Master
“If punctuation is about thought…then in order to punctuate, we have to know our mind, to know what we think, and when one thought stops and the other begins. We have to understand the journey of thought, how thought moves around in our mind…in order to write a good sentence, we have to become Zen masters, we have to understand our minds!” Natalie Goldberg, who studied under a Zen master for some time, knows a little about writing. She shares some of this wisdom in her book Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life.
Many people who are just starting out with writing, or with any creative endeavor, may ask, “How do I begin?” If they stick with it, they may then ask, “How do I get better?” The first is easy. To begin, we just pick up a pen or open a new document on our computer and put down what comes to us. The second is simple, if not always easy. Practice. That leads to exploration and experience and confidence. It also leads to knowing our mind. What helps us write, or be creative, and what gets in the way. We’re able to discover intimate knowledge about our Muse, and about our inner critic. One is the wild mind, the other, the monkey mind. When we become our own Zen master, we are able to walk between both minds.
Be in the Moment
There are many ways to practice writing, to practice creativity. If we’re stuck, we can move away from what we normally do and try something different. This often jogs loose an idea, a description, a character, a phrase. We take that and get back into our writing. “Poetry is good practice for all the other writing we do, because it brings us back to where we are. It asks us to settle inside ourselves and be awake.” These little forays into another medium or another genre are ways to bring us back to the moment, which is the only place that creativity happens.
Procrastination vs. Waiting
Anyone who has attempted to listen to their Muse and still function in the world knows the myriad things that captivate our attention and drag us away from our work. “Procrastination is a cutting off. It diminishes you. Waiting is when you are already in the work and you are feeding it and being fed by it. Then you can trust the waiting. Do not use the excuse of ‘waiting’ for the right idea or story in order to begin. That is procrastination. Get to work.”
Creatives battle procrastination. Creatives woo the Muse while waiting. Procrastination stems from fear. The types of fear are many. I won’t say they are unfounded. I will say that to be true to ourselves, we must find a way to face the fear, deal with it, move through it. Waiting happens when we work. We practice to know how to engage our Muse, and how to make her turn away from us. And so we wait. We show up. We allow ourselves to be present, to be open to the creative flow, to play with colors and textures and different rhythms while our Muse considers what to show us. Waiting is okay. We’re still working. Still creating. Still in joy. Procrastination is the opposite.
I’ve spent time in procrastination, and I’ve hung out while waiting. To view what I’ve created while waiting, while working, visit my website: http://www.myjoyenterprises.com
What do you do to bring yourself into the present moment? Do you spend more time with procrastination, or with waiting?
September 16, 2015
Life of a Creative-Part 19
Looking south from Crown King, AZ
Photo by Michele Venne
When I first began writing, it was difficult to explain to others how I came up with my ideas. It’s one question that is often asked by people who maybe don’t do art, but are ones who appreciate of all different mediums. It’s also asked by those who are just starting out, as if they’re asking for permission, or want to know that they’re “doing it right” from someone who has been “doing it” for a while. When I’ve listened to other artists explain their idea creation, it’s always different. I believe that though their interpretations differ, what they try to explain is the same. Natalie Goldberg, in her book Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life, encourages writers to practice. Throughout her book, she gives lots of suggestions for how to go about it. When we begin to practice creativity, it takes us out of our current time and space.
“Writing practice teaches us…to go out there in the wilderness and make friends with it…we have to be willing to enter wild mind, where everything exists and where we are not separate…Writing practice takes us to a place where boundaries melt…You taste impermanence.” This is how she describes our imagination. When we decide to make art, we have to travel to wild mind. Monkey mind is where control lives, where there are boundaries. The more we practice, the easier it becomes to traverse the road to the wilderness where unknown things live. It is from this place that art is authentic, that ideas float on the air, the space that becomes addictive to those who make art a priority in their lives.
