Not Good Enough

Today, in two separate publications, I read about two different writers I admire being given the same advice: "You're not good enough for writer's block."

The first was Pete Hamill, author of Forever (think Highlander, not Judy Blume) and A Drinking Life, among other works. It was actually "You're not important enough for writer's block," and according to today's Writer's Almanac, was told to Hamill by a friend before he wrote his first novel. (I also learned that Hamill was not only friends with Bobby Kennedy but was present at Kennedy's assassination and helped tackle the shooter. I love Writer's Almanac.)

The second was Cal McAllister, founder and executive creative director of Wexley School for Girls, an agency I've had a crush on for ages. In an interview in today's Communication Arts, McAllister talks about his Creative Circus advisor giving him this advice. In a different interview, last year for Seattle Creative Mornings, he says this advice taught him to be "tireless and humble."

I haven't posted for awhile because I haven't thought up anything super smart or creative lately. My husband and I are buying a house and it's my first mortgage experience, so I've been letting myself off the hook as mentally exhausted.

But I'm not good enough to be too exhausted to write. I have to practice and I have to spew words until my fingertips are bruised from banging the keyboard. Practice, hone, be tireless and humble. And write.

Thanks, Pete and Cal. I needed the reminder that I'm not good enough…yet.

Writing into a Headwind

Or: How Bike To Work Day gave meaning to what I learned from Seth Godin.

Holy bicycle commute, Batman! Nine miles to work feels more like 90 when the wind is blowing the tall grass into fingers, all pointing back the way I’ve come.

Last week, I had the privilege of attending the Authority Intensive content marketing conference, hosted by Copyblogger, and felt very lucky to have heard Seth Godin speak for the first time. Seth gave the opening keynote, and the audience was enraptured.

Pushing the pedals down, clicking into a lower gear, wondering if I should turn around and just get my car, I thought about Seth’s talk. One of the things he said was, “If resistance doesn’t show up, you’re not doing it right.”

And while I don’t think he was talking about whipping oneself into shape the hard way, or even about headwinds, specifically, I do think he was saying that anything worth doing isn’t easy, especially if it’s something you’re doing to improve yourself. Bicycling, and laying off the Haagen-Daz bars for awhile, is going to pay off. Finishing my novel, even if it only gathers “dust” on a hard drive for the rest of eternity, is also going to pay off. At least I’ll be a hardbody who can say she’s written a novel…and that means a lot to me.

Now, let’s see if I can make it those nine miles back home.

Ideas are like grounders.

The other day, throwing grounders to my son in the back yard, I found myself saying again and again, "Get in front of the ball." He would stick his glove out without moving his body, and if he missed, the ball would go right past him.

"Move your body so that if you miss the ball, your body will stop it," I told him.

"But, Mom, that will hurt."

"Then catch it."

Ever notice how your mind will record a moment and play it back on repeat the rest of the day? Standing there in the spring breeze--the green of the grass and newly-leafed apple tree was so fresh it almost hurt my eyes--repeating "Get in front of it. Get in front of it. Get in front of it," I thought about catching ideas.

Ideas often come to me out of the blue. Like my son on the baseball field, I may see them coming, but I haven't been doing a good job of making sure I catch them by getting in front of them. I'm not capturing theses flashes of creativity.

How to fix this?

1. Identify and Acknowledge. 

My son needs to do this, too. I wish I could make him say, "The ball is now coming rapidly toward me; I should get ready to catch it." He has a little trouble with focus, and I think this would help.

It'd help me, too. "My mind is like a steel sieve" is one of my favorite phrases (people never get it, though). Ideas pass through like water through a leaky roof, never to be remembered: a rhyming couplet, a great headline, a pun, a collage I'd like to make, or even the perfect thing to get my husband for his birthday. If I'm not ready to capture those ideas with pencil and paper, they flit away.

But if I were to identify them, just say to myself "Self: this is An Idea," they'd stick out more. Almost as if my son, by saying to himself, "The ball is coming toward me," could, by so saying, cause the ball to slow down until he got his glove down, ready to catch it. This is possible: the mind truly focusing on the task at hand can cause the body to do exactly what is needed.

2. Evaluate and Decide. 

If, in the shower, or behind the wheel of my car, I were to say "Whoa, Self: this is An Idea," I could then make a conscious decision about what to do. Maybe I need to step out of the shower, or pull over, right at that moment to write it down. Maybe I need to just latch onto it and think more carefully about it for awhile. Maybe it's not such a great idea, and, like an ugly butterfly that wandered into my net, I can let it go.

"I'm going to move to the left three feet, kneel, and put my glove down." It's as easy as that. "When I get to the grocery store, before I get out of the car, I'm going to write this idea down."

3. Act...and keep acting.

"Get in front of it." Do the thing you decided to do. Write down the idea, sketch out the collage, just go on Amazon and order the damn birthday present right then.

Keep asking yourself whether you're in front of it.

I'm notorious for leaving things places, so now, when I leave a restaurant or a movie theatre, I always ask myself, "Do you have your purse?" I need to get in the habit of asking myself, "Do you have any ideas you need to write down?"

Catching the ball isn't the end.

My son caught a ball during the game the other day. Then he stood there. (Maybe he was just so surprised at making the catch that his mind blanked.)

Capturing an idea isn't the end, either. Random couplets jotted on the back of a receipt while illegally parked on the side of the road do not a poem make. We have to go back to where we put the idea and then do something with it. Get in front of it, make the catch, and then throw that idea back out into the world in its finished form.

Stephen Nakatani. "Baseball & Mitt."
Creative Commons License. Via Wikimedia Commons.