All large change is made through many small steps. Notice that word in there– “step.” Walking leads us a step at a time. Walking gives us a gentle path. We are talked to as we walk. We hear guidance. It comes from within us and from the world around us. Walking is a potent form […]
Loneliness
Our mythology tells us that writers are loners. In fact, one of the most potent writer’s blocks I know is the fear of loneliness that people associate with the writing life. So much has been written about the loneliness of the writer’s lot that it feels like heresy to report the truth as I know […]
Communication
Art is an act of communication, and if we are constantly communicating our smallest thoughts, how will we have time for big ones? Cell phones miniaturize your life, breaking it down into tiny sound bites. I think we call them “bites” for a reason. They tend to devour our time and attention. There’s no room […]
Leaping into the dark
Agnes de Mille put it this way: “Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.” I like that […]
Showing Up
I learned to turn my creativity into the only God I could believe in– the God of creativity. I learned to get out of the way and let that creative force work through me. I learned to just show up at the page and write down what I heard. I didn’t have to be in […]
Writing
Although we seldom talk about it in these terms, writing is a means of prayer. It connects us to the invisible world. It gives us a gate for the other world to talk to us, whether we call it the subconscious, the unconscious, the superconscious, the imagination or the muse. Writing gives us a place […]
Originality
It is all too easy to think of art as something we aspire to, an ideal by which to measure our efforts and find them falling woefully short. Well, that is one way to think of art, and God knows we have bludgeoned ourselves with it pretty thoroughly. Our concepts of “great art” and “great […]
Our “Body” of Work
Most blocked creatives are cerebral beings. We think of all the things we want to do, but can’t. Early in recovery, we next think of all the things we want to do but don’t. In order to effect a real recovery, one that lasts, we need to move out of the head and into a […]
Staying Stuck
As blocked creatives, we often sit on the sidelines, critiquing those in the game. “He’s not so talented,” we may say, and we may be right about that. All too often, it is audacity and not talent that moves an artist to center stage. As blocked creatives, we tend to regard these bogus spotlight-grabbers with […]
Jealousy
Jealousy, I’ve often heard, is a normal human emotion. When I hear that, I think, “maybe your jealousy– not mine.” My jealousy roars in the head, tightens the chest, massages my stomach lining with a cold fist as it searches out the best grip. I have long regarded jealousy as my greatest weakness. Only recently […]
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