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My husband used to run the The Cape Cod Theatre Project where he helped develop more than fifty plays that went on the be produced on Broadway, Off Broadway and around the world.
He used to say that there are two kinds of writers, the ones who write and the ones that need to be locked in a room in order to write. Unfortunately, most of the time, I belong to the second group. I used to avoid my work whenever I could. I can spend days on end googling and on Facebook along with so many of my friends. So why is it that as that us artists who want nothing more than to create, often find ourselves avoiding our work at all costs? What can we do about it?
FEAR looms large over our work. But what kind of fear and what can we do in order to move forward? After many days of procrastination and avoidance, I was finally able to pinpoint some of these fears and learn how to tackle them.
FEAR OF FAILURE: usually goes something like this: I'm not good enough, or I won't know what to write or paint or say or I'm terrible, I suck, so why even begin?
FEAR OF REJECTION: similar to fear of failure but has to do with others and the outside world. “They” will hate this. “They” will make fun of me. “They” won't receive my work. “They” will...reject me.
FEAR OF LONLINESS: Something about making art really brings us face to face with our inherent loneliness, our isolation and also, perhaps, our mortality. Who wants to face that? I'd rather go on Facebook instead.
So, we've named a few monsters but what do we do about them? There is no one size fits all answer but here are some tools that I have seen work:
PERMISSION: One of the antidotes to the fear of failure is permission to fail. Yes, it sounds counter-intuitive but giving ourselves permisison to fail actually allows us to try, to explore, to learn and to grow. One of the best playwriting exercises I’ve ever been given was to write the worst play ever. I've heard some incredible writing come to life when people allowed themselves to truly fail.
PLAY: Sort of similar to PERMISSION but can we just take a few brushes and some paint and go wild? Can we play a few notes and see what happens? Have you ever seen a child create? They have no end result in mind, they're just improvising, you know, like Picasso or Matisse.
SUPPORT: We all know the myth of the lonely crazy artist (usually starving too) but what if we didn't have to go at it alone? What if we could talk about our process with others? What if we had allies and believing mirrors to use Julia Cameron’s term? What if we could ask for help and receive it? What if there was instruction and guidance and even fun?
COMMUNITY: It is my experience that artists thrive in community yet so many of us are isolated and stuck. Communities nourish artists, it's no accident that productions and shows quickly turn into "families." We breathe better in community, we get out of our heads in community, we find ourselves and our place. Whether a class, a program, a project or a group, communities help take courageous creative steps, communities cheer us on.