Getting the Job Done.

The following is a list of suggestions taken from artist, Robert Genn's regular newsletter. (Link to the subscription page by clicking onto the title of this post). He is a working artist who publishes an e-newsletter twice weekly and speaks to all levels and expressions of creativity. I believe that these are a great series of guidelines to follow no matter what you are working on.

Know that others have gone where you wish to go.
Put "getting good" ahead of "making a living."
Learn to be alone and to be your own best critic.
Cut back on impedimenta and outside distractions.
Work more hours than the average factory worker.
Notice interesting directions and go there again.
Become a perpetual student of your own progress.
Don't expect too much help from anyone or anything.
Stick to your vision, but don't fear change.
Do not be adverse to developing skills.
Know that raising standards has to be chronic.
Know that marketing is easier when you have quality.
Be curious about everything, including how you turn out.
If you fall in love, accept the gift, surrender.

In this same vein, I have heard that Mark Twain is said to have declared that if you wake up each day and eat a huge, ugly frog that you can be quite sure that the rest of your day is likely to only get better.
The point being to simply eat the darn frog and get it over with so that you can move on rather than trying to come up with a million excuses as to why or how this task should be avoided.
It's very much the same with any creative endeavour: there are so many reasons and excuses that we can feed ourselves to keep us from working on that which gives us creative expression, that the only thing to do is to work even harder to ignore these excuses and just do the work that needs to be done.
I've said it before, if I had any idea that I would have been working on this project for three solid years, and that here I am 4 years later, still committing time to it, I would have quit on page one. I'm glad I didn't know. I'm glad that I started writing that first story about Starla's childhood.

The post titled JOURNAL, Sunday, Dec. 9th in the novel speaks of the anxiety that Starla has lived with all her life, and the things that she does to demand that Danny prove himself to her. In rereading this passage now several years after I originally "put it to bed" I'm amazed at the realities that I see in myself, in my children, in my childhood that are there, naked on the page. It's difficult to read.
And I'm still glad that I started writing. I'm glad I persevered.
Copyright 2007