writing Archives - Melissa Dinwiddie | Create the Impossible™

August 20, 2014

Why I Haven’t Quit (Even When I’ve Wanted To)

Back in October I did something rather rash. I committed myself to a 365-day challenge: fill a 3×5 index card to a one-word prompt every day, and post it here on my website.

Why? Several reasons:

To prove to myself that I can sustain a daily practice.
To test my theory that the more I do something, the better I’ll get at it.
To desensitize myself to the terror of sharing stuff that isn’t perfect, and may very well be mediocre or even downright sucky.
To scare away the gremlins.
To encourage anyone who actually reads this to try whatever they might be afraid of trying.
Because it’s fun.

Despite the tininess of the daily goal (filling a 3×5 card is pretty minimal, after all), I confess I have been tempted to quit on multiple occasions.

Doing this every day for a full year has proven to be more challenging than I ever expected. But then, that’s why they call it a challenge, I guess.

When I decided to take on this project, I had fantasized that several months into it I’d magically transform into the poet I always wished to be, and sadly, that has not happened. Sometimes it has felt utterly pointless to write yet one more mediocre, utterly pointless 3×5 card.

But then I’d have a day when a sentence, or a phrase, or even an entire card, would tickle me, and it would all seem worth it again.

That’s the power of commitment and persistence.

Other times I resented having to take the time to photograph the 3×5 card, email it to myself, post it to my blog, and send out yet another 3x5x365 newsletter. The whole process doesn’t take that very long, but it’s time I could use to do something else.

But then someone would email me to say how much that day’s 3×5 meant to them, and it would all seem worth it again.

That’s the power of community and accountability.

Even if nobody had emailed, though, and even if none of the cards delighted me in the least, I’m glad I’ve persisted.

Not only have I proven to myself that yes, I can sustain a daily practice, but I have to admit that this funny little project really has done a lot to desensitize me to the terror of sharing stuff that isn’t perfect.

Seriously, this crazy endeavor would be worth it for those two things alone. But it’s proven to be richer than that.

First off, check out that stack of 3x5s in the photo above. Impressive, no? Each one alone may be trite, mediocre, dinky, unremarkable. Taken together, though, they form a much larger work—one that couldn’t exist without the mass of all of them.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

I’m toying with the idea of using the complete set of 365 3x5s to wallpaper my downstairs powder room. A single 3×5 glued to a wall is one thing; a wall covered with 3x5s is another thing entirely.

Whatever I end up doing with the final stack, though, without committing to this tiny-but-daily year-long project, I would not have this whole.

Second off, sticking with my commitment has led me places I would never have gone otherwise.

I’m on Day 315 now, but back on Day 303, utterly bored with what I’d been doing for the previous 302 days, I decided to try something new: instead of writing with my voice, about my life and my thoughts, I wrote fiction.

Not an entire story, mind you—just a story start—but fiction.

The first fiction I’ve written in twenty years, in fact; my first fiction since 1994, when I declared myself a crappy writer, and gave up writing altogether.

Suddenly, what had felt boring and stilted felt fun and exciting. The quality of my writing didn’t miraculously improve, but my enjoyment did, and that made me happy.

This is, ultimately, the most important reason to create of all: because it makes us happy to do so.

I have no idea where these story starts will lead, if anywhere. All I know is that I may never have re-discovered an interest in writing fiction had I not started this project.

And all I know is that it took 302 days, and digging myself into the boredom of a deep rut, for me to finally start looking around for a way out that didn’t involve quitting.

If I hadn’t been committed to keep at this for an entire year, the most obvious way out would have been to quit, oh, at least a hundred days ago. Maybe two hundred days ago. And I suspect I would have taken that exit route.

The reality is, if I hadn’t made a public commitment, and held myself accountable by posting here on my website, and sending out a daily newsletter, I doubt I’d be trying my hand at fiction again right now.

Commitment. Accountability. Community.

Over and over again these have proven to be invaluable tools in maintaining a consistent, sustainable, nourishing creative practice. So over and over again I return to them.

Onward, ho!

(And oh, I may ask you to slap me if I start talking about taking on another year-long challenge…. ;))

PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!

Heads Up! Good Stuff Coming!

