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| As I enjoy a homemade cappuccino via my Starbucks Barista™ machine and wonder when my internet connection will come back I approach another news letter with foreboding and wonder. Foreboding in how I will craft another missive that might possibly speak to someone else and wonder at the ability to do that at all. Not the writing but the speaking to someone else and have them understand. Communication is no trivial thing and as a friend of mine used to purposefully remain silent for fear of being misunderstood I understand his predicament. Yet it is more than being understood. It is entertainment, it is movement of the soul, and it is the reaching out from one human to another in a connection that cannot be conjured up out of thin air nor flippantly cast about with cavalier egotism. |
| ASIN: B085272J6B |
Product Type: Kindle Store
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Amazon's Price: $ 9.99
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What is it that we have to show for the end of our lives? Do we measure it by wealth accumulated? Is it fame once remembered or a lasting legacy? Is it a large family and friends who love us? Is it all a lie? Those who die with the most toys leave their survivors with the most junk to get rid of and squabbles over an inheritance better spent when alive than in creating more trust fund brats. Is it the feeling of long lasting meaning in the lives touched and served than in personal dreams spoilt unrealized?
I used to blame the “market” and the “business of publishing and entertainment” for the lack of realization of my own dreams until I realized I cannot be like someone else and it mattered not how the whole system functioned; if it did not fit me it did not fit. I stopped trying to be that something else and fighting within myself. There are things that need to be done to have that kind of life and they were things that I was not really willing to do. Call it lack of effort or ambition but I soon found my threshold for what I was willing to undertake to “make the grade”. It is something of finding a voice in the teeming throng that is uniquely mine and being willing to practice that voice even if it meant letting go of the glitter and gleam of what others might have. I hear others on this site lamenting this or that about success and the lack thereof. Some are driven like cattle and others do the driving. It is the ordering of life as we each fall into our respective roles and either become miserable or agitate for what we cannot have or become resigned to the life we are dealt. We are not all made to be successful as most of us define it. Though by what measure do we liken success or failure will surely differ from one individual to another we can either accept the likes of Simon Cowel’s version of success or failure or we can press on with what we are good at.
Publishing a novel may be a measure of success for most of us or however one wants to be published. The world certainly uses this as a measure of success or failure. Perhaps your imagination is not meant for that form, have you failed? If your measure of success is to be a famous novelist then I suppose you have failed, and you would not be alone. Actually, you would be in a very great crowd with so much company that it would hardly seem to be out of the norm. Add famous _____ to any form of entertainment and you have your formula for either success or a lifetime of miserable wishing. For some it is the drive to the top that keeps them going and doing anything to get at it. But once it is gotten, then what?
I peaked early on in my professional career, although ten years hardly seems like a peaking or a rising star but once I achieved what I had set my sights on I realized there was nothing left to do. Well, to keep working and learning is an obvious but there was nowhere else to climb job wise once I became a systems and network administrator. I either have to change careers and change what I do to get to that next level of prestige like a Cisco Certified Inter-network Engineer and move into positions that pay a lot more and expect a lot more of your time or go into management that pays a lot more and expects even more of your time. Many who peak or find fame early on find themselves wondering what is next and for some it is a constant shifting from one thing to the next to find what will satisfy. Artistically this should always be our focus to stave off stagnation in creativity; but there is a difference between what always evades satisfaction and a focus that leads you to be creative no matter where you are and what you are doing.
I preach this message often I think because I have to learn it still. I am a perfectionist and nothing short of success that is measured by the highest mark will do. A good lesson in humility is to describe to someone what you do creatively and watch their reaction. It may seem small and nothing to you because your own goals might be set so high that you can only see them when the clouds break. People who preach success tell you to set lofty goals and a goal that is easily attained is a goal set too low. What should a writer’s goal be? It is certain that those at the top of our pantheon of success set this very goal for themselves. Success as a goal seems to me to be a false god. It wants our attention and feeds off of our drive to serve it. But are there other more base goals that in the end produce more fruit in a life than the ever elusive siren call of fame? The goal to produce a work that speaks a message, a book that takes years to write and craft, a play that entertains a small crowd and is remembered years later in fond memory, or a poem that meets a friend’s need in time of sorrow or distress; are these not goals more worthy of our time? These may not feed the ego or satisfy the gods of success but they produce fruit that brings satisfaction nonetheless.
