No matter how cliche it is, it's about the journey, not the destination.
Being an artist is a brutal gift. We can torture ourselves or be thankful for the opportunities to create. The older I get, the more I appreciate my gifts and the less I punish myself for not manifesting them fast enough.
In the end, I want to be true to myself and proud of my work, regardless of how much commercial success was achieved.
This reminds me of a speech J.K. Rowling gave a few years ago at Harvard's commencement. She also spoke about the benefits of failure, but in her case, she talked about how truly failing, losing everything, made her realize who she really was and so she began focusing all her energy into her writing. I have a little newspaper clipping of her speech hanging on the wall right in front of me, and I often think of the last line: "Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."
You can see a video of the whole speech here: http://bloggingforya.blogspot.com/2011/03/jk-rowling-on-failure-and-imagination.html
I have a real animus against the t-shirts/coffee mugs/bracelets/etc. that say "What would you do if you knew it was impossible to fail?" They should say "What would you do if you accepted that it was inevitable to fail sometimes, and knew that it was an indispensable part of the process?"
(Of course, that would make for a rather large coffee mug. Or a t-shirt in awfully small type.)
Sara Zarr's post is a beautiful argument for this important truth.
Wonderful, encouraging, inspiring. I immediately friended Sarah on twitter and will continue to look to her for inspiration when I am in a failure-mode tail spin.
Not just for writers. Before reading this, I had just hung up from talking with my my best friend who is a painter, and currently for some reason a quilter, and she spoke of the same thing: that hard, tedious gap between idea and completed lovely thing. Can't wait to find out why that message floated into my life twice today.
Great post...I normally go into a massive cry fest when I feel I have hit an epic fail with my writing but reading this post reminds me how amazing it is to be part of a dynamic network writers understand writers and as such we should never forget to support each other.
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Wow. So incredibly well put. Thanks for that link.
ReplyDeleteNo matter how cliche it is, it's about the journey, not the destination.
ReplyDeleteBeing an artist is a brutal gift. We can torture ourselves or be thankful for the opportunities to create. The older I get, the more I appreciate my gifts and the less I punish myself for not manifesting them fast enough.
In the end, I want to be true to myself and proud of my work, regardless of how much commercial success was achieved.
Beautiful post.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of a speech J.K. Rowling gave a few years ago at Harvard's commencement. She also spoke about the benefits of failure, but in her case, she talked about how truly failing, losing everything, made her realize who she really was and so she began focusing all her energy into her writing. I have a little newspaper clipping of her speech hanging on the wall right in front of me, and I often think of the last line: "Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."
You can see a video of the whole speech here: http://bloggingforya.blogspot.com/2011/03/jk-rowling-on-failure-and-imagination.html
Nice little read.
ReplyDeleteOh, sweet mother of java, I needed that post today. Thank you for sharing that.
ReplyDeleteThat is lovely.
ReplyDeleteI have a real animus against the t-shirts/coffee mugs/bracelets/etc. that say "What would you do if you knew it was impossible to fail?" They should say "What would you do if you accepted that it was inevitable to fail sometimes, and knew that it was an indispensable part of the process?"
(Of course, that would make for a rather large coffee mug. Or a t-shirt in awfully small type.)
Sara Zarr's post is a beautiful argument for this important truth.
Wonderful, encouraging, inspiring.
ReplyDeleteI immediately friended Sarah on twitter and will continue to look to her for inspiration when I am in a failure-mode tail spin.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHoly Cow, did I need to read that article this week.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link.
Not just for writers. Before reading this, I had just hung up from talking with my my best friend who is a painter, and currently for some reason a quilter, and she spoke of the same thing: that hard, tedious gap between idea and completed lovely thing. Can't wait to find out why that message floated into my life twice today.
ReplyDeleteGreat post...I normally go into a massive cry fest when I feel I have hit an epic fail with my writing but reading this post reminds me how amazing it is to be part of a dynamic network writers understand writers and as such we should never forget to support each other.
ReplyDeleteCute.
ReplyDelete