I got some really great comments in response to my shout for assistance with my writing problem, and also found a few new great blogs to visit. Thank you for stopping by and taking the time to comment in such detail. All help has been greatly appreciated. All input was definitely appropriate.
But two people managed to hit the mark a bit closer to the spot that was troubling me most. Mon. You asked me, “Why do you write?” Sounds so simple. But it hadn’t occured to me that this was a problem right now. I write for my blog because I desperately want to write for my blog ….. because I love being here, and watching my thoughts unfold, and I love the format, the medium of it, the immediacy of the web and also how I could just hit a button and in one instant it would all disappear. But my efforts lately in trying to write for a different medium and purpose haven’t sparked that enthusiasm in me.
And then, in my weekly feed, the latest message from Tara at Rise of the Innerpreneur, called “Focusing on the Process, Not the Product,” pretty much nailed it for me. I love Tara’s work and feel so in line with her values about business and creativity. She frequently writes something aposite that hits the nail on the head for some answer I’ve been searching for. And this time she was actually writing about the process of … um … writing.
Like her, I’ve been striving towards the goal to be published. All my life it’s something I’ve wanted to achieve. And with my current financial struggles more than one person has been encouraging me to produce something that I could get published in order to bring in some income. I’m not short of ideas for books or articles or whatever, so it would seem like a fairly straightforward solution.
But it’s not. Because when I sit down to write, the thoughts in my head are about getting published and selling and income. Maybe this wouldn’t bother some people. JK Rowling was in a similar situation to me when she wrote the first few Harry Potter books. So was Shirley Conran, apparently, though she had two small kids when she started writing in order to keep her family afloat.
But if I’m trying to write from a position of focus on lack and poverty, then I really am plundering my soul and not tapping into the true wealth of my own inspiration and creativity. And if I’m thinking about lack, then my Artist’s Well is probably gonna seem pretty empty too.
The artist has to follow the call of the soul, not the bank balance. I can’t produce from that place.
It also feels a little bit arrogant to assume that I’m gonna be able to come up with something saleable that way.
And then gulliver came along and made me smile, with this. It’s just so comforting to hear that I’m not the only one who slips down the rabbit hole with worrying regularity, spending evenings coiled semi-comatose muttering incoherent sentences on the sofa, as he puts it. Creativite types tend to burn-out often, and fast. We push ourselves too far too hard, but it’s all that we know how to do.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s just an addiction, an obsession ….. but how could I part with it or give it up? It would be like carving off a portion of my soul. I feel bad when others suffer for my art ~ namely my son, but I only hope I can teach him to be true to his own soul and nurture his own art in whatever form it will take shape as he grows.
I know I can go back to writing, but it has to be from the right place. If something publishable (word?) is born, then great, but I will let that concern slide down the list of priorities for now.
This week it’s back to painting again.
Thanks for your love.
