If someone offered you 10 million dollars with only one small catch, would you take it?

January 19, 2012 by 8 Comments

The other day I had an email from a friend about me screenwriting at 6 a.m. every morning. She said, “I admire your discipline. It must come from a deep passion.”

I thought, “Is this passion? Is this discipline? Is that what this is? That doesn’t quite feel right.”

Perhaps this is because I’ve struggled for so long to be clear about what I’m passionate about that the word “passion” has lost meaning for me.

Then, last week I found myself saying to my Writer’s Circle participants how you would have to fight me off with a sword to keep me from writing.

And I thought, “Huh! Passion.”

But the clincher was when I saw Jeanne Bowerman‘s tweet:

I knew my own answer was “No. Way.”

Then I got it. This is beyond reason, it’s beyond passion. It’s a kind of fierceness I never expected.

What shocks me is that this fierceness has been born out of the discipline of writing on a daily basis, not the other way around. And I hesitate to even call it discipline, because there are days when I have to drag myself out of bed with bribes and threats alike. The funny thing is that it’s gotten more scary NOT to write than TO write. 

I didn’t know I would love writing like this. I had no idea until I started doing it regularly. Daily. At ungodly hours.

I’m also fascinated to have discovered that taking a day off or two DOES dwindle this feeling. I find myself drifting and uninspired when I stop.

But as long as I write every day or darn close to it, I’m good.

And I’m doing this by making it a LOT harder NOT to write than it is TO write:

  • I set my clock early. If I don’t get up and write immediately, I’ll miss my chance before my husband goes to work and I’ve got kid duty.
  • I set public goals with my Writer’s Circle EVERY DAY. And they notice if I don’t show up.
  • I have assignments due every day for my ProSeries screenwriting class. And they’re counting to make sure we’re doing the assignments.
  • I’m the coach for the Writer’s Circle too, so I have a responsibility as a role model too.

I’ve got multiple layers of accountability. Plus a healthy fear that if I stop writing, it’ll be hard to get started again. And a fierce belief that I’ve found my true calling.

Your Turn

What does this inspire for you? Let me know on the blog.

*** If you’d like to have this kind of daily accountability for yourself around your writing, join my “Just Do The Writing” Accountability Circle right now. Our next session starts on Monday, January 23rd, and Thursday, January 19th is the last day to register. If you do your part, it will blow your mind. http://JustDoTheWriting.com

 

 Jenna

Coming Attractions

~> Ongoing. My Protection & Grounding Jewelry is on close-out. Only TWO necklaces are left, and then they are gone for good. Find them here.

~> January 23rd, 2012. The next session of my Writer’s Circle starts. Sign up here. Get my Free Writing Tips series too, and receive a coupon for a savings on your first 4 week session.

~> February 2, 2012. Start the new year fresh with your life purpose clear in your mind. My next life purpose breakthrough group session in on February 2. Details. SOLD OUT.

 

What I'm Up To

~> Ongoing. Writing in the ProSeries class at ScreenwritingU, which was just named the #1 screenwriting class by InkTip.

~> Daily and especially Fridays. Sacred writing time. The Do Not Disturb sign is up.

~> Still watching Castle, Season 3, so good. I guess the whole planet really is designed to show off Nathan Fillion’s awesomeness.

Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: , , , , ,

Getting into the Creative Zone

October 12, 2011 by 6 Comments

I’ve heard from many creatives that it takes too long to get in and out of the “creative zone” so they can’t find the time to do their creative work, because they have to have big long chunks of time to get into the groove, actually do the work, and get back out of it.

I used to believe this too.

When I first set up my Sacred Writing Time on Fridays, I was trying to do some work on my coaching business and then do some writing, but I found it extremely difficult to do.

I figured it was because it was “too hard to shift gears” from one type of work to another.

What’s true about this is that they ARE different kinds of work.

So I decided that Fridays would be ONLY for writing. And that helped for a while.

Creating Everyday Turns It Around

But then I started my Writer’s Accountability Circle, and I made a commitment to writing every weekday.

I reorganized my schedule to include writing time at the beginning of each day, and while I’ve sometimes struggled to do it first, I’ve pretty much managed to write every single day I intended to.

I’ve also found that jumping right back into my writing is nowhere near as hard as it used to be.

Turns out that creating more frequently, even for lesser amounts of time, makes it easier to keep your work fresh in your mind (something I’ve talked about in my free tips series for writers), and therefore easier to dive back into.

Resistance Is Oh-So-Obvious

Plus I’m finding that when I really do put my writing first, my resistance is much more obvious. (More on resistance here.)

And therefore much easier to bust.

