Many people are inventive, sometimes cleverly so. But real creativity begins with the drive to work on and on and on. ~ Margueritte Harmon Bro, author
“I love this story, and I love when it the writing surprises me, but sitting down to write is such hard work!” I complained recently to close friend and writing colleague, Zita. “Some days, I really have to force myself to do it…and to keep doing it.”
“Ah,” Zita said, “me, too. But I remind myself of the difference between a published writer and a wanna-be-writer. We sit down and stay with it. Others, many others, get up and walk away.”
Oh, the relief! Don’t you love it when you discover that a creative challenge you thought was something peculiar to you is actually something others, struggle with, too?
The hard work and extreme discipline required to write my book isn’t an indication of something wrong with me, after all.
I did wonder, since the last two manuscripts that I wrote (but were never published) seemed to flow more easily from my pen. Still, I wrote those novels more than ten years ago. I wrote them before I really knew and understood story arc, and the role of characters’ inner and outer goals, and the other tropes of writing romance and fantasy. And before the hundreds upon hundreds of romance, fantasy, and fantasy/ paranormal romance novels that I’ve read took up residence in my brain.
With those first two manuscripts, the message from my inner critic was, “This is a neat story, but really, with all the competition out there, do you really think you can get this published?”
Now, she is continually harping at me with, “This scene is weak, it just drags on and on. The character motivation is lame, can’t you do better than that? You don’t have a big enough conflict to provide a satisfactory happily ever after ending…”
She starts and I just want to get up and go do something else. Even when I promise her that her turn will come later, she won’t shut up. She has no patience. She wants to constantly boss my Muse around…
So sometimes my Muse will be the one to shut up. She’ll go off in a huff, leaving me with blank pages and an unmoving pen.
My inner critic and my Muse are duking it out even as I write this…my Muse is loving the flow of this. My inner critic is telling me that I am going off topic. So I sit back, ready to stop writing, to get up and go do something else, to come back to it later.
Instead, I am going to work on and on and on.
Because that is how books get written. It is how this article gets written.
It is how your canvases and performances and products and events and creative businesses are done and created. By working on and on and on.
Over the last few years, my friends have watched me struggle to grow my business with my coaching and consulting and writing. Some of them have wondered aloud and in their minds, why I don’t quit and do something else?
The question always leaves me flabbergasted. Because I can’t give up on something I love. You don’t give up on something you love—even when it means working on and on and on.
Like parenting…
Good grief, is there anything that requires more working on and on and on than parenting? Other than marriage, of course.
If you love your kids, if you love your spouse, you don’t quit at the first challenge or problem. Or even at the second or third or fourth.
No, if you love them, you work on and on and on.
I love writing. I love the story I am trying to tell. So, I’ll put my butt in the chair and I’ll write, even if it is hard work that seems neverending.
And because I love helping you find ways to do what you love and to succeed at it, I’ll keep working to find more ways to encourage, support and inspire you in your creative work…
How about you and your current creative project? Are you willing to work on and on and on?