Laden...
Hello,
The other night, a friend texted me at eleven o’clock, saying, “You up?” I figured either I was in trouble, or he was. So I replied.
What ensued was a thirty-minute rant on the status of politics in America and what must be done to save our country. I loved it.
Truth be told, I didn’t do or say much. I just listened, and he said thanks for holding space while he ranted. I told him I loved his anger, that he did his best work when he gets riled up. We all do.
As an author, I am often asked whether or not an idea for a book is “good enough.” And the truth is it doesn’t matter. What matters most at the beginning of a project is how you feel.
Begin with emotion.
That is, write what frustrates you, what makes you mad, what absolutely wrecks you, because this is the place from which all great art comes. It’s what moved Picasso to paint Guernica and motivated Frida to find beauty in pain—passion—the same force that allowed Emily Dickinson to turn loneliness into love and how Mazzy Star can take the simplest of melodies and break your heart wide open.
Good art moves us, because it comes from a place of movement, from a deep resonance vibrating in the heart of the one who makes it.
We all must learn to tap into our frustration, anger, and even sadness, and let it out, not as an act of vengeance or grief but as a salve to a world that is bleeding from ignoring its own wounds.
To start writing a book, you must have a big enough idea that it compels you to push through all the difficulties of getting the project done so you can be one of the two in ten people who do what they say they are going to do.
In other words, don’t just write the book you want to read. Write the one you can’t not write. Create the art you can’t avoid creating. Launch the business that won’t let you go to bed at night before working on it.
This is the call of the creator, the unction of the artist: to usher beauty into a universe that is always expanding, hungry for more, wanting you, who is a part of this ever-expanding cosmos, to contribute something meaningful to it.
So, dear creator, are you game?
Shoot me a reply and let me know.
Best,
Jeff
P.S. If you’d like to share this, you can do so on Instagram and Facebook.Laden...
Laden...
