Finding Your Fierceness

Having spent most of last night at the ER watching my son endure the pain of his illness, I crawled out of bed this morning hung-over from no party, dreading the fast-approaching hour of work. My son was ok, but I was exhausted. I had no energy left to write, my spirit depleted and beaten down.

I wanted to find a deep dark rock to crawl under and hibernate… for a year.

I had every best excuse to forget my deadline, to retreat and fight another day.

Somewhere under the scalding shower spray, I found my fierceness again. Like trees forcing their way towards the sun on a storm-battered cliff, words started to coalesce in my mind, beatiful words for just the part of the book I’d been stuck on.

Life wants to grow!

I can always find a thousand reasons why I just don’t have the creativity to write. And they will always be true.

But I will not submit. I will not back down.

I write in defiance, standing in the driving wind and howling back at the storm.

I write to create beauty and life amidst desolation and despair.

I write to fling blazing sparks out into the darkness.

We can’t just fight the battle. We have to pick up our swords and charge in with everything we have, without a thought for whether it’s a winning battle or a losing one.

How do you find your fierceness?

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On Coming Alive

Tags

art, Dreams, Life, making the world a better place, Poetry, world, writing

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

– Howard Thurman

Question: What makes you come alive?

Fever or Forgotten Wings

Something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line…
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open…
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke free on the open sky.

– Pablo Neruda

The best expression I’ve heard on what compells us to create art.
May you always burn with fever, and may you discover amazing places on your forgotten wings!

Question: What was it like the first time you discovered your passion?

On The Frontier

Sometimes it feels awful, not having all the answers. Being stuck, or lost, or adrift.

What if I never solve this problem? What if I never cross this wall? What if I can’t ever fix the plot or understand my characters enough to know just the right thing to say?

Guess what? We’re creating something new that didn’t exist before. That means we’re ALWAYS at the frontier of the unknown, alone without a guide.

Of course we’ll wander. If we’re going exactly where we thought we would, our readers have probably figured it out too and they’ll just be starting to wonder what’s new on TV or twitter or that other book they’re dying to read.

Now’s a perfect time to be scared by the unknown. Our smooth trail led us right to the edge of a canyon. It will take miles to get around. But look up from your shoes for a minute. There’s a waterfall over there. And a really beautiful sunrise above the red rocks. A plume of smoke from a village. Are they friendly or will they boil us in a stewpot with pungent native vegetables? Mmm, garlic and basil would be nice…

The rough draft is all about discovery, and discovery involves getting lost. Sometimes for a long time.

Just don’t get obsessed by the wandering. Remember, there’s food out there we need to find, and eventually shelter too. We do have to survive out here, we are trying to accomplish something and it’s easy to use the wandering as an excuse not to.

Write while you wander. Bad dialogue. Strange plot. Odd characters. Maybe you’ll hit an impassable mountain and have to go all the way back to the canyon and try south instead. But maybe you’ll find an intriguingly beautiful stone or a useful companion along the way. One who steals your food but knows how to save you from Grizzly Bears.

Any strange and wonderful book, from Michael Chabon’s Summerland to Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, only got there because their authors spent so many sunny afternoons and harrowing midnights wandering in thrall on blank and ink-stained maps.

For years, I feared being lost, which is not to say that I won’t always find it a little terrifying.

Writers are explorers, which is why most writers write and all readers read.

If you get lost, you’re doing it right.

(Originally posted Feb 6, 2009 http://redroom.com/member/tad-kershner/blog/on-the-frontier)