Case in point: Yesterday morning when I came home to write after dropping off my son at school, I found my fear coming up big time.

See, I’m at a key transition point in my writing where I’m moving into new territory, and my fearful self thinks I won’t be able to come up with anything new.

Luckily, due to the daily Writer’s Circle question I answer, “What negative self-statements did you notice?” I’m more clear about what I’m telling myself than I used to be.

So I was able to say to myself, “Okay, this is fear coming up. I’m going to do the best I can to face it and do this anyway. What will help me?”

And I had the insight almost instantaneously to use mind-mapping to help me get unstuck.

So I did.

And it did! I came up with a great new spin on one of my concepts that I’m very happy with.

To Sum Up

  • We have lots of excuses for not doing our creative work.
  • Resistance is more obvious and solvable when you face it every day.
  • Writing (or creating, depending on your “thing”) daily helps keep your work fresh in your mind.
  • Time to get out of “all or nothing” thinking.
  • Fear is only fear. Nothing more, nothing less. It takes courage to face it, but it’s worth it.
Filed Under: Creativity, Writing Tagged With: , , ,

The Dreaded ‘D’-Word

September 14, 2011 by 5 Comments

Lately I’ve been talking a lot with my very right-brained, creative, multi-passionate, multi-talented clients and cohorts about the “D”-word.

Yeah, that’s right.

Discipline.

It’s enough to make an artist cower in terror behind legions of excuses and doubts or pipe up with even a little disdain.

(I’m an artist, I like to go with the flow / wait for the right mood to strike / follow the energy / be divinely inspired.)

(Not that there’s really anything wrong with that. As an intuitive, an empath, and a Four, I can relate to ALL of that, and I don’t even think it’s “wrong” per se.)

But the thing is, when it comes to getting our creative work out into the world, we often go to sleep on ourselves instead of doing the work to make it happen.

We go to sleep on those deeper-yet-oh-so-slippery truths that tell us what we need to do our best work.

We forget.

We get busy with other things.

We wait for something that never comes.

Is Discipline Really the Enemy?

It never ceases to astonish me how little actual discipline is practiced when it comes to doing the hard work of creating our stuff.

And by hard, I don’t mean Hard. I mean HARD.

The kind of hard that keeps you massively resisting showing up to your writing or your canvas or your practice development, even when you don’t even realize it (we’ll save the other D-word conversation for another day).

You think you’re too busy, you need to make more money first, or your kids need too much of your attention.

Ha!

The truth is, you need to make a commitment to get your Butt In Your Seat and show up to the creative Big Dream you know you are here to fulfill.

There is simply No Other Way it is going to happen.

One thing we do know is that the artists who take regular action to see their work through to completion are the ones who quietly make it happen.

Here’s the funny thing about all of this.

You don’t need to force yourself to make big, giant, rigid commitments of time and energy to make your work happen.

It’s much simpler than that.

Make discipline your friend and ally.

Just commit to taking regular, consistent, and small steps and you’ll move forward in a sustainable way to seeing your dream become a reality.

Inspiration From Seth Godin:

“While you and I have been busy running down dead ends and wasting our effort, scientists have been busy trying to figure out what actually works. And they know how:

  •     Small steps work.
  •     Consistent effort works.
  •     Group support works.

That’s it. Three things. Set a goal, and in small, consistent steps, work to reach it. Get support from your peers when you start flagging. Repeat.

You will change.” 

Filed Under: Creativity, Getting Stuff Done, Productivity Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Creative Inspiration vs. Creative Resistance

July 27, 2011 by 5 Comments

Is it necessary to be “creatively inspired” before pursuing creative projects, or is waiting for creative inspiration a pitfall that trips us up?

Another way of saying this is: Do you have to be in the ‘right mood’ or ‘right energy’ in order to be creative?

Steven Pressfield would call this “resistance,” and say instead that what we need to do is show up and “do the work” no matter what pain, doubt, terror, or mood we might encounter in the process.

There’s more on this subject in my article, “Resistance is Futile.”

My experience is that often when I think I “can’t” create, and I do it anyway, the act of engaging with my art puts me in a whole new energy state, usually one that is more uplifted and inspired.

Other times, when I’m really stuck in my thinking or in a bad mood (yes, me too), I can jolt myself out of it by wondering about creative solutions, which puts me in a more resourceful creative state.

It seems like if I ask the right question, like, “I wonder how I could make my character more convincing as a tough, surly broad?” :) or “I wonder how I could make contact with the sci fi filmmakers?” all kinds of new answers start flowing to me.

Filed Under: Creativity Tagged With: , ,
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