I did it this week—I started on book three!
I opened the document, got it formatted, and began writing. I feel pretty mediocre about what I’ve written so far, but I began. Sometimes, simply beginning again is the hardest thing.
As a creative person, you deal with this every time you finish a project. You have to face beginning again, with all the fears and reluctance it brings. The option is to ignore your need to engage creatively, or find a less efficient way to channel the energy. Simply meeting the demands of life draws to some extent on your creativity.
But why settle for less when you know that engaging in creativity, mindfully placing yourself between inspiration and expression, allowing whatever to flow through you, is perhaps the most life-giving act possible.
That said, there are all kinds of reasons for not wanting to begin again:
“I probably won’t be able to do it as well this time.”
“I might not have any more good ideas.”
“I know how much work is involved now. Do I really want to take it on again?”
“The more I create, the clearer people see me.
What if they reject not just my project, but me?”
On and on the voices go…
Beginning, whether it’s “again” or for the first time, is an act of both courage and faith. Courage because you feel the fear and decide to do it anyway, faith because you have to believe that with the courage to persist, something wonderful will emerge—at which point you can cut the mediocre away.
Remember, when we read books, we are reading something that has been honed and polished, buffed over and over until it shines.
From one creative to another: I beg you not to compare your beginning efforts to someone else’s completed work. If you do that, you’ll throw out the baby with the bathwater, and never summon the chutzpah needed for beginning again!
Wherever you are in your creative process, this week I invite you to… begin.
Part of the reason I do not get to writing is that it does not have the same satisfaction upon getting a chapter done as say, fixing the furnace.
Getting a chapter written takes more or less the same amount of time. At the end there is the editing, fixing, rewriting and of course the questions. Fixing the furnace has immediate satisfaction, HEAT, and everyone is grateful, encluding me.
Congratulations on beginning, I am inspired to work on my writing project.
Your note makes me nod and smile!
Thanks for sharing your experience. There is inspiration in recognizing “it’s not just me!”
What a wonderful sentiment, “mindfully placing yourself between inspiration and expression”, and one I clearly needed. Have been struggling with beginning, allowing all the moments of my other life, other than writing, to take precedence.
My blog was lost earlier this year and I had to start over, from the ground up. That was disheartening, then life called me out, and now, now, after reading this post, I know today, and tomorrow, I will write. It will be rough hewn and stubby but there will be magic to be mined upon those pages.
Thank you for such a good reminder.
Catherine, I’m honored to be a voice turning you back toward your “rough hewn and stubby” riches —keep tuning in to and turning on that magic!