If you’ve been wanting a consistent, sustainable, nourishing creative practice, but haven’t been able to make it happen for yourself, stay tuned! Next week I’ll be opening up registration for my 30-day program, Get Sparked, designed to get you creating every day (even just a little), and to help you find joy in the nooks and crannies of your life. Registration will be limited, so sign up on my mailing list in the form below if you want first dibs.

June 1, 2014

Growing Into My Writer’s Shoes

Let’s take a trip in the Way-Back Machine, shall we?

Cast your mind back to 1994, back in the dark days before the internet. That was the summer I’d run out of excuses for deciding what to do with my life.

After aborted careers in both dance and academia, I felt hopelessly lost. When my boyfriend and I got engaged in November of ’93, I latched onto our impending nuptials as a seven-month reprieve from having to make a decision about what to do with my life, and threw myself into wedding plans.

But now the wedding was over, and it was time to fish or cut bait.

After halfheartedly looking around for a job in the publishing industry, I realized it wasn’t publishing I was interested in; it was writing. So I decided I’d be a writer.

Somebody had to write those articles for magazines, it occurred to me, so why not me? I’d gotten good grades on my college essays — surely I could write articles!

And it couldn’t be too much of a leap from that to the fiction writing I fantasized myself doing. This should be a snap, right?

Except that it wasn’t. Writing was hard.

Trying to come up with a decent sentence felt like pulling teeth. Fifteen minutes at my Macintosh computer felt like six hours.

It all felt so painfully obvious: Clearly I just wasn’t any good at this thing. Clearly I was not a writer.

So I quit.

Now let’s jump forward to 2010.

Sixteen years after declaring that I was not a writer, I started this blog, and suddenly I couldn’t stop writing.

Aha, I thought. Maybe my massive fail back in ’94 wasn’t because I sucked at writing, but simply because I hadn’t found my genre. Maybe I still sucked at writing fiction, but blogging was my thing! I might not be a writer, but I was a blogger.

Now I know that the only massive fail back in ’94 was my belief that I should quit.

Maybe I was crappy, maybe I wasn’t: the point is that writing is hard. Doing anything well is hard, at least until you get good at it. And getting good at it takes practice.

You’ve got to do it.

What was I thinking, with this notion that I should be instantly good at this thing??

Now, thankfully, I know that producing crappy work is how you learn to produce not-so-crappy work, and eventually even really good work. We need the crap to fertilize the good stuff!! (Click to tweet.)

And now, thankfully, I know that it isn’t other people’s assessment of you that determines whether you’re a writer (or artist, or dancer, or singer, or whatever); if you write (or make art, or dance, or sing), you are one by definition. All you have to do is embrace it.

Twenty years ago I desperately wanted to be a writer. In fact, I already was one; it just took me a decade and a half to understand this.

It’s a Blog Hop!

I’ve been thinking about all of this lately since my friend Suzee asked me to participate in a blog hop, in which writers answer four questions about their process, and invite three fellow bloggers to answer the same questions the following week.

My answers to the questions are below. Next week Lisa Fisher, Laureen Marchand, and Tangerine Meg will join in the fun. You can read their bios and check out their blogs below.

Now on with the questions!

1) What am I working on/writing?

Because I’m a passion pluralite, with irons in lots of creative fires, asking me what I’m working on can open up a very long conversation!

As far as “straight-ahead writing” is concerned, these days my primary focus is writing for my own blog and for other blogs, mostly around topics related to living the creative life of your dreams. In addition, I’ve got a really big goal of finishing my book—really a love letter to the me of twenty years ago, sharing everything I know now and wish I knew then about living a big, bold, creative life. It’s a daunting project, but I make time to “touch the project” (in the words of Jen Louden) at least a little bit every day.

A little bit every day is also my approach with another project I’m in the middle of: 3x5x365. This is a year-long challenge I set myself, to fill a 3×5 card every day to a one-word prompt. I take a picture of the card with my iPhone and post it here.

When I started Project 3x5x365, I had a secret hope that it would turn me into a poet. Alas, this has not happened, though a few of the cards have pleased me. Most of them have not felt so successful, but that was part of my initial goal, too; I wanted to desensitize myself to the terror of sharing stuff that isn’t perfect, and may very well be mediocre or even downright sucky.

After all, we need the crap to fertilize the good stuff!

Honestly, I’ve often felt like quitting, but I’m sticking with it, if only to prove to myself that I can keep a year-long commitment.

