So this is what I have been struggling with. What to do next? The support and feedback I have received so far has been wonderful, and helpful. But guess what? I really have not known how to handle it. I’m used to self-deprecation and have been so used to not even showing up creatively let alone revealing it to others, that my creative heart and ego have fought over the energy that getting started has generated. I have to say that I have been sitting back just enjoying the fact that I have done something. Phew. But now?
What now? For a couple of days there has been a growing niggling feeling. You can’t stay here, Cait. You must move forward. Else you’re stuck at just beginning. And a start is good but a continuing is better and a completion is AWESOME. So go for awesome, not just something done but all done.
I realised last night that I had replaced my usual “not good enough” mantras to do with my work, with “not doing enough” of my writing. I love that line from Whoopi Goldberg’s character in Girl Interrupted, where she advises Winona Ryder’s character that the asylum / mental hopsital is only a station along the way, not a destination.
And that’s what’s got me out of bed this morning at 5.30 to write. And I’ll keep punching through the old barriers, old thought patterns, old conditioning of myself until I get to completion. And I have renewed respect for writers and creatives everywhere who push through this stuff all the time, every day, sometimes every hour.
By the way, Clare Bowditch’s interview with Missy Higgins is another inspiration. MH really got creatively burnt out and had to take some time out for the creative well to replenish itself. I can understand how that could happen. But one of the most inspiring things about this, is that she has come back with this gorgeous, vulnerable, relevant album which is even more authentic an inspiring than her last. Go MH and CB and all gorgeous creatives who dare boldly and push through resistance, challenges, with elegance.
Love what you do and go on, do something….
Have you ever been stuck?
There Are No Accidents 
YES I love that Higgo interview, it’s one of my favourites too.
Made me realise even spectacularly talented people get blocks. And she is superbly honestas well.
I laughed my ass off at the bit where she gives advice to meditate… then admits she’s a crap meditator… then gives advice to read Alain de Botton, and admits she has his books but hasn’t read them. Missy and me are so matchy matchy 🙂
She’s naturally funny is Whoopi. She’s the sort of counsellor I’d see and I’d be.
Matchy matchy here too. Ah well. C, new habits take serious time, so be gentle with yourself! That’s why Nanowrimo is so good- you’re forced to trial the ‘serious’ writing habit every day for a month.