Hemingway could never write when he was drinking. Scratch that. Hemingway wrote a lot while he was drinking, but none of it was published because none of it was any good. Anger is similar. When you are criticized, you are going to want to create in retaliation, but don’t. As a creator, you are a person that feeds consumers, and you mustn’t feed consumers anger. Yes, there are reasons to be angry, good reasons, but don’t let anger evolve into the act of creating. As a creator, you are a teacher, a role model, you are setting the moral compass of every person who interacts with your work. There are many parents who shirk their responsibility to parent, mostly because they fear the responsibility. It’s the same with some creators. They create, but then do not take responsibility for what they are doing. That said, whatever it is you are angry about, and hopefully it is an injustice, is addressed by your positive creativity, and it’s perfectly find to acknowledge this dynamic. What you are doing, when you create something good rather than something bitter and reactionary, is displacing whatever it is that made you angry. The public only has [...]
Many would-be creators remain consumers because they fear criticism. Perhaps they created something, thinking they’d be encouraged for their work, and they were, but then they read something or heard something critical and felt they were being treated unfairly and were scared back into consumer-mode, sitting on the sidelines. All creators get criticized. There are many people who cannot create, but wanting glory, they will use creators and their criticisms of creators to get into the spotlight. I’m not talking about helpful criticism, teacher to student criticism, I’m talking about the modern fare of criticism floating around on the internet, the equivalent of a Jr. High slam book. This is going to bother you at first, but you must move through it to a higher evolution of the creative life if you are going to become a great creator. Here are some things to remember: 1. Only creators get criticized. 2. All creators get criticized. 3. The best way to answer your critics is to succeed. Keep working. Work harder. When you find yourself having genuine, fond feelings for your critics, because without them you would not have been driven to succeed as much as you have, you have become [...]
Most mornings I’m up around 5 or so. I get breakfast, watch a little bit of the morning news, shower, get dressed, lay around checking e-mail on my phone, then turn the phone off, walk the dog and finally sit down at my desk to write. Instead of writing, though, I check twitter and my e-mail again, then write a blog or two, research whatever gadget somebody tweeted about, make some more coffee, read a little bit, all the while the very reason I got up early is slipping through my hands as I allow myself to be distracted. I don’t know why our primary project is so hard to focus on while we are completely willing to work hard on other projects. But regardless, the only thing that will make that nagging feeling go away is a little self discipline. You are not going to want to work on that project, perhaps ever. But the project must be completed. What we need, here, is some self discipline. We must shut off our e-mail and web browser, open the document and commit to a couple hours of frustrating work. Normally, within half an hour or so, we have a bit [...]
Most mornings I’m up around 5 or so. I get breakfast, watch a little bit of the morning news, shower, get dressed, lay around checking e-mail on my phone, then turn the phone off, walk the dog and finally sit down at my desk to write. Instead of writing, though, I check twitter and my e-mail again, then write a blog or two, research whatever gadget somebody tweeted about, make some more coffee, read a little bit, all the while the very reason I got up early is slipping through my hands as I allow myself to be distracted. I don’t know why our primary project is so hard to focus on while we are completely willing to work hard on other projects. But regardless, the only thing that will make that nagging feeling go away is a little self discipline. You are not going to want to work on that project, perhaps ever. But the project must be completed. What we need, here, is some self discipline. We must shut off our e-mail and web browser, open the document and commit to a couple hours of frustrating work. Normally, within half an hour or so, we have a bit [...]
The consumer is wholly moved by a creation, a song or a film or the grandeur of a building, and expects that a creation is built with the same emotion, but it isn’t, a creation is built through practice and then more practice and then skill and craftsmanship and then planning and the execution of a plan through diligent work. All these years of labor intersect with the consumer in a shining, fleeting moment, but sustaining the moment in the act of creation itself is not possible. For this reason, a creator distrusts emotion. Certainly a writer can turn a scene in a novel with a tear on his cheek, but the tear also causes him to question whether or not the page will be thrown out the following day for too much sentimentality, because a book is to the writer like the house is to the builder, it’s right fitting boards and plumb windows, not a feeling of love for the boards or the windows. Do not stir up emotion before you work. Kill it off. What you are trying to do with the emotion is feel what the consumer feels when they encounter your work before the work [...]
