Reminders for myself

If god doesn’t work for you, “blend in the influence of someone who is ever so slightly more amused by you, someone less anal. David Byrne is good, for instance. Gracie Allen is good. Mr Rogers will work.”

- Bird by Bird

…one of the most annoying things about God is that he never just touches you with his magic wand, like Glinda The Good, and gives you what you want. Like it would be much skin off his nose. But he might give you the courage or the stamina to write lots and lots of terrible first drafts, and then you’d learn that good second drafts can spring from t

“Your day’s work might turn out to have been a mess. So what? Vonnegut said, ‘When I write, I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth’. So go ahead and make big scrawls and mistakes. Use up lots of paper. Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow (inadvertent

The refusal to acknowledge our creativity had its payoffs. We could wonder and worry about our arrogance instead of being humble enough to ask help to move through our fear. We could fantasize about art instead of doing the work. We could proceed to righteously ignore our creativity and never have to take the risks of fulfilling it.

There will be many times when we won’t look good - to ourselves or anyone else. We need to stop demanding that we do. It is impossible to get better and look good at the same time.

Say no to bench-setting cynicism.

Creativity flourishes when we have a sense of safety and self-acceptance.

By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to BE an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Leap, and the net will appear.

- The Artists Way