Thank you for encouraging this conversation about the challenges creatives face just inside their own selves! Fear is definitely a strong deterrent to creativity. I appreciate how you explained how "fear, turned inside-out, reveals action." That is an important lesson to learn and remember! Personally, though I do grapple with fear, my debilitating emotion is more in the realm of envy. Thoughts like, "I could never write as well as that person, so I might as well not try," and "How do other people complete whole books when I barely get into the creative groove and it's time to go take care of [fill in the blank]?" I have found Clarissa Pinkola Estés' book, _Women Who Run With the Wolves_ incredibly helpful in facing these limiting thoughts. In her exposé of the fairytale "Blackbeard," she names that part of our psyche that wants to crush our wild creativity. So now, when I have those down-hearted bouts of envy and a sense of helplessness or incapability, I call those thoughts "Blackbeard" and thus remove myself from their crushing power. "Oh, that's just Blackbeard talking. I must really have something important to say or he wouldn't bother trying to keep me from saying it!"
Thanks so much for this insightful comment! I haven't read that book in years, but now that you've mentioned it, I want to go back and reread it. I experience envy, too, and think the exact same thing: why bother? I always try to remind myself, if every writer thought that and stopped writing, there would be no Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King, Sharon Olds, Morgan Talty, Holly Black, etc.--all terrific authors with different styles and voices. There is always room for more creativity in the world, and although we can't see it sometimes, the world needs ours, too. :) Wishing you hours of meaningful and not so meaningful writing!
Thank you, and to you as well! Even the writing that seems meaningless helps sculpt our creative selves. Sometimes we need to get a little lost to learn how to recognize when we are on our right path.
Thank you for encouraging this conversation about the challenges creatives face just inside their own selves! Fear is definitely a strong deterrent to creativity. I appreciate how you explained how "fear, turned inside-out, reveals action." That is an important lesson to learn and remember! Personally, though I do grapple with fear, my debilitating emotion is more in the realm of envy. Thoughts like, "I could never write as well as that person, so I might as well not try," and "How do other people complete whole books when I barely get into the creative groove and it's time to go take care of [fill in the blank]?" I have found Clarissa Pinkola Estés' book, _Women Who Run With the Wolves_ incredibly helpful in facing these limiting thoughts. In her exposé of the fairytale "Blackbeard," she names that part of our psyche that wants to crush our wild creativity. So now, when I have those down-hearted bouts of envy and a sense of helplessness or incapability, I call those thoughts "Blackbeard" and thus remove myself from their crushing power. "Oh, that's just Blackbeard talking. I must really have something important to say or he wouldn't bother trying to keep me from saying it!"
Thanks so much for this insightful comment! I haven't read that book in years, but now that you've mentioned it, I want to go back and reread it. I experience envy, too, and think the exact same thing: why bother? I always try to remind myself, if every writer thought that and stopped writing, there would be no Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King, Sharon Olds, Morgan Talty, Holly Black, etc.--all terrific authors with different styles and voices. There is always room for more creativity in the world, and although we can't see it sometimes, the world needs ours, too. :) Wishing you hours of meaningful and not so meaningful writing!
Thank you, and to you as well! Even the writing that seems meaningless helps sculpt our creative selves. Sometimes we need to get a little lost to learn how to recognize when we are on our right path.
Absolutely agree! :)