I’m going to write my book. I think I’ll just start tomorrow.
I find it intriguing how we can excel at transforming our creative urges into creative resistance. It takes imagination to turn fear and self-doubt into rationalizations for why we can’t or shouldn’t start creating. This ability isn’t exclusive to artists. Most human beings can come up with at least one or two variations on the resistance theme. (The variations are endless—which actually proves our innate creative abilities.)
For example, we can have lots of troubles that we have to deal with first—before we get to that creative project.
We can distract ourselves with self-medications or obsessions with someone or something else.
We can convert everything that’s happening in our life—or the lives of those closest to us—into a big drama.
We can focus on others and criticize them for what they have or haven’t done.
Or we can quite simply fall victim to the “busyness syndrome”.
Creative resistance is an art form.
The reasons why we don’t create don’t really matter.
What really matters is how we switch art forms.
This blog post by Shae Hadden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Image by Rizal Deathrasher from Pixabay
Every once in a while, someone will ask me about how to find their voice. That elusive quality in their communications that would have people say, “Now that sounds like you!”. My short answer: “The voice is the soul in motion.”
As much as we want to write, sometimes we covertly work against ourselves. I’m not talking about writer’s block. I’m talking about attracting circumstances that test our commitment, our resolve, our ability to persevere.
Year two of book writing. My ultimate endurance test. And, amazingly, a source of focus and joy. No matter what comes of this manuscript, I know I’m not wasting my time. I’m learning. And I’m becoming who I want to be.
Writers often talk of needing to retreat to write at some point in their creative process. Of a need to let things gestate and emerge in their own way, in their own time—almost as if writing is a chrysalis process. All my research, my writing, my life has plodded along this past year. Slow caterpillar movements shifted to a sudden breakdown in the last few weeks. And now the creation of something entirely new from all that has gone before.
I love creating. Actually, I love creating what matters to me in the moment. Each completed creation becomes a foundation for new creations. The more I exercise my creating, the more creations I complete, the easier it is to conceive of something I couldn’t see before.