"Now, please, go. Write your asses off."
~ Natalie Goldberg, in the Preface to the 2005 Edition of Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within (1986, 2005)
This week, as part of our emerging theme of welcoming new voices into our blog, let us introduce our guest blogger, Alay'nya (Alianna J. Maren, Ph.D.), who is author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey as well as being an energizing and entertaining speaker, visionary entrepreneur, mystic-travelling dancer, choreographer, and dance teacher. www.theunveilingjourney.com
Alay'nya's Turn:
I was thrilled to receive Charise's invitation to write for you in this blog, on the theme of "engagement" -- how we can each engage our creative process.
My primary suggestion for those of us who desire more creative process and output?
Treat your creative expression as your "day job." Everything else (including your day job) is life maintenance.
Writing - or any form of creative expression - requires diligence, discipline, focus, and a willingness to go for long periods of time without certain comforts. These comforts may be the financial cushion of a more lucrative career (if you are using short-term jobs and gigs to support your creativity). These may be downtime when we leave our day jobs and have our evenings, weekends, and holidays for ourselves. This is because nurturing our creative output also entails marketing our creative output, and that takes an even greater commitment of energy and time.
Not to mention, as we all know, that most creative endeavors require long periods of focused, relatively solitary work.
Collaboration is important. We know that. Inspiration from other sources is also important.
But the absolute commitment to putting out a final product? That's yours, and yours alone.
It may feel as though you are trundling a wheelbarrow full of bricks (your ideas) up the mountain. And it may also feel as though you are doing this again and again, without seeing much return.
Thus, three tips that - while not reducing the workload that much - will help you to have greater chances of bringing your work to fruition.
Get Fired Up:
1) Build, nurture, and feed your creative stash pile. Natalie Goldman, in Writing Down the Bones, suggests journaling - and notes that when she receives a writing assignment, she can usually turn to her journal-stash (going back about twenty years) and find something that will help kick-start her work. If you work in wood or stained glass, you need a storage shed filled with wood or pieces of glass. If you're a choreographer, you need lots of little "micro-choreographic units" - elements of 16 to 32 beats that you can use as building blocks. Recognize that creating your artistic, creative stash takes time. Honor the process, invest for the long term, and keep your stuff!
2) Keep up consistent output. It took me over sixteen years to produce my most recent book; Unveiling: The Inner Journey. Sixteen years is a long time to go from start to finish. Now, I write blogs. Weekly blogging for each of three different blogs is a big challenge, but it keeps my productivity up. It contributes to stash. (See Tip #1.) It also helps with ... Tip #3.
3) Just get it out the door. A short video - thrown together with the software, video, and stills that you have - and then posted on YouTube, is a damn sight better than reels of unprocessed footage. For me, just now, responding to Charise's request for a guest blog by sitting down and immediately writing this post is much better than putting it into my task list. Whatever it is, just get that first iteration done, and get it out in public, somehow. The next one can be better. The one after, better yet. The real secret is in pushing through to completion and getting it out there. Yes, put whatever skill, insight, and ability you have into creating that output. However, don't let dreams of perfection - or fear of adverse reaction - slow you down. Deliver the result as fast as you realistically can.
And then - it's okay to toot your horn a little. In fact, rouse up the neighborhood and get a full marching band!