Many people shy away from any esoteric-ness in art, whether it’s the explanation of how an artist “came up with the idea”, or how it makes the one feel while viewing/experiencing the art. Maybe that’s part of the reason why it’s difficult to explain, unless one is aware that that’s where their imagination runs to when they “come up with an idea”. To be less esoteric, “When you write, you tap the core of your wildness, you have to be prepared to let that live inside you and not destroy it…Writing is a great journey. It is a path with the possibility of making us free.”
All art has this possibility. How do we become free? I think it happens when we investigate every part of ourselves and drag to light even those pieces that are dark. Children think nothing of stripping off confining clothes. They’re free. They’re comfortable exposing themselves because society hasn’t told them that it’s not acceptable. When we can pull off our outer trappings and expose ourselves, even if it’s to our own eyes, then we become free, or freer than we were before we began to create.
What has been true for me, and for others that have shared with me, is that once the journey down the creative road begins, there’s no getting off of it. The path may detour, and there most certainly will be mountains and holes and tigers and poisonous spears and helpful fairies, but once we begin, we can’t turn back. If we do, the effort is greater than it is to continue moving forward. “I thought of the pain of writing. I thought it was more painful never to write.”
I welcome you to view my writing journey on my website: http://www.myjoyenterprises.com
Have you ventured into the wilderness of your own wild mind? Did it make you free?
September 10, 2015
Life of a Creative-Part 18
Horseshoe Reservoir
Carefree, Arizona
Photo by Michele Venne
If we’re lucky, I think we come across a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph, maybe a whole chapter in a book that speaks to us. It’s not as if we wrote it, but that it was written for us because it brings clarity to what we don’t really see, brings light to what is dark inside us, brings us truth when we can’t find our own words to write it. In continuing to share what is helpful in Natalie Goldberg’s book, Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life, I have come across such a paragraph. One question we ask ourselves, and keep returning to, is why we write/paint/draw/dance/cook/sculpt/play music. We investigate that answer, and use it as a touchstone. It is here that what Goldberg writes, I feel was written for me.
“I wrote because I never felt so whole and alive as I did when I wrote my first poem. I was complete. I created something from myself and nothing was wanting. That was the original flame. It was good enough, but along the way I mixed it all up. I thought it could heal the world; it could heal me…I wanted to throw it way ahead of me, thinking it would cure something way behind me…We need to let writing be writing and let it give us what it gives us in the moment. If we connect with anything in the moment, it frees us of the past, present, and future. We are just there.”
How do we know when we’re writers/chefs/musicians/photographers/painters? When we do it for the first time, and we feel whole. Our soul sits up and cheers that we have done what it was hoping we’d come to all along. It has to intrigue us enough that we return to it again and again. This investigation, this discovery, leads us inside to all the hidden corners and secret cracks. When do we do this? “We have to make the perfect moment. We can’t wait around.” The perfect moment is anytime that we create. If we wait, it doesn’t always come. And if we wait too long, our moments run out.
There is much to be gained from an artistic pursuit and its subsequent practice. We discover how to slip into that space of creativity, how to shush the inner critic, how to make and keep art a priority in our lives. On occasion, as I’ve been writing, other words come to me, or a different, less violent, less graphic scene or dialogue. And when I’ve done the “less” instead of the “first”, it falls flat for me and makes me think that it’s not authentic. Here again, Goldberg writes what I feel. “Yes, I will always be true to my writer self. She is very brave and fearless…I work to care for all of me, so when I do publish the truth, I’ll have a life to stand on, to steady me when I bring to light the deepest secrets of my soul.”
Interested in what my truth has to say? You can visit my website: http://www.myjoyenterprises.com
Have you found something that someone else created that speaks to you? If you create, are you making perfect moments?
