This post is the first in what will probably maybe hopefully be a series of reflections on The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. The War of Art is subtitled Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles. That is something that author Steven Pressfield apparently knows a little about. He was writing [...]
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This post is part of an ongoing series of reflections on my reading of The Creative Habit, by Twyla Tharp. From time to time, I look back at some notes I collected from The Creative Habit to find inspiration for more reflections to share here. The quote below is one I see every time, but [...]
The process of creating renews my spirit, and I find myself attuned to the details of life rather than being stressed by being overwhelmed. I find myself listening rather than shouting into the void. Creating art opens my heart to see and listen to the world around me, opening a new vista of experience. This [...]
Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.” – Steven Pressfield’s final words in The War of Art
I admire, and crave, the freedom my children have when it comes to expressing themselves. My oldest daughter doesn’t need to be called an artist to color, or a ballerina to dance. My younger daughter doesn’t need to be called a soloist to sing, or a comedian to crack a joke. Creatively expressing themselves is [...]
Writing for yourself is a powerful search mechanism: there’s no better way to find out who you are and what you know and what you think. –William Zinsser, On Writing Well
More words from Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: You are going to have to give and give and give and give, or there’s no reason for you to be writing. You have to give from the deepest part of yourself, and you are going to have to go on giving, and the giving is going [...]
In Orthodoxy, the ever quotable GK Chesterton writes: Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. Those words have meandered back into my head while reflecting on yesterday’s quote from Anne Lamott. Chesterton suggests that it is the exercise of expression that helps heal the [...]
“We each have to say it, to say it in our own way. Not of our own will, but as it comes out through us. Good or bad, great or little: that isn’t what human creation is about. It is that we have to try; to put it down in pigment, or words, or musical [...]
