Julia Cameron is 100% responsible for teaching me how to paint a room; using your vision as a tool, allowing it to act as a guide when you begin to write. Rather than feeling frumpy and dumpy, poor and without purpose, the union of words becomes thoughts when you allow your eyes to touch every corner of a room, even if it’s currently sitting empty.
The idea of never being in the mood to create is human nature; writing, drawing, sewing, baking or mowing the lawn requires work and the last thing we need is more food to toss onto an already oversaturated plate. The choice becomes clear, there’s no reason to figure out better ways to connect the dots so we give daily birth to bloated excuses that are much too heavy to carry forcing us to stop.
I write, you might blog; same thing. If you blog 100 or 300 times a year, the end result is a book ready for display on Amazon.com. I doodle with multitudes of colors; you might be a closet artist whose works are seen only by family members and your dog Sparky. I have failed horribly in the gallery world. My perfect fantasy has always been to doodle 50 to 75 works into a canvas notebook and place the entire presentation into a shadow box then sell it without the buyer knowing there are 49 other works hidden behind the expression they so love. Can you imagine the look on their face when several pages down the road the frame is changed out and poof...what the heck?
One of my signatures is placing a letter behind every painting, for later discovery, when you least expect to locate a note from a passerby…somewhat like a message in a bottle. I penned out the journey of a beautiful angel, expressing deep sorrow in not creating an original for them…for the only one of its kind had suddenly vanished. I had mistakenly placed it on the top of my car and drove off. Poof! Gone! Two years after sharing the painting with the new owner they discovered the letter and sent the painting back. They only wanted originals.
Talk about not being in the mood to create!
Each of us…including your Mother in law and her twelve kids named Ralph endures the downside of creative flow. My Stepfather Joe would spend hours in his self built garage creating like a wild man but would never display his works of Joe-isms. Being a kid, I had to do what kids do…bust the lock on the door and explore. The man was handcrafting a boat. Not something you find at Sears or Walmart.com but a really cool water kisser you find only in movies. The day he finally grew enough confidence to wear it outside in the realms of reality, he showcased the design to the family and said, “Let’s go camping.” Once at Dead Man’s Basin near the center of this nation’s fourth largest state, he placed the boat on the water and it sunk. He never created again. All he’s done is chop wood in the backyard preparing for cold Montana winters.
Everything we touch and or make part of our lives comes with a beginning middle and end. The problem is, what we start with doesn’t always make it to the horizon so the ending falls into the bucket of another great excuse as to why we give up so easily. How many times did Thomas Edison try to invent the lightbulb? What if his chapters would’ve been run down by too many text messages or free willed willingness to hit the web just because it’s there?
Nothing draws me closer to a conversation than listening to someone’s beginning, middle and end of the journey. The writer in me wants to paint the room. Basically meaning, if we take the time to listen to the storytellers around us, what’s being laid out are the ingredients of depth. The Brady Bunch was totally candy compared to the knock down drag out battle royals that really take place within the ranks of family. They made those kids look beyond far out funky…the only thing real about the show was Mike and Carol were the first husband and wife in television history to be featured in the same bed.
Conviction versus commitment; where do you stand on your trail leading toward the horizon?
Conviction is having a firm belief, an act of convicting.
Commitment is pledging or engaging ones self.
Belief versus physically doing something.
For thirty three years the words I write and speak hold great conviction when connected to the thought of completing a book I started in the eleventh grade. Until recently I’ve never been committed to the idea of making it my realty. I’ve written music from the tales it tells, even gone as far as designing the front and back cover of what it’s going to look like once published. The entire layout of my beginning, middle and end are present…the final step of editing keeps pushing the writer away. Styles change as do ideas and once you begin something new there must be an ending.
In 1979 the book was completed 100% but its original presentation was in pencil. It had to be typed. I wasn’t interested…it had nothing to do with radio. The book was set aside until 1994 when I elected to rewrite the story in handwriting again while on the air at a local radio station. Once complete, I began the journey of typing only to notice it stunk like a skunk who took a bath in too much poetry. I had become addicted to Shakespeare and vowed to write a stage performance more than a book. In 2001 I went after the book again, to dumb it down, to make it a story not a rock opera. I lost interest when my first book One Man’s 1021 Thoughts was spotted by a publisher…so I took up spiritual writing.
I feel like my fricken Dad! This boat keeps sinking and all I’m doing is chopping wood.
So why share the story of this book? Because I’m not alone. Harry Potter and Twilight are done. The next great novel is waiting to be born. Just like Harry and Edward…the creators were and still are very average ordinary people who unlocked their creative flow and changed the way people read. If I’m truthful enough to you about the struggles of writing and or creating anything, it might finally convince you to take your boat from my Father’s garage and figure out why it didn’t stay on top of the water.
He openly admits that it’s because he didn’t seal it. His honesty is the reason why I never stop dreaming. I challenge you to learn the fine art of learning how to paint the room. Make your beginning middle and end something to proud of and not another project tossed into a box waiting to be discovered long after you're gone.
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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