August 27, 2015
Life of a Creative-Part 16
Rose in Prescott, AZ
Photo by Michele Venne
In my experience, creativity can bring pleasure, but it also taps into anger and fear and frustration and revenge. For some, when they create, they go to that emotion that they believe drives their passion. Regardless of the medium, any artist can go to those darker emotions, but as Natalie Goldberg writes, it’s important, “…for us to notice what brings us true pleasure.” I’ve heard of writers who knock out a best seller because they lived in the shadow self the entire time they wrote their novel. When it came time to write their second and third novel, the emotions had burned themselves out and the writing reflected the shallowness of where they were when they created them.
“…the artist can move through experience, learn from it and not be caught by it.” As we write, paint, cook, play music, dance, or sculpt the act of creating lasts longer (in terms of months and years) if we, as artists, can draw from our experiences, visit the shadow self, but not live there. To be authentic, I believe we need to have access to every emotion. Through practicing art, we can heal, we can discover, and we can increase what we know about ourselves and our medium by using all that is available to us, the light and the dark. But in my experience, to continuously create from the bottom of the pit where there is no pleasure, the act of creating doesn’t last long. And if we’re not careful, that blackness can smudge over the light.
“Commitment is a matter of pleasure. Let it be deep pleasure. And then when you are sure (well, as sure as you’ll ever be), plunge in…” Making the commitment to ourselves to create is an important decision, and one that is very difficult to turn away from once the practice has begun. It is human nature to do that which is pleasurable. We shy away from things that aren’t fun, that are hard because we don’t know how to do them, and so we find distractions, and we procrastinate, and the inner critic wins. But if we approach making art from a place of pleasure, then we don’t want to leave. When we do, we are eager to return. The more we return, the more comfortable we become, and the braver we feel for those forays into the dark.
Throughout this book, Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life, Goldberg has said over and over (and she’s not the only one who talks of this) the importance of practice. It’s good to go to conferences and workshops, to take a class and read books about how to create art. But if we’re going to call ourselves writers/chefs/photographers/dancers/musicians we must do the work. There’s only so much we can learn about something without doing it. “To learn the act of writing is to obtain magical powers. They are a secret. No one can give them to you. You must work at them yourself. And do not abuse it.”
How do we get to be writers? We write. How do we get to be good writers? We access all our emotions, but we create from a place of pleasure. To see where my pleasure has taken me, visit my website: http://www.myjoyenterprises.com
Where are you when you create art?
August 20, 2015
Life of a Creative-Part 15
Pine Creek, Tonoto Natural Bridge, Arizona
Photo by Michele Venne
When one begins to entertain the idea of being a writer, they may shuffle through their choices. Novelists can be long-winded but include intricate plots, detailed settings, and character development. Nonfiction writers bring a mountain of information from their field and distill it down to highlights and how-to’s. Poets have it easier, since grammar rules can be gleefully ignored, and more difficult because they need to be succinct as every syllable counts. There are some writers who choose their genre, and there are others who believe that the type of writing they do chooses them. Whichever way it works for you, Natalie Goldberg, author of Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life, has lots of advice about writing practice.
“A novel makes you behave. There are constrictions. I think of poetry as the final freedom. Each poem is its own universe, but it, too, is a hard freedom…Poetry is about the divine; a novel is about work and learning to behave.” Because I write both novels and poems, I think both have constrictions and both have freedoms. There are structures for both. The hero’s journey, engaging the reader, giving details yet leaving enough out that the reader can “fill in the blanks”, character arcs, and having a beginning, middle, and end are all part of fiction prose. There are just as many constraints in poetry. The number of forms is immense. A luxury a novelist has is that they can take as many pages as necessary to say what they need to say. A poet doesn’t, epic poems aside. I prefer to think of writing, any genre, as freeing. There are things we learn as creatives when we follow the rules and remain inside the lines, and there are uncharted territories we explore when those lines bend and fade.
