Heres the thing, I think. The thing is: all of us artists, and by artists I mean writers, and photographers and painters, in fact, let me rephrase: the thing is that all of us humans- there thats better- all of us at one point think we suck, we think whats the point, we think we think we think we think. We think too much and what we need to do- what I, at least, am trying to do is: just do the work. Heres my latest mind tattoo (which you can borrow if you like) and, which I have had to offer up to a few writers lately: Get over yourself. Im trying to. Seriously. Listen: everybodys insecure. Everybody wonders if they should be doing this, whatever this is. Do it. Write. Paint. Take pictures. Create. Stop whining and get to work. Write a shitty sentence. (We all have.) There are so many shitty sentences in the world. Get over it. There- that was a shitty sentence I just wrote. And yet and still, I am continuing on. You, on the other hand, may have stopped reading by now. No matter. I forge on. I have been stuck on this Joan Didion quote this weekend, I suppose almost everyone who writes is afflicted some of the time by the suspicion that nobody out there is listening. Now, if Didion said that, Joan Didion- one of the masters- we should feel a sense of relief that we arent that special in feeling that same concern of Do I matter? Is anyone listening? Do I suck? Do people think x,y, or z about me? The answers, consecutively are: ~Yes, you matter. ~Some people are listening. At least one person is listening. Some are not listening at all. ~You do not suck but sometimes you may write a shitty sentence. (Or take a shitty photograph or mess up in a very human way.) Someone on this page wrote that we should make our mistakes out loud. Said he learned that while taking guitar lessons. Something like that. But mostly, you do not suck. Dont wallow in your own suckery. ~Some people do think x, y, or z about you. Get over it. Keep working. Keep creating. xo jp and with that, Im out to live in book proposal land… Love you guys. Feel free to share. xx Jennifer Pastiloff jenniferpastiloff
Posted on: Sun, 04 May 2014 21:25:47 +0000