October 27, 2003
I just released a negative project and it feels absolutely wonderful.
I started the project several months ago for various reasons; it was something different, it didn’t take up a lot of time, it was easy, and it paid decently. At the time I signed up for it, I was in a summer lull with my writing and decided it would be a good time to take something new and something that I could do when I wasn’t writing yet wouldn’t interfere when I got busy again.
At first, it worked out well but lately, it’s been nothing but a negative pull. With my writing picking up again, one point five million creative to do ideas and the want to only do things which benefit emotionally, financially and publicly, I decided to stop doing this project and move on.
Sometimes, stopping something I don’t want to do is easy, but sometimes, when guilt and obligation come in, it becomes difficult. This is one of the difficult ones. I don’t want to be seen as a quitter or someone who just gives up because that’s not what this is. This is about there not being any value in what I’m doing anymore and I promised myself two years ago that if I ever lost value in something I did, I wouldn’t do it anymore.
I believe that everything we do must have value, whether it be writing articles that mean something to us, designing a web site that we enjoy or working in a job that supports us. If something doesn’t have a value or benefit, then we must not do it. I firmly believe that.
A value can be as basic as, ‘this is a job that provides rent, and right now, that’s a value’ or ‘this job provides a great learning opportunity, so that is a value’ or ‘this job is getting me contacts for my future and that is a value.’ If what someone does doesn’t have value, what is the benefit?
I’ve asked myself that question with regards to this project and there isn’t a value; not financial (I make more money with other writing), not emotional (the other people’s disorganization and bad commentary are not beneficial) and not publicly (there is no helping anyone or service that I can uniquely provide). In fact, the negative energy being created by this project has taken away from the energy I could be spending in a good way on my other writing and art and that’s just not right.
So, with that, I release the project. I’ve written up a letter to inform the people involved that I will no longer be participating. And it feels good, I feel like I can breathe again and focus my energy into projects that I value instead of projects that I don’t. And that’s always the goal.
October 18, 2003
There are two things I’ve learned about working for yourself and one of them is, if you don’t do the work, it doesn’t get done. There is no special ‘creative temp service’ to hire, no magic fairy who swoops in and completes everything with her wand and, as far as I know, there isn’t any special chant you can do either. The other thing I’ve learned is that freedom is a wonderful thing.
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been terribly ill. The downside to that is that my projects didn’t go away; they’re still sitting there with deadlines and people waiting. On the upswing, I don’t have to worry about sleeping during the day and working for 10 minutes at 3AM.
Little by little, I do the work when I can. Sometimes I get a block of an hour and I work like mad to catch up on yesterdays slack. Sometimes, I only get to work in random spurts of ten minutes. Whatever it is, I find time to continue working whilst always fitting in nap and lots of tea.
I’ve learned to balance looking after myself with doing my work, something that was hard in the beginning. I used to take the freedom I have too far and think, ‘Well, I don’t have to work right now, so I won’t. Funny how much never got done or deadlines would all of a sudden appear and I’d overwhelm myself with catch-up work.
When I discovered the ten-minute rule last spring (Do anything in just ten minutes and that’s it), it changed things for me. When I don’t think I can do something or I don’t have the time, I take just ten minutes because I’ve realised that doing something in ten minutes is doing something, and creates something that wasn’t there just 11 minutes before.
Sometimes people think to be creative or have a create job, one must spend it takes lots of time and freedom. But if you have another job, or pneumonia, sometimes all you can work in is little slots of time.
And really, if you try and work hard in those few minutes and build them up over a period of time, they’re enough.
October 17, 2003
Currently, I am working on one of my biggest projects to date and also my most challenging – a visual book.
Design is not my forte, in fact, it often overwhelms, frustrates and confuses me. The process of creating a design or layout takes me a long time to do and involves many cups of tea and naughty words. A web site, a painting, a book, they all go through the same, laborious process and no matter how many times I design something, it never gets easier.
When I mention to friends that I am not a designer and lack skills, they always seem to be in shock and come to my defense. “Yes you are a designer!” they tell me and list the sites that they admire or a project I laid out that they fell in love with. This makes me proud because the end result is worth the laborious process that I don’t enjoy.
I remember when I met a well-known author and commented on how much I loved her work and how effortlessly it seemed. She told me that was the highest compliment because there was so much effort involved because the words didn’t come naturally. It was then I realised that sometimes beautiful things take effort, even if they don’t seem to for others.
This gave me confidence to continue to design because for a long time I thought if it was so hard that I was not meant to do it. I felt that I should give up and leave design to ‘real designers.’ I never stopped to think if those ‘real designers’ went through the same, tough process as I.
Working on this book is a long and challenging process. Sometimes, I would rather throw my hands up in the air and just give up. However I remind myself that a challenge feels so good when you overcome it, when you do something you don’t think you can do and the satisfaction from that helps me to forget the frustration of the process so when a new design opportunity pops up, I can attempt it.
October 16, 2003
A woman on a mailing list I run was excited about creating a book and wanted to collaborate with someone else. Yet she held back because of fear of sharing. She thought if she shared her idea, someone could steal it and do it first. She asked for advice on how to keep a project rather secret.
I know I used to be afraid of talking about projects for this very reason until I had ideas and projects used despite trying hard to hold them in. I realised that in order for something to take wings, you have to give it room to move. Holding on too tight doesn’t work.