It takes time to find ones voice creatively and experimentation and lofty goals are a part of that discovery. It is easy to allow discouragement to take hold when the voice does not come or sounds more like TV’s Erckel!  Cut yourself some creative slack now and again and allow for some small successes that are measured by friends, family, and a small following here on this site or in your community.
phil1861
What are some of your successes? Are you proud of them or ashamed because they are not large enough?
What are some of your goals in creativity?
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This go around I’ve pulled some items about goals and goal making, enjoy the variety of insight and advice from these fellow authors.
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Question from my last NL 06/04/06
How would you characterize your own creative spirit?
bazilbob
Submitted Comment:
I never noticed that stories are rarely taken from 'real life' before! Although I would say that the inspiration for them always comes from it, even though the stories themselves leave that behind them. I tell stories for 2 reasons: either just because I enjoy it; or because the story won't stop bugging me until i do!
bazilbob
Submitted Comment:
Great newsletter! Thanx for dispelling some of those myths about publishers, I'm sure all your readers learnt something from that! I definately learnt a lot!
bazilbob
Submitted Comment:
You got further than I ever did with novels! I alwasy give up before I even get half-way through. But is that because the story was bad, or just because I didn't give it a chance? The questions you've raised about stories and authors has challenged me to think about it more deeply. Do we create stories or do we merely write them down? I was taught that what you write doesn't matter, it's how you wirte it. Does that mean, then, that any story can be good if you write it well? I don't think so, or do I? To be honest, I just don't know! But perhaps I should give some of those rejected stories a second chance. Or perhaps I should leave them and 'create' new ones. Who knows?! Thanx for making me think, even if you did scramble my brain a little!
mousybrown
Submitted Comment:
As usual, this was another informative and fun newsletter. I am so happy you share your experiences and knowledge with us here at WDC!
spring
Submitted Comment:
I write in spurts of great passion and cannot get it out fast enough at times. Other times, I feel every nuance in the world around me and think of everything I want to say; but it has left my mind by the time I get home.
I am often trapped by the gift/curse of vivid dreams/nightmares which will stay with me for days and often feel as if they really happened. However, when I try to record them on paper, they are always completely lost in the translation.
alexnuma
Submitted Comment:
"..and preach fear and loathing to all efforts at such a pedestrian pursuit."
I can safely say that many of the writing.com community will vibrate to this sentence: congratulations, really.
About freedom of expression: I wonder whether it would not be more honest to say that, since total freedom for all to write or say anything about anybody or anything is taken for granted in some parts of the world, the physical space for expression (books, songs, sermons, speeches, newspapers, etc.) has now become squatted by material useless or even destructive to mankind to the extent that it is in fact a form of censorship disguised as "freedom"? That is my belief, and one that is voiced more and more often.
The shelf for Shakespeare will have 0.5 metres of his own writings, and then 20 to 30 metres of commentators who would have been more useful to humanity had they rubbed their own teeth on the writing paper.
Alec Numa
scribbler 
Submitted Comment:
you know, Michaelangelo was told he would never be able to create the david because of the huge block of marble he chose. I belive it was called the giant and it would be the largest statue of thet time. He sat for weeks just staring at the block and not sculpting, just trying to get a feel for what was inside. He didn't plan to create a work of art, he planned to release it. I think we should go about our writing the same way. Not what can you write on the paper, but what idea is already there, waiting to spring out on your command. Now, wouldn’t that be creative?
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| ASIN: B01CJ2TNQI |
Product Type: Kindle Store
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Amazon's Price: $ 5.99
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For Authors: August 02, 2006 Issue [#1187]
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