If you’ve been hanging out with me for a while, you know I’ve been going through a big transition with my work and my life — I’m now focusing as much as possible on my own creative expression; writing a sci-fi screenplay and writing a non-fiction creativity guide.
It has been quite a journey, at times up and down, fraught with confusion, scattered with moments of sparkling clarity.
Massive Creative Breakthroughs
I’ve recently had a huge breakthrough with my own creative work as a result of claiming my creative identity in a much deeper way.
I didn’t quite realize it until Elaine pointed it out to me, but I was “leaving the back doors open” by not fully committing to my creative work coming first. She reminded me that it doesn’t matter so much how I’m earning a living at this point, but that my focus needs to be on my creative work, first, and no wriggling out of it!
After debating with her for a while (both before and after we talked — do you ever have imaginary conversations with your friends?), I realized she was right.
I was trying to straddle the fence, to be both, while really being neither.
No Matter Where You Go, There You Aren’t
A while back I wrote a post called, “No Matter Where You Go, There You Are” about how we simply cannot escape our life purpose and life lesson no matter how we might try.
Tonight it struck me that not having an anchored sense of Who You Are is kind of like Showing Up But Not Really Being There, if you know what I mean.
This Whole Thing About Creative Identity
So now you know why I’ve been yak yak yakking about creative identity — it’s made a huge difference for me.
Ever since I did my pièce de résistance work on this (a combination of NLP work and some shamanic work) things have been moving like gangbusters.
Clear decisions left and right, new ideas, big changes, a sense of EVERYTHING being lined up in one direction, and BEST OF ALL: I wrote 10 pages of my screenplay during my sacred writing time last week.
So yummy.
“I Hope You Don’t Think I’m A Journalist”
As part of all this, Elaine reminded me of a story about Julia Cameron (author of one of my bibles, The Artist’s Way), back from when she had started working at Rolling Stone magazine. Her boss said to her, “I hope you don’t think you’re a writer.”
Her response, “Oh, I am a writer. I hope you don’t think I’m a journalist.”
Pow.
We should all be so clear on who we are!
Hi Jenna
Well, there it was, in italics as you hinted: I loved your use of the French phrase “pièce de résistance” in your blog.
And what you say about “showing up, but not really” rings very true at the moment for me. I wonder if that’s a necessary phase, when we’re still uncertain about our new identity and whether it is really “us”? When we’re still floating about with it, not sure which exact harbour we need to anchor in? Or is it just the fear?
Nice work, Anne! You were paying attention, and so you’ll be getting a prize! I’ll send you a special gift coupon in just a little bit.
I think you might be right about the phase of floating with a new identity. But I think there’s also a piece about giving ourselves permission to CLAIM that identity. Seems to me we stay on the fence looking for permission or validation from other people without taking it for ourselves.
Hi Jenna,
You know how I always talk about folks sleepwalking through life? That applies to our creativity. When we start to wake up, we start to feel more alive and more creative. That creativity can take many roads.
It’s way more than art or writing or sculpting – it’s a way of life. Am just about done with my educational op-ed piece for the paper. The world has stalled because the ideas put forth by creative generations BEFORE us no longer fit in this world. Yet, subsequent generations have had creativity schooled out of them. Now we idle at a crossroads of our own passive making.
We need to wake each other up … Anne, it sounds like you’re waking up to your creativity. It doesn’t happen all at once. Best wishes for that.
g.
Giulietta, Love what you said about it being a way of life. Not so easy to find for all of us, but a magnificent something to aspire to.