Showing Up

I have been staring at a blank page for a couple of hours now trying to muster up some words, any words, they don't even have to be that coherent.

But alas I have failed in my task. My masterpiece has alluded me today. My Pulitzer winning piece did not materialise.

But... I DID show up. I came prepared to do the work.

And tomorrow morning I will show up again. And maybe no words will appear again. But I have to believe they will.

But even if not, I will show up the next day, and then the next, and then the next....

So show up today. Then tomorrow.

Be prepared to work for your art.

But don't worry if you fail.

It will come.

As long as you show keep showing up....

Your art will show up.

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PISSED OFF!

I read some advice at the weekend about not writing while you are angry.

This doesn’t sound like good advice to me. If one doesn’t write while they are angry should we resist from writing when we are sad, depressed, melancholic or joyous? It seems to me the best art comes from a myriad of emotions.

I haven’t written on my blog for a long while. Very sporadically actually but recently when I have sat down to write I seem to be always drawn back to creativity or thoughts on why we sit and muster up images, words or semitones in our head and I have come to the simple conclusion on why millions of us do this on a daily basis.

Because you need to.

You don’t really have a choice.

You need to create new things. You need to continue to explore the endless possibilities that art holds. 

You wake up and if you don’t sing at some point during the day you feel like you will explode.

Or if you don’t write you will continue to suppress the thoughts that could change the world.

Not creating is killing you.

When you feel like that, you are creative and you should do something about it. Namely create.

That’s why some bands struggle with the difficult second album syndrome. They have created something successful the first time around and so they try to recreate it. While they should really be focusing on creating something new and fresh. They aren’t really creating at all.

That’s why some pastors leave their churches to make tv shows in Hollywood. It’s not that they don’t care about or regret their previous existence. They just need to explore the side that, and let’s not forget this, God handed them.

And that’s why I sit here slightly pissed off at myself. Pissed off that I haven’t been doing that. Not moving to Hollywood. 

But creating. 

If being pissed off means that I, and all of us, let go and come out with our voice and our song and change the world and help someone, then I say better to be angry and create than happy and not follow who you are. 

Because ultimately, even if it is painful, creating will satisfy you.

Isn’t that something we should get angry about?

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What I have learned about being creative (without actually being creative)

This can be a scary place if you are creative.

Hey....I'm down here.

That's better! Yeah one of the scariest places you can be when you are creative is that blank canvas. Even before you have an idea. Even before you know what you are going to write, paint, speak about, discover. It can be truly terrifying.

But it's not the scariest. The scariest is that after a while you have this.

Still here.

A clean blank sheet with no marks or words or pictures. Not because you can't come up with them. But because you haven't even tried.

No one said it would be easy. It's not supposed to be. So stop trying to make it easy and live with it being awkward, hard, confusing, frustrating.

Because only then can it be liberating.

And only then can it be good.

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Constipation of the Mind

You are reading this blog right now but to be honest you shouldn't be.

The words you are taking in were not meant to exist. The reason being that when I set out to write this blog I had something completely different to write about. Something that I hope will eventually come out but I am struggling to write now. It's my mind constipation.

The thing with writing or blogging is that it takes discipline. It requires making sure that for about an hour or so, three, four, five, gosh maybe seven days a week you sit down and right.

It takes commitment. It takes patience and most of all it just takes action. You only write because you sit down and write. You don't write because you have got all your jobs for the day out of the way. You don't write because you have a certain feng shui in your life that day. You don't write because you have lots of ideas running around in your head for good pieces. What is going on around you doesn't really matter.

You write because you sit down and write.

The same goes for studying for an exam, or for starting a business or for starting a non profit.

You do it because you do it.

There will be resistance, there will be voices telling you, you aren't able to do it (inner voices and not so inner). There will be other things you could do and there will be facebook.

But if you start to do whatever it is you are struggling to get into right now, I promise you will see something amazing happen. You will get into a swing. You will find ideas that you didn't know were possible come alive. You will surprise yourself of what you are capable of doing. You will learn. You will grow. You will go at it like a bullet, you will struggle to keep going....but if you do. You will succeed.

And the best thing is that if you are banging your head against a wall and can't seem to begin that project, job application, book, painting, ministry, then chances are you meant to be doing it.

So take comfort in that and remember beginning is the hardest part.

Now if you excuse me I have a blog to write...

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