In addition to my “straight-ahead writing,” I also write songs, and I started playing around the other day with a new holiday song idea, just for fun. We’ll see where it goes!

Sometimes writing extends to my visual art, as well. I have a daily painting practice, and often incorporate calligraphy into my canvases, or type from my manual typewriter.

My newest creative passion is improv, and though no physical writing takes place when I perform improv, I create scenes and songs on the fly with my fellow improvisers, which is, one could argue, a form of writing. It’s ridiculously challenging and fun, and I’m working on learning to do this better!

2) How does my work/writing differ from others of its genre?

I’m not sure I have enough awareness of my work compared to other people’s work to adequately answer this question. I am conscious of wanting to share “behind the curtain,” as it were—not just the highlight reel, but the messy parts and the mistakes along the way. This kind of transparency is part and parcel of my writing.

Also, I think the very fact of my having so many different creative expressions informs my writing. And of course the uniqueness of my life experience, and my writing voice, makes it different from anything else out there.

Confession: I don’t always like my writing voice.

I often wish I could write like my heroes, but I’ve learned to love my voice even when I don’t like it very much. This is true for all of my creative expressions, and I find the more I’m able to love and embrace my voice in all its imperfection, the easier it is to find things to like about it.

3) Why do I write what I do?

I write in order to clarify my own thinking, and to touch other people.

I’ve learned that making a difference is one of the pillars that my happiness rests on, and writing is one way that I attempt to do that. I want to empower others to feed their own creative hungers, so that they, too, are living lives they love.

I imagine a world in which everyone had the permission and resources to follow the callings inside them. The world would be a more peaceful, joyful place. This vision keeps me going.

4) How does my writing process work?

I used to squeeze my writing in wherever it fit. Often I’d journal in bed in the morning, then dash out a blog post in a mad rush when I realized I hadn’t published one in awhile.

I loved the idea of a regular writing practice, but I just knew I was allergic to schedules, so my practice was pretty haphazard.

Since starting Finishing Blitz, however, I’ve been sticking with a regular morning writing schedule, and I’ve discovered the joys of a consistent daily practice!

The three hours between 9:00am to 12:00pm are cordoned off as my sacred creating time. I dedicate at least fifteen minutes of that time (and often an hour or more) to painting—what I refer to as “playing in the Creative Sandbox”—then I “touch the book” for at least a few minutes, and then I focus on whatever blog post or article I’m working on.

To my great surprise, I’ve found that this daily commitment, rather than making me feel caged, makes me feel free.

I look forward to my three hour creative work sessions with the same kind of giddy anticipation I remember feeling during my single days, when I had a date coming up.

My mornings are my date with my art.

When I’m in the middle of working on a piece of writing, I tend to jump back and forth between drafting and editing. Some people spill out an entire piece and then go back and edit. I’m constantly editing as I go.

I keep my Keys to Creative Flow always in view for when I hit those inevitable blocks, and my Imperfectionist Manifesto helps keep me from dropping into perfectionist paralysis.

I spent too much of my life trying, desperately, to be perfect, which was a losing battle and only succeeded in leaving me feeling perpetually unworthy. Now I find that the more I can allow myself to be imperfect, the more worthy I feel.

This is why I now have no qualms about calling myself a writer, an artist, a singer, a songwriter. When the bar was perfection, those titles were perpetually out of reach. I’m still continually in pursuit of mastery, but thankfully I’ve learned to enjoy the journey along the way.

Check Out My Blogging Buddies:

These women are all amazing. I feel blessed to know them. Check out their blogs and be inspired!

Lynne and Suzee are sisters, the two youngest of five siblings. They share their “art and soul,” creative expressions, personal inspirations, thoughts and dreams at Two Poppies.

Lynne is a mom of four who bounces all over the country with her Air Force pilot hubby. She loves discovering new places to travel and adventure. Capturing real life with her camera (morning walks, road trips, and the baby squirrels they fostered) is her idea of a good time.

Suzee lives in Orange County, California (her entire life!) and has two lovely beach- and animal-loving girls. She is married to her fellow entrepreneurial husband and enjoys being active, creative, adventurous, and living with a sense of curiosity, awe, and wonder.

