Today, friends, I am buzzing with joy. It’s amazing how the little
things can rejuvenate you so much. After months of feeling stagnant, incapable,
and tedious, I have received my “Ahah!” moment at last.
Last night, as I was driving home in the dark, I was
listening to a beautiful song that my sister and I shared this week. Driving is
a wonderful time to let your imagination wander, and I have always been led
through my creativity by music. I began to imagine a conversation between two
characters, and slowly the scene made itself known to me. By the time I got
home, I had a story in mind. I sat down and a couple of hours later had written
my first original short story in years.
How wonderful it is to create a complete piece in one
sitting! Writing is terribly difficult. It is exhausting. So many powerful
authors over the years have confirmed that the act of writing can be a special
kind of hell. And then there are the rare, beautiful moments where it just
comes together, and you sit and write just for the joy of writing. It’s even
better when the product turns out to be something that you are proud of! What a
lovely surprise to start off my week, especially after feeling like my efforts
recently were being wasted.
Recently I have read two different articles on how feeling
like a failure can actually be the first signs of good things to come. Write to Done calls these feelings “an essential part of the creative process.” Which, when
you’re wallowing in self-criticism and feeling as if you’ve made little to no
progress, is a wonderful piece of encouragement to hear. Cal Newport also wrote this month on the famous stand-up comedian Louis C. K. and how he
overcame a fifteen year block to
become the influential man he is today in the comedy community. The one thing
these two articles have in common is the idea that in order to break through a
block, you have to get to the point of letting go. This end-of-the-line
mentality does one of two things: it either convinces people to give up, or it
convinces people to try new things.
I won’t go so far as to say that everyone has to feel
desperate and lost before they finally discover their creative break (hopefully
not!) but most of us get stuck in our writing careers from time to time. It
doesn’t feel like a good place to be, naturally, but understanding that it wasn’t
a sign that I was a failure was such a relief. Rather, it was a sign that
something big was coming. That I was about to turn the corner, and I all had to
do was keep at it, keep going, and keep “inviting the awful” as C. K. calls it.
We have to remember to work consistently, even when we feel
that what we’re producing is horrible. We have to keep pushing our own
boundaries, trying new techniques, new stories. We have to forgive ourselves
for being writers who have to struggle through the process, just like anyone
else, instead of producing flawless text the first time around. We must always
challenge ourselves and never, ever try and demand that we write like anyone
other than ourselves.
With that, I am announcing an end-of-the-year hiatus so that
I can concentrate on getting back into a more comfortable and more productive
swing of creative writing. My book has been slow going, but I feel that with
some more focus and some more time spent on it, I could really take off any
day. I will pick back up regular posting in the new year – until then, please
feel free to email me with publishing or editing related queries! I’ll still be
here.
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