The Artist's Way (23 page)

During a drought, the mere act of showing up on the page, like the act of walking through a trackless desert, requires one footfall after another to no apparent point. Doubts sidle up to us like sidewinders. “What's the use?” they hiss. Or “What do you expect?” Droughts tell us that they will last forever—and that we will not. A haunting anticipation of our own death, approaching long before we're ready for it, long before we've done anything of value, shimmers ahead of us like a ghastly mirage.

What do we do? We stumble on. How do we do that? We stay on the morning pages. This is not a rule for writers only. (The pages have nothing to do with writing, although they may facilitate it as they do all art forms.) For all creative beings, the morning pages are the lifeline—the trail we explore and the trail home to ourselves.

During a drought, the morning pages seem both painful and foolish. They feel like empty gestures—like making breakfast for the lover we know is leaving us anyhow. Hoping against hope that we will someday be creative again, we go through the motions. Our consciousness is parched. We cannot feel so much as a trickle of grace.

During a drought (during a
doubt,
I just accurately wrote with a slip of the finger), we are fighting with God. We have lost faith—in the Great Creator and in our creative selves. We have some bone to pick, and bones to pick are everywhere. This is the desert of the heart. Looking for a hopeful sign, all we see are the hulking remains of dreams that died along the path.

And
yet
we
write
our
morning
pages
because
we
must.

During a drought, emotions are dried up. Like water, they may exist somewhere underneath, but we have no access to them. A drought is a tearless time of grief. We are between dreams. Too listless to even know our losses, we put one page after another, more from habit than hope.

And
yet
we
write
our
morning
pages
because
we
must.

Droughts are terrible. Droughts hurt. Droughts are long, airless seasons of doubt that make us grow, give us compassion, and blossom as unexpectedly as the desert with sudden flowers.

Droughts
do
end.

Droughts end because we have kept writing our pages. They end because we have not collapsed to the floor of our despair and refused to move. We have doubted, yes, but we have stumbled on.

In a creative life, droughts are a necessity. The time in the
desert
brings us clarity and charity. When you are in a drought, know that it is to a purpose. And keep writing morning pages.

To write is to
right
things. Sooner or later—always later than we like—our pages will bring things right. A path will emerge. An insight will be a landmark that shows the way out of the wilderness. Dancer, sculptor, actor, painter, playwright, poet, performance artist, potter, artists all—the morning pages are both our wilderness and our trail.

Fame encourages us to believe that if it hasn't happened yet, it won't happen. Of course,
it
is fame. Fame is not the same as success, and in our true souls we know that. We know—and have felt—success at the end of a good day's work. But fame? It is addictive, and it always leaves us hungry.

Fame is a spiritual drug. It is often a by-product of our artistic work, but like nuclear waste, it can be a very dangerous by-product. Fame, the desire to attain it, the desire to hold on to it, can produce the “How am I doing?” syndrome. This question is not “Is the work going well?” This question is “How does it look to them?”

The point of the work
is
the work. Fame interferes with that perception. Instead of acting being about acting, it becomes about being a famous actor. Instead of writing being about writing, it becomes about being recognized, not just published.

We all like credit where credit is due. As artists, we don't always get it. Yet, focusing on fame—on whether we are getting enough—creates a continual feeling of lack. There is never enough of the fame drug. Wanting more will always snap at our heels, discredit our accomplishments, erode our joy at another's accomplishment.

(To test this, read any of the many fan magazines—
People,
for instance—and see if afterward your life somehow feels more shabby, less worthwhile. This is the fame drug at work.)

Remember, treating yourself like a precious object will make you strong. When you have been toxified by the fame drug, you need to detox by coddling yourself. What's in order here is a great deal of gentleness and some behavior that makes you like yourself Sending postcards is a great trick. Mail one to yourself that says, “You are doing great …” It is very nice to get fan letters from ourselves.

In the long run, fan letters from ourselves—and our creative self—are what we are really after. Fame is really a shortcut for self-approval. Try approving of yourself just as you are—and spoiling yourself rotten with small kid's pleasures.

What we are really scared of is that without fame we won't be loved—as artists or as people. The solution to this fear is concrete, small, loving actions. We must actively, consciously, consistently, and creatively nurture our artist selves.

When the fame drug hits, go to your easel, your typewriter, your camera or clay. Pick up the tools of your work and begin to do just a little creative play.

Soon, very soon, the fame drug should start to lessen its hold. The only cure for the fame drug is creative endeavor. Only when we are being joyfully creative can we release the obsession with others and how they are doing.