One activity I do when I feel stuck in my novel writing is to write a poem, or paint with watercolors, or cook something different. It’s still creative, but it breaks me out of a rut and often offers an insight to my Muse that I wasn’t aware of before. Goldberg offers, “It is good to try different things, but eventually we must settle on one thing and commit ourselves. Otherwise we are drifting and there is no peace. To stay with one thing gives us an opportunity to penetrate our lives and be free.” The more novels one writes, the better one gets at it. The more poetry one studies and writes, the more ease they develop with language and ideas. We can play around with other mediums of expression, but to get to the point of ease and peace we must at least consider settling on one. That allows us to hone our skills, spend the time and effort needed to know ourselves and our art.
In this era of technology and information, monkey mind rules. “Clarity and perseverance are difficult in American society because [of] the basis of capitalism…The American economic system feeds monkey mind. We stimulate monkey mind when we swing from one preoccupation to the next.” In a society where the goal is often bigger, better, faster, more, creativity can be set aside. It’s not bad or good, it just is. For everyone who creates, there must be a priority to do so. With that importance, comes the weeding out of what gets in the way, what distracts the artist from the art. Unless we make art a priority in our lives, the Muse finds somewhere else to play and leaves us to our monkey mind.
However creativity comes to us, Goldberg suggests, “You have to let writing eat your life and follow it where it takes you. You fit into it; it doesn’t fit neatly into your life. It makes you wild…Let yourself burn, let yourself want something bad. It’s a life force…Don’t let anyone take it away.” For those who hear the Muse and allow themselves the wild of creating, the peace of art, the knowing of themselves, and the love of their medium, there is no other choice. No judgement if one decides to set down their art and engage in something else, whether it’s a distraction or another passion. But if it’s creativity that we allow to “eat our life”, then we can step out of the monkey mind, who seeks external gratification, and instead settle on peace and freedom with the wild mind.
To see the freedom in novels and poetry that my wild mind has given me, visit my website: http://www.myjoyenterprises.com
What do you write? How have you allowed creativity to “eat your life”?
August 14, 2015
Life of a Creative-Part 14
Prescott, Arizona
Photo by Michele Venne
I recently posted on social media that a friend of mine is adamant that she “walk the talk”. Something that author and blogger Chuck Wendig writes about repeatedly is that writers write, and the importance of finishing what we start. I’m a writer. I write. Not as often or as much as I’d like or as I used to. I offer suggestions, my own and those from notables such as Natalie Goldberg, for creatives to do art. It hasn’t been lost on me that I don’t always “walk my talk”. Hypocrisy is one thing I try to do without.
“Writers don’t need to explain things. They need to state them…Writing is the practice of asserting yourself…Just state it as it is and be fearless.” On a practical level, this could be pointing towards the practice of show, don’t tell. Or it could be a comment on using the active instead of the passive voice. On a philosophical level, it could mean to courageously write what we know, with no apologies. Natalie Goldberg, in her book Wild Mind, Living the Writer’s Life, offers suggestions on how to walk the writer’s talk.
There are myriad pieces of life that interfere with doing any art. If we are to call ourselves creatives and make art a priority in our lives, then we need to be cognizant of everything that tries to grab our attention and pull us from that priority. “Things outside ourselves will always beg us to conform, but they aren’t the real challenge. They are just an excuse, or an out, when we can’t face the inertia inside us, that resistance and boredom that arise as soon as we make an effort toward something we deeply want.” The resistance is called the inner critic and it makes good arguments for why we don’t have time to do art. It points out all the outside distractions that we should be doing instead. To combat the voice that tells us why we can’t create, we create anyway. Even for ten minutes. We move towards what we “deeply want” and we’ll be rewarded in more ways than there are that keep us immobile.
