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Do you worry about “the odds”?

I wil be blunt: I think “the odds” are a drink of emotional poison. No one invokes “the odds” who isn’t trying to keep you from committing creativity. For one thing, your odds of succeeding immediately increase if you try succeeding. Your odds of publishing a novel, for example, are a lot higher if you write […]


Prosperity is Free

Setting aside your skepticism for a moment, make a list of ten actions you could take, right now, that you suspect might make you feel more prosperous– and that cost nothing. Example: 1. Taking a walk in nature 2. Going for a run and taking a long, hot shower afterward 3. Cooking soup using leftovers I […]


Begin Where You Are

The first step toward accomplishing any creative goal is always doable, and often simple. We assume that to make a movie we need to move to L.A., get an agent, attach a star, raise millions of dollars. But when we approach it this way, we are unlikely to begin at all. Each step seems impossible. […]


Receptivity

We think we must “be inspired” to create art and that this inspiration must have an emotional force to it. That is not my experience. I have done some of my best work from what was essentially a neutral position, not unlike a court stenographer. When I was striving to “get something down” rather than […]


By Teaching I Learn

I first learned that I should teach as I was out on a walk. It was 1980 or 1981. I was praying for a sense of direction and I heard, “teach.” I was shocked. I wanted a creative idea, and teaching seemed punitive to me. I called a girlfriend up, distraught. “I’m praying for my next […]


Possibility

Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change. -Lord Tennyson The world is a forest of verdant possibility. No one person controls my happiness. No one person is the source of my joy. I am rooted in universal flow. My needs for love and affection are met by many sources. I […]


Answered Prayers

God supplies all that I need, when I need it, and I am open and receptive to my good. -Unknown We often pray for help with the present or the future with a nagging sense that we aren’t sure whether God hears our prayers or not. One of the fastest ways to remember that God […]


“Enough” time

Sometimes people think that because their time is broken up and they have no long, uninterrupted swatches of time for working, that they may as well not begin. My advice? Pretend that you will never have such time again. Tell yourself that all of your days will be as crowded and as pell-mell as those […]


Happiness

One is happy as a result of one’s own efforts, once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness–simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self-denial to a point, love of work, and above all, a clear conscience. Happiness is no vague dream; of that I now feel certain. -George Sand Happiness is a by-product of […]


Inspiration

I have been warned that artists’ autobiographies are self-serving, but I’ve seldom found them this way. Artists tend to be truthful where art is concerned. I am thinking now of a favorite book of mine, Musical Stages by Richard Rodgers. From this book we learn that although he fought both depression and cancer, Rodgers strove to […]