Last night my writer’s group, sans Glenn, our wonderful token male, sat in my living room, sipping wine and talking about the snow outside (a very rare occurrence here) and celebrating the fact I’d finished a first draft and that Bryannan, a brilliant writer, had written more this past week than in a long time. A lovely eureka bubbled up in me, and a moment later Bryannan said, "Just. Do. The. Writing" which was what she had learned again. Her comment expressed exactly the first part of my eureka and so I immediately bounced up and down in my chair wildly exclaiming, "Yes! Yes!" Margaret and Denel nodded sagely and calmly- they do that very well. Everyone waited for me to spit out my big thought. Here it goes: When we create, we must be willing to be in the gap between what we want to create and what we are actually creating. We must be willing to be really imperfect and humble and lost and inchoate.
We must be willing to be in the gap
between what we want to create and what we are actually creating.
We don’t get to the writing notebook or the easel or the business plan because we are busy- bullshit, We always find time for what we really want to do. We don’t get there
or stay there
or go there often enough
because to be there, over and over again, is to
be with,
live with,
breathe into,
how what we are creating
doesn’t,
may never,
or only when we are graced,
express what we envision or hear or yearn to make real from our hearts and minds.
To create is to be totally humbled, on our knees. Talk about surfing the edge of the known!
Me, I’d reather be good, right, smart because good, right, smart equals safe, lovable, and did I mention safe rather than humbled, inchoate, off the edge and into the void.
The secret of creating often and a lot is not talent, my friends, or I would have never published a word. It is being willing to suck and being willing to be really uncomfortable and still keep burrowing down into what you want to express.
Or that is what I believe today. What do you think the secret is?
6 responses so far ↓
1 Jill Dec 2, 2005
I think you’ve got it right on the nose.
2 marion barnett Dec 3, 2005
Oh, Jennifer, you asked my favourite question! ‘What is the secret’?
The secret is…there is no secret. Just, as you say, doing the work, and doing the work, and doing the work.
Thank you for this blog, it’s a joy.
marion
3 cindy Dec 3, 2005
well, i think u have hit the nail on the head with this thought below:
“It is being willing to suck and being willing to be really uncomfortable and still keep burrowing down into what you want to express.”
i think this is the place i am at in my life with art that is. i am willing to suck and say so. since i know nothing of art i proclaim my ignorance proudly and do not expect excellence in this area.
but for me it is not uncomfortable because i have no expectations on my self to produce perfectly.
and yes i keep producing regardless of the results.
yesterday i thought id try something with some remnants, scraps and offscourings from my art class this semester. stuff that would normally go in the trash. well i made mistakes and i ruined my experiment. but fortunately i planned on making 2 of these in case the first one tanked. i had split my “trash” up in 2. so now i get a 2nd chance to try again (to make some trashy art or some art trash)knowing what i now know went wrong yesterday.
all of life really is an experiment with uncertain results. its being comfortable with that, that is hard.
happy creating my friend!
4 Marilyn Dec 3, 2005
“It is being willing to suck and being willing to be really uncomfortable and still keep burrowing down into what you want to express.” I agree wholeheartedly with that statement. I just wrote a post today called “digging” which was about spirituality…but it’s essentially about creativity, for me at least…for how can one exist without the other? (And I do mean spirituality, not religion.) My favorite thing to think in those moments is WALK THROUGH THE FEAR. Not learn a way around it…but walk right through that sucker. Because if one can do that, remarkable stuff awaits us on the other side…
5 Loretta Dec 4, 2005
Thank you, thank you, thank you,for these words rightn ow today,this morning, in between thoughts, pages,paragraphs, and the fear that I will never be good enough.
6 Helga Dec 7, 2005
The secret lies in your definition of “safe.” If you relate “safe” exclusively to how you want to be perceived by others – with all the (un)desirable consequences, it will equal those qualities you implicitly classify as boring and creation-hampering. If, on the other hand, YOU perceive yourself as “safe” no matter where you are/what you do/what others think, you are free to surrender to the creative process to suck, shine, hurt, feel great, and everything in between. – Creative Truth is the path.