When the inner critic, the ego, win the war? “The only failure in writing is when you stop doing it. Then you fail yourself. You affirm your resistance…Let the outside world scream at you. Create an inner world of determination.” It’s not just the outside world that clamors for your attention, it’s the ego, too. We tend to listen to the voice that is the loudest, the most persistent. That voice is full of guilt-slinging comments about what we should be doing with our time and effort. It pokes at wounds made by others when we were told that our art isn’t good enough. It’s consistent and chronic, and it never deviates. What can we do to counteract that voice? Write. Dance. Paint. Cook. Invite the Muse to play. The more we interact with our medium, the quieter the critic becomes. It can’t live in the space of joy. The more joy we create, the more tools we have to use against the critic.
But it doesn’t always have to be a battle. If we declare ourselves artists, then we walk our talk. That takes determination, prioritization, resilience, and practice. The more we play, the less it will be like work. The more experience we get, the easier it becomes to ignore the grumbling of the critic, or to let it have its say, and then create anyway.
I have examples of walking my talk on my website which displays poems, short stories, and the beginnings of my novels: http://www.myjoyenterprises.com
Have you declared yourself an artist? Do you walk your talk?
August 6, 2015
Life of a Creative-Part 13
Prescott, AZ
Photo by Michele Venne
I remember when the storyline of my first novel, Of Gifts and the Goddess, was in my mind. The opening line of dialogue (one of many rules of writing that I consistently break), the battle scene, and the gifts of the heroine made me excited to write. When I shared it with my significant other, the one person we think we can trust and who will support us no matter what, he laughed. With derision, he said, “You’re going to write a book?” You can imagine that when I completed the prologue (breaking another rule!) and the first three chapters, I didn’t share it with him. I then took a creative writing class at a local community college. The instructor would often reply to my work with the comment of, “I’m not buying it.” When I finished writing what would be my first novel, I gave it to six beta readers. Interesting that each one caught different typos and thought differently about awkward sentences. And they all had varied opinions as to whether they liked it and what I should change about it. What I realized with each step is that I was asking for permission to write. Natalie Goldberg says in her book Wild Mind, Living the Writer’s Life, “Naturally, anyone can be a writer…I do not mean you have to go to someone higher up on the totem pole and inquire, Is it okay if I write? Write before you ask anyone. As a matter of fact, never ask anyone; always write…”
It’s been a dream of mine to be a well-known author; someone who’s lucky enough, or good enough, to make a living from their writing. It hasn’t happened yet. But that’s the thing about dreams. We find something we like, that brings us joy, that makes a difference for others, and we want to keep doing it, to spread it around, to have our love and our work be one in the same. Goldberg writes, “Dreams are another slice of reality, not different from where we are now—they also can open up your reality. They don’t have the constraints of conscious logic.” Logic tells me the percentage of artists who make a living doing what they love, and my chances of being among them. Logic is also where the inner critic lives. It always has countless logical reasons why a dream won’t come true and how we’re all kinds of a fool for even thinking our dream reality can become our current one. And an interesting thing about dreams, regardless of what they are? “No one cares that much if you write or not. You just have to do it.”
If we have the dream to write, and maybe we’ve asked for permission, or maybe not, then how do we go about it? Goldberg suggests, “I’m not waiting around for anyone from above to give me a signal. We just step forward with our hearts and act. That’s the best place to come from as a writer.” And that’s the best place to come from for any dream that moves us. If we take steps every day, if we study and work towards our dream, it may take months or years, but the dream will be closer. When it comes to fruition, it most likely won’t look like anything we expected, but then we won’t be the same person we were when we started the journey. “If you make an effort, beings seen and unseen will help. There are angels cheering for us when we lift up our pens, because they know we want to do it. In this torrential moment we have decided to change the energy of the world. We are going to write down what we think. Right or wrong doesn’t matter. We are standing up and saying who we are.”
Since 2005, I’ve been working towards my dream. With eight books in print, six novels and two books of poetry, I haven’t arrived, but I’m on the road! Visit my website to see where I’ve traveled: http://www.myjoyenterprises.com
Have you asked for permission to write? What is your creative dream?
Michele Venne's Writing Blog 