There’s plenty of wisdom out there that suggests the best way to write, or make anything, is to show up at the desk, the computer, the canvas or the notebook and do it. To create the discipline, focus and willpower to push through and fight the “Resistance,” a la Steven Pressfield, that inevitably comes along with doing your most important work.
“The most important thing about art is work,” Steven Pressfield says. “Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.”
And while I understand and appreciate this perspective–and have spent *many* long days and nights battling my creativity, fighting fear and self-doubt, and making art this dramatic and painful act of “sitting down and trying"–more and more I’m realizing it doesn’t need to be that difficult. That way of working doesn’t work well for me.
Instead, if I simply inspire myself, the writing, the ideas and the creativity freely pour out of me with such a sense of ease and peace that even my critic goes in hiding for a little while.
Writing has never been the challenge. Words form like my heart beats. The challenge has long been designing the creative process and flow that serves me, and realizing that what works for someone else may not resonate. And that’s okay.
This trip is teaching me that what inspires my flow is as simple as walking down an enchanting street, as I am now, creating the stage for the words to form. It’s being moved by natural beauty and experiences that make me feel something, so I am moved to put those feelings into stories. It’s going alone into a cafe or wine bar, notebook in hand, which inevitably leads to encounters and conversations that help connect the dots.
Sure, it isn’t always practical or realistic to explore Italy for several weeks at a time, but wherever you are, I bet there is someone, something or some experience that will move you, open your mind and inspire your best work. That will make you FEEL something so you can translate those feelings into art.