You pick up a magazine—or even your alumni news—and somebody,
somebody
you
know,
has gone further, faster, toward your dream. Instead of saying, “That proves it can be done,” your fear will say, “He or she will succeed
instead
of me.”

Competition is another spiritual drug. When we focus on competition we poison our own well, impede our own progress. When we are ogling the accomplishments of others, we take our eye away from our own through line. We ask ourselves the wrong questions, and those wrong questions give us the wrong answers.

“Why do I have such rotten luck? Why did he get his movie/article/play out before I got mine out? Is it because of sexism?” “What's the use? What do I have to offer?” We often ask these questions as we try to talk ourselves out of creating.

Questions like these allow us to ignore more useful questions: “Did I work on my play today? Did I make the deadline to mail it off where it needed to go? Have I done any networking on its behalf?”

These are the real questions, and focusing on them can be hard for us. No wonder it is tempting to take the first emotional drink instead. No wonder so many of us read
People
magazine (or the
New
York
Times
Book
Review,
or
Lears,
or
Mirabella,
or
Esquire
)
and use them to wallow in a lot of unhealthy envy.

We make excuses for our avoidance, excuses focused on others. “Somebody (else) has probably said it, done it, thought it … and better…. Besides, they had connections, a rich father, they belong to a sought-after minority, they slept their way to the top …”

Competition lies at the root of much creative blockage. As artists, we must go within. We must attend to what it is our inner guidance is nudging us toward. We cannot afford to worry about what is in or out. If it is too early or late for a piece of work, its time will come again.

As artists, we cannot afford to think about who is getting ahead of us and how they don't deserve it. The desire to
be
better
than
can choke off the simple desire to
be.
As artists we cannot afford this thinking. It leads us away from our own voices and choices and into a defensive game that centers outside of ourselves and our sphere of influence. It asks us to define our own creativity in terms of someone else's.

This compare-and-contrast school of thinking may have its place for critics, but not for artists in the act of creation. Let the critics spot trends. Let reviewers concern themselves with what is in and what is not. Let us concern ourselves first and foremost with what it is within us that is struggling to be born.

When we compete with others, when we focus our creative concerns on the marketplace, we are really jostling with other artists in a creative footrace. This is the sprint mentality.
Looking for the short-term win, ignoring the long-term gain, we short-circuit the possibility of a creative life led by our own lights, not the klieg lights of fashion.

Whenever you are angered about someone else beating you out, remember this: the footrace mentality is
always
the ego's demand to be not just good but also first and best. It is the ego's demand that our work be totally original—as if such a thing were possible. All work is influenced by other work. All people are influenced by other people. No man is an island and no piece of art is a continent unto itself.

When we respond to art we are responding to its resonance in terms of our own experience. We seldom see anew in the sense of finding something utterly unfamiliar. Instead, we see
an
old
in a new light.

If the demand to be original still troubles you, remember this: each of us is our own country, an interesting place to visit. It is the accurate mapping out of our own creative interests that invites the term
original.
We are the
origin
of our art, its homeland. Viewed this way, originality is the process of remaining true to ourselves.

The spirit of competition—as opposed to the spirit of creation—often urges us to quickly winnow out whatever doesn't seem like a winning idea. This can be very dangerous. It can interfere with our ability to carry a project to term.

A competitive focus encourages snap judgments: thumbs up or thumbs down. Does this project deserve to live? (No, our ego will say if it is looking for the fail-safe, surefire project that is a winner at a glance and for good.) Many hits are sure things only in retrospect. Until we know better, we call a great many creative swans ugly ducklings. This is an indignity we offer our brainchildren as they rear their heads in our consciousness. We judge them like beauty-pageant contestants. In a glance we may cut them down. We forget that not all babies are born beautiful, and so we abort the lives of awkward or unseemly projects that may be our finest work, out best creative ugly ducklings. An act of art needs time to mature. Judged early, it may be judged incorrectly.

Never, ever, judge a fledgling piece of work too quickly.
Be willing to paint or write badly while your ego yelps resistance. Your bad writing may be the syntactical breakdown necessary for a shift in your style. Your lousy painting may be pointing you in a new direction. Art needs time to incubate, to sprawl a little, to be ungainly and misshapen and finally emerge as itself. The ego hates this fact. The ego wants instant gratification and the addictive hit of an acknowledged win.

The need to win—now!—is a need to win approval from others. As an antidote, we must learn to approve of ourselves. Showing up for the work is the win that matters.

TASKS