Category — perseverance

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses — and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person “being” a genius, all of us “have” a genius. She encourages to discard the burden of “being” a genius and leave it to the muse “assigned to our case”. That’s what she’s doing while writing a new book after the “freakish” success of Eat, Pray, Love. As all TED talks … awesome. A very personal and moving talk. Enjoy.

A favorite related quote:

“Don’t apologize for a mistake. Apologize if you don’t play. Knowing that effort is what matters gives people the courage to always try their hardest” - Wynton Marsalis

This great video from Ira Glass backs up much of the teaching from Art and Fear and other books with themes of “keep producing art/produce art on a schedule/just get started/just do it”. Check it:

Partial transcript:

… your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you. You can tell that it’s still sort of crappy. A lot of people never get past that phase; a lot of people at that point, they quit.

And the thing that I would say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste, and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short … But we knew that it didn’t have the special thing that we wanted it to have. And the thing I would say to you is, everybody goes through that … it’s totally normal, and the most important possible thing you could do, is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline, so that every week or every month you know you’re going to finish one story, whatever it’s going to be. You create the deadline. It’s best if you have somebody who’s waiting for work from you. Someone who’s expecting work from you. Even if it’s not someone that pays you, but that you’re in a situation where you have to turn up the work. It’s only by going through a volume of work that you’re going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions.

Jane Northcote has a good, blunt writeup at Copyblogger telling you to “Do it” if you are trying to get some piece of work written. My favorite is #5: Tell a large number of people you’ll do it. Trap yourself. If you’ve made a commitment to a lot of people then the shame of saying you didn’t try will outweigh the effort of doing it.

Now go read it and then get writing: Getting Writing Done: How to Stop Thinking About It and Write

Brad’s Reader has a good post on creativity: What Can John Lennon Teach Us About Creativity. He talks about John Lennon’s struggle to write a song and how he come up with Nowhere Man.



My takeaway is this:

• Do exercises to brainstorm and “just write” or whatever. They’re good. Gems can come out of this sort of thing.
• But sometimes you’ve got to stop and let your subconscious do your work for you. Rest or do a mundane task that needs to be done like the dishes or mowing the lawn. That’s when the great ideas often come.
• But then, it’s time to get to real work and make the idea a reality! Work it! Work it! Work it!

So, check out: What Can John Lennon Teach Us About Creativity

Copyblogger has posted three nice free resources today: Three Great Resources That
Won’t Cost You a Dime

Of particular note is the book “The Lonely Writer”, which helps writers get un-stuck, maintain focus and get the words out and down on paper. Download “The Lonely Writer” Directly Here.

Enjoy.

photo credit: badjonni

Joseph M. Marshall

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