Are you an Artist?

It occurred to me the other day, that I’ve been blogging for over a year about creative writing and the creative process, and I have never stopped to really define Art or and Artist.

I agree with the definition that Seth Godin provides in his book “Linchpin”, which is a very broad definition, and it is basically this:

Art is something that requires some skill and craft to do well, but it is made special by the Artist, who brings his/her whole self into the performance of the Art.

So in other words, just about anything can be Art, as long as you bring some skill and soul into doing it. That means that Art is a whole lot more than writing, drawing, painting, acting, and the other ‘fine’ arts, but also includes things like waiting tables, and rehab therapy, and driving a taxi and many, many other things we don’t traditionally think of as Art.

But no matter what Art we’re talking about, it isn’t Art until there is skill and there is soul.

So if you want to be a writer, a true artist of a writer, you need to pursue increasing skill, but you also need to bring your whole self to the writing; let your readers see from your viewpoint, through your eyes. Let them see you reflected in your work.

If you don’t pursue always increasing your skill, then you are a dilettante, not a real artist, you’re not taking your Art seriously.

If you don’t bring your whole self to the writing, and let yourself be reflected in your work, then you are a hack. A highly skilled hack, perhaps, but a hack nevertheless.

And the same is true no matter what your Art. Bring the skill, bring yourself. You’re an artist.

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How I deal with Procrastination

I’m not saying, by this post, that I’m procrastination’s master and I never procrastinate anything. Believe me, I do all the time. I have championship procrastination days sometimes.

But I’m also pretty good at getting stuff done. I’ve completed two university degrees by distance learning (one undergraduate and one graduate), where I didn’t have set class times or an enforced schedule, just a deadline by which I had to have tests and assignments done. I’ve also gotten quite a bit of both fiction and non-fiction writing done in the last couple of years.

Again, that’s not to brag, just to show that I’ve developed some methods of getting stuff done over the last decade or so, and they work for me. They might work for you too (though they also might not), so I thought I’d share them, if you want to steal them (I’m ok with that).

I have two main tactics for getting stuff done; schedules and record keeping.

My schedule is fairly flexible, but I maintain several instances of “before I do <blank> I must do <blank>. For example, I check email daily, but I try to maintain the standard that I must sit down and write at least one page of fiction before I check my email that day. In other words, before I get involved in everything else that is out to get my attention, I have to get the fiction writing done. I usually don’t get fiction written that day, if I let myself check my email before sitting down to write.

The other thing is record keeping. In my day planner (I use a hard-copy one I got for two dollars at the dollar store) I track a number of things – the books I’ve read, the pages of fiction I’ve written, and the exercise sessions I’ve done. At the end of the week (or the beginning of the next) I look over the previous week, and I have what I have done all laid out for me. There’s no fudging or modifying memories, it’s recorded how much I’ve done, or not done. That record keeping keeps me accountable, and helps me get to the work because I don’t want to disappoint my future self, when I look back over this week.

There’s also a few other things I do. As I discussed last time, I set myself challenges, a playful competition with myself to see whether I can do something. This gives me a performance standard to keep.

I also don’t check social media more than once a day. There are a few social media platforms I’m active on, besides this blog – Tumblr, Facebook and Medium, mostly, but I have the rule that I don’t look at any of them more than once a day. They still can be something of a time suck, but the once a day rule means that I’m at least not constantly interrupting myself to look at them, something that is very disruptive for work that requires concentration, like writing. I’ll check email a little more often – two or three times a day, usually not more often than that.

And one of the more important things, I’ve found, is to be flexible and forgiving. Unexpected things come up, both good and bad, and I need to be able to adjust what I’m doing, be flexible in my thinking and my scheduling, to accommodate them.

I also have to be forgiving of myself, if I’m in a grouchy mood and get caught up in reading stuff online, and I never get to doing something I intended to, in a day. Or sometimes I sit down to write and the words feel like I’m dragging myself over broken glass to get them out. I get a sentence down, and then I got nothing. Bad days happen, I’ve learned I need to simply accept them as a bad day, and assume that tomorrow will be better.

So that’s a quick overview of how I (mostly) overcome procrastination and get stuff done. Feel free to use any of these tactics, if you think they’ll work for you. And let me know in the comments if you have any other method that you’ve found works for you, I’d be interested to hear.

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Challenges, not Resolutions

For the last couple of years, I haven’t set New Year’s Resolutions, I’ve set myself New Year’s Challenges. As a result, in 2016 I’ve written blog posts weekly (or more), and written around twice as many words of fiction than I have in previous years. The years when I’ve set resolutions, nothing much has changed.

So why is that? Being a curious person, I’ve naturally stopped to think about this for awhile.

My conclusion is that it’s all about the underlying psychology of it. Resolutions are based on “I WILL do this”, so that they are all about willpower, changing yourself through sheer determination.

Challenges, by contrast, are “Can I do this?” They’re based on curiosity, exploration, a more fluid and playful approach, instead of the rigid and serious approach of a resolution.

And that’s what makes all the difference.

So again this year, I’m setting myself challenges, instead of resolutions. I’m doing a couple more writing challenges, to continue the productivity of last year. I’m also trying out a challenge to get more exercise, as that was one of the things that I think held me back last year.

The challenges are serious, to the extent that they will require me to push myself, stretch myself beyond what I did last year, but I’m also keeping it playful, as a question to explore instead of something to power through with determination.

Can I do this? I think I can.