Where Did I Leave the Joy Again?

It's easy to lose sight of the joy that's supposed to come hand-in-hand with getting to practice your art.

When you're a kid, you live in that joy. You follow your own creative interests, down any road--regardless of whether that road is marketable or effective or whatever. You don't care. You're doing it for you, and it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. You don't even think of the opinions of others.

As you get older, however, you have to think of the opinions of others. Those people's opinions make a difference in whether you get cast, your book gets published, you get hired...you have to make your art to please other people, whether you like it or not. Keeping the creative joy going can be hard under these conditions. Here are a few thoughts on how to keep it going.

Ignore everyone else in the room. Your performance or novel is not about them--it's about you. For instance, I went to an audition a few weeks ago that was improv-based. These types of auditions have historically made me really nervous. This time, after a conversation with a mentor about how I needed to let go and have more fun, I went in with that attitude--that I was going to have a blast and do something I could genuinely smile about later--whether I got cast or not was out of my control. I really committed to my choices, had a blast in the auditions--and booked the part! I didn't let the people watching make me nervous about acting like an idiot, which is a pitfall of auditions like this.

This can work for writing, too--write like there are no critics. Write like there's no audience. Write for you--write what makes your blood sing. Let other people's opinions work themselves out later.

Forget your ambitions. It's so easy to get discouraged when you're not getting the result you want in your creative career. When you've gotten a lot of rejections lately, when your book is just refusing to follow your neatly-planned plot, when you've been at it for ten years and still aren't making a living. WHen we're kids, we're playing--but when we're adults, the stakes are higher, and there are clear winners or losers. Try to get back into that play mindset--and reject the idea that there's any way to "fail."

Be gentle with yourself. If you've never read The Artist's Way, you should get yourself a copy. One of its suggestions is to take yourself on an "Artists' Date" fairly regularly--to a place that inspires your creativity. Whether that's a museum, a musical, a park, a store...whatever. Do things that inspire you. And take care of yourself. The industry will be hard on you--so that means you can't afford to be hard on yourself. Don't blame yourself for things that are beyond your control. Don't look down on your own work. Be realistic--and if something needs improvement, work to improve it. But always be sure to mentally recognize your own successes as well.

Being creatively successful is so much a mind game. You need to be emotionally strong and able to withstand the difficulties of an unforgiving industry--and a lot of the time that means going easy on yourself when no one else will, even if you're a perfectionist and your instinct is the opposite.

Five Free Tools and Sites for Writers I Can't Live Without

The Internet provides endless opportunities for writers to procrastinate--but also to get stuff done. Here are a few tools and sites online that I've found invaluable--and that may just help you, too!

Freedom. This nifty little program will keep you from going online for an amount of time you specify--up to three hours, or more, I forget. But it's a lot of time. For those days when you'd rather be looking at cute videos of cats on YouTube than becoming a published author, Freedom will cut you off from your go-to procrastination sites--and keep you working on your novel.

Reading Books You Wish You'd Written: Double-Edged Sword?

Last week, in the midst of my massively crazy photo shoot during which I had literally NO time for anything else, I managed to read the entirety of Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone. If you haven't read this book--stop what you're doing. Run, don't walk, to your local bookstore and buy it. Then read it. Right now. I'll wait.

OK, now that you've read it, you know what I mean. BRILLIANT, right? The imagery, like a Dark-Crystal-inspired macabre-beautiful dream from the depths of your subconscious, where everything has a twisted and personal meaning. The sheer creativity of this world and this concept. I just wanted to weep. And I had one single, overriding thought after finishing it, comprised of equal parts envy and awe: I wish I had written this.

My Best Self

My best self always wears a red dress.
Red for the pinprick,red for remembrance.
My best self loves blood on her hands,
sees it as "material."
See how she writes it on the cave walls.

My best self makes every failure into art.
Her poetry makes homeless men go blind.
I've seen her single-handedly levitate whole audiences.
Even her pain is so pretty.

The Artist's Catch-22

I went down to Pennsylvania today to do a photo shoot that involved new actors’ headshots and commercial modeling portfolio pics. The thing about this project is that if you want to get good acting headshots or portfolio pictures, it’s not enough to smile pretty and look nice. Everyone else will be doing that, too. There needs to be an emotion in the picture—one that grabs the person looking by the face and makes them want to see more.

There is only one way to do this. You bring up something from your life. You let it live in your face for a while. Let it inhabit your body. Make yourself a glove for the hand of these feelings. Sometimes it’s good feelings—I think of good times with friends and a giggle rises up like champagne bubbles. I think of a boy who broke my heart, of a song that reminds me of him, and show the camera something I usually hide. It’s about being open. It’s about being vulnerable. Acting is like this too—every audition, every performance. This is what the art asks of you.

Is Writers' Block a Myth?

It’s supposed to be the plague of writers everywhere. Writers’