I wrote a response to her question and this is what I wrote:
It’s true that sometimes if you share an idea or your work, people will “steal it” or “copy it.” I’ve had this happen twice; first when I submitted a query to a magazine and was told they couldn’t accept it because they only used staff writers. Four months later my article appeared in the magazine, written by someone else. I also shared ideas and information with a friend who took these ideas and made a book and used phrases I use for my sites as the title of her book. I was really shocked and hurt by this but when I spoke with other writers and artists, they told me that, unfortunately, these things happen.
However on the flip side, I’ve shared so many other ideas with people and had nothing but positive come from it. I received amazing feedback, encouragement and ideas that helped me more than trying to figure it out all myself could. Sharing also helped me to relax about my stuff rather than worrying about who would steal it, take it or whatnot. I’ve learned that also sometimes I’m working on a project, out of pure coincidence a friend can be working on a very similar project. It’s not that either was copying or stealing, it just happens that we both had similar ideas at the same time. I don’t worry about this because I know that we will each bring a different and authentic viewpoint which will make each project unique. There’s really no original art or story to be told anyway, all that is new is the view your bring.
If you’re working on a project you know is brilliant and would be popular, there might be a chance someone, somewhere has also thought of this. Don’t worry about this. It can be a good thing because when you have to make a case for your book, you can site other examples and that other books are entering the market because of a need. A good example of this is Andrea Scher’s Photobooth Book; at first, the Amelie movie and the outpour of Photobooks that came out after deterred her because she didn’t think she could bring something new. But what it did was show there was an interest in these kinds of books and that she could make a book on this topic, but in a very different way.
So then, I would say don’t worry so much about trying to keep it all secret and worry about who will steal it. Put that energy into creating what you can and trust that when you’re done creating, there will be a place for it.
A good resource for information on privacy and collaborating: Writing-World.com.
October 02, 2003
For over two weeks I struggled with her advice; to make additions to the book which would involve adding “self help, resources and ideas.” I knew that her advice was warranted – she was a fabulous agent that knows what is selling in the world of books – but I was having a hard time accepting it.
Besides, she had already made suggestions that I completely agreed with and had altered the book in my own way and thought it was perfect as is. The additions and changes were really good, she said, but not enough. I had to add more of my voice, resources and how to’s. This was a problem for me as self-help isn’t my thing. Motivational writing isn’t my thing. Telling people what to do in five steps – so not my thing. I like to offer an experience and have people take what they can, but apparently, that wasn’t good enough. Without the additions the chances of her representing me were slim and the chances of a publisher wanting the book, even smaller.
To write something that wasn’t me felt wrong and I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. I had seen far too many examples of writers who wrote just for market. I remember a woman who was writing a book on “how to be your authentic creative self.” Yet every idea in the book came from her favourite writers and an agent. I found this quite hard to swallow. I also had a friend who recently published a book which used my phrases and ideas and I’m sure a lot more, but she knew what the market was and money and fame are extremely important to her. She’d write whatever people would buy, it had worked so far for her. There were other writers who got contracts via friends and also wrote about being yourself and accepting yourself, only to take their advance and buy breasts. I didn’t want to do this, I didn’t want to lie to an audience or more importantly, myself.
Yet, here I was, faced with the same dilemma; change my views and make a killing at a book or hold fast to my principles and remain unpublished.
Unsure of the right answer, I did what any confused person would do – I asked close friends for advice that I wanted to hear. I wanted them to tell me that I was right in resisting the agents words and that I was right to be authentic and not write something I didn’t want to.
When I approached my best-friend Emily about this I was expecting her to agree with me. But in her nonchalant way she blatantly said, “Well, you have to give people a reason to buy the book. You have to do something else.” She went on to give me ideas, ideas that I had or would do. Huh, I thought. OK, maybe.
My friend Kate asked how the book was going and I showed her my mock-up. She loved it and I was happy. See, I told myself, what is there right now is perfect, just as it is. I replied to her with my story of how it was suggested that I needed to add more of my voice and give people suggestions for the ideas I had. Kate, being a writer and a person who agrees with authenticity as much as I do didn’t tell me I was right In fact, she told me I should do what the agent suggested.
She explained how that my voice is different than a lot of people’s and that I wouldn’t write from the viewpoint of those currently on the market. She explained that perhaps my voice was needed and that I could take the advice and instead of being someone else, I could just be me, and offer what I knew.
This kind of advice popped up in several other people until I understood that I didn’t have to be a different kind of writer to take the agents advice. I didn’t have to write about glitter, about morning pages or weekly tasks. I didn’t have to change into someone or adopt an unfamiliar style. All I had to do was do what I’ve been doing all along – offer what I know and hope that it’s of use.
I can do that.
As soon as I made the decision that I would move ahead and make the advice my own, I started to get confirmation from all over the place that this was the right decision.
Without saying a word, I began to receive a flood of email from people who told me that, out of all the “self-help” and “motivational” books they had read, my words had helped them the most. They listed names of authors who I thought I had to be like in order to take the agents advice. However, since I hadn’t received these specific kinds of emails before and only started to receive them after I made the decision to take the agents advice, I decided to take them as a sign that I was on the right path. As I’ve said before, when leap in the right direction, the universe provides. I know that I really can offer guidance in a way that’s comfortable and authentic to me and still be useful to others.
Now I can move forward with excitement instead of fear. The possibility of trying something new and succeeding, well, it makes up for the struggle. I realise that I need to challenge myself and try new things and this is a good opportunity for that. Besides, I can’t give up without trying and if my authenticity, my words, my way, aren’t good enough then I’ll accept the fact that perhaps the book won’t make it.
But somehow, I have a feeling it will because authenticity, I truly believe, has it rewards. Even if it takes awhile.