They combined their talents (bilingual teacher and graphic designer) in a joint venture, Multicultural Kids, where you’ll find all kinds of products that encourage children to discover and appreciate the amazing world and all of its people. They are in the process of producing their first book, A Beautiful Rainbow World, a children’s photography book with photos from around the globe which will be out in June and is available for pre-order.

Lisa Fisher guides human beings from conflict to common ground. A martial artist, she believes that true peace begins with mastering yourself.

Lisa coaches individuals and trains small groups to navigate difficult conversations more skillfully, remain calmer and more focused in tense situations, and manage their emotional hot buttons better. Lisa also works as a private diplomat to help improve ongoing family and business relationships, or to avoid or end litigation.

She speaks at business gatherings, retreats and conferences on how to address conflicts with more respect, confidence and creativity. She writes about peaceful conflict resolution at blackbeltmediation.com.

Laureen Marchand is an artist, the owner of Grasslands Gallery in Val Marie, Saskatchewan, Canada and an artist mentor who helps artists navigate through all kinds of stuckness and find the next direction in their artistic careers. From her home near Grasslands National Park in one of Canada’s most remote and beautiful regions, Laureen brings over 25 years and the experience of dozens of exhibitions to her practice.

Laureen can be found at www.grasslandsgallery.com and www.laureenmarchand.com.

Hi! I’m Tangerine Meg: quirky artist, upside down yogini, wild gardener and more.

My Bold Art invites your Bold Soul to savour the vibrancy and pure delight of every day moments – and to share the joy with your family and friends. Let’s play!

If you’d like a little keepsake, feel welcome to grab my downloadable bookmarks! 🙂

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PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!

June 18, 2010

Musings (in the style of Montaigne) on why doing Your Important Work is sometimes so hard

Artist and blogger Michael Nobbs recently wrote an excellent five-part series on Getting Your Important Work Done, which got me thinking.

One of my big goals (what Nobbs would call My Important Work, what Havi would call my thing) is to be creating art every day. Yet I resist making art.

On the other hand, one of my other big goals is to write every day, and this, at the moment, feels easy and fun. Even if I don’t post every day, rarely a day goes by when I don’t write.

So the question: Why is it so much harder these days to get myself to make art than to write?

Understand I make art for clients on a fairly regular basis – just last night I finished a custom ketubah commission. But making art that I want to make just because I’m curious and compelled and interested and I feel like making it, that’s a lot harder for some reason. These days I’d almost always rather write a blog post.

What’s going on here?

The newest Bliss wins

It occurred to me that for one thing, writing is my newest Bliss. And kind of like a New Best Friend, or a new love, I want to hang with it all the time.

It’s been the same with each of my Blisses: Modern dance. Calligraphy. Salsa dance. Singing. Argentine Tango. Writing. Each one of these has been Passion Number One at some time in my life. And just after first discovery, I can’t not do my new passion.

New passions take me over. They “run me.”

I remember when I first started as a calligrapher and artist, and was astonished to hear other artists and calligraphers complain about needing a push to get to their studio and make stuff.

Huh?

How can anyone need urging to get to their studio and make stuff, I wondered?

Maybe a year or two later I was disheartened to discover that same resistance had settled on me.

What’s going on here?

Why is it so easy to do the (admittedly hard) thing in the beginning, and so much harder to do it later on, when it’s ironically somewhat easier to do?

The benefits of being a beginner

For one thing, when I’m a beginner, the stakes are low. I don’t have to make any money from it, nor do I have to maintain any kind of reputation, because I don’t have one yet. Part of the challenge that drives me is proving myself and establishing a reputation. And precisely because I am still proving myself, the only high expectations I have to fill are my own.

In other words, I’m still in the exploring phase, still pretty much in Beginner Mind.

When I achieve a certain competency or success level, however, that’s when the resistance starts to kick in.

The challenges of a modicum of mastery

You’d think that when the thing itself gets slightly easier that I’d only be more glued to doing it. But in fact, the opposite seems to happen.

At first, the hard part was in mastering the skills, and perhaps getting some recognition (which I’ll admit, I do crave). But it turns out I thrive on this sort of challenge. It’s precisely the pursuit of mastery that drives my engine.

With a modicum of mastery under my belt, though, the game changes. Going from “total beginner” to “pretty good” is relatively easy. (Not easy, understand; just the easiest part of the journey.)

Pushing beyond this, over the hump to the next level (to what? “remarkable?” “damn good?” “excellent?”) it turns out, is the harder part. It takes a lot more effort, and a lot of focus and commitment to get to each successive level of mastery. (Maybe it’s even exponentially harder?)

Plus there are now expectations to meet, potential to fulfill.

Back when I was still a pretty new calligrapher, I received enthusiastic encouragement from several Big Name calligraphers who seemed hugely impressed with the quality of my beginner work. For a moment, I felt on top of the world from their praise, but then suddenly the prospect of making anything new was fraught with expectations.

I felt like everything I did had to be a masterpiece.

This is not a recipe for fun, play and experimentation!

What’s the solution?

I don’t profess to have The Answer. Reams of books have been written on the subject, and people much more experienced than I have created wonderful courses, such as Julia Cameron’s The Artists Way and the like. And certainly a commitment that feels attainable is a good tactic. (20 minutes a day, say, which is the commitment I took on a few weeks ago to great effect, and also what Michael Nobbs suggests with his 20 minutes a day challenge.)

What I have figured out, though, is that as a Multi-Passionate person, it behooves me to not totally discount where I’m feeling pulled to put my energies. I realize this means I’ll never be The Best at anything, because I’m simply not wired to focus all of my energy on one thing forever. But as a Multi-Passionate Creative, I seem to be happiest when I allow myself to follow whatever’s drawing me forward.

You may be very different (and god knows I used to want greatness way more than happiness), but in my old(er) age I’ve weighed in for happiness over greatness.

(This is in no way meant to discount the value of discipline, of committing to doing My Important Work, of just showing up. Just to acknowledge that as a Multi-Passionate person, I can expect to be buffeted around by continually shifting priorities. It’s part of who I am, and I’m learning to embrace that.)

In addition, I know a huge piece of this puzzle is related to finding my voice (which is a topic for several posts of its own). It’s been so long since I consistently made art just for me that I don’t even know what my art is anymore. I’ve “lost” my voice, and the prospect of looking for it again, of “refinding” it, feels daunting. I know I need to go back to Square One, back to letting myself “suck” for awhile.

Oy. I’m in for a ride.

And you’ve got a passenger seat view.

April 25, 2010

My pocket journal

16 years ago, back when I was newly married and utterly lost, I decided, somewhat randomly, that what I wanted to do was be a writer.

Being otherwise directionless, I spent a great deal of time longing for genius writing talent and reading books about writing, occasionally interspersed with brief bouts in front of my Mac, staring at a blank screen.

It was painful. I was young and impatient, and horribly self-critical, and it didn’t occur to me that writing might be a skill that a person had to spend a great deal of time honing before being able to do it well (and that, indeed, it was something that I could get better at).

In fact, it was so painful that I actually started making art to procrastinate, which is how I accidentally ended up becoming a calligrapher and visual artist.

But that’s not what this post is about.

What this post is about is my pocket journal.

In my reading about writing back when, the Professional Writer Experts all said that if you want to be a writer, you must carry around a pocket journal at all times, so that you can jot down ideas whenever they strike.

Ever the good student, I dutifully carried around a pocket journal. But it felt like I rarely had any ideas to jot down.

Clearly (I thought), I just wasn’t cut out to be a real writer. And as my focus shifted to art, I let the writing thing drop.

Oh, I actually kept writing – in journals, in letters, in emails – but none of it was with a self-identity as a Writer. It was just stuff I felt like writing, not stuff I was getting paid to write, or stuff I was writing to impress people with my Writer-ness.

So therefore (I thought), it didn’t count as real writing.

Years later, I was involved in a relationship with a man who made his living as a freelance commercial writer, and wrote personal essays and fiction on the side. He never left the house without his pocket journal and favorite pen, and he scribbled frequently in and with same.

He was clearly a real writer (Writer). The pocket journal, as much as the body of work he’d created and the checks he received in the mail, determined it.

So what does it mean that now, 16 years after I wanted it so badly, I suddenly find myself consistently reaching for my pocket journal and scribbling away?

I bring it on walks with me (walks being, in fact, one of my most consistent muses). I carry it in my purse. And I write in it. Regularly.

Perhaps I needed to find my genre. Perhaps I needed to notice and validate the writing I was already doing.

Perhaps I was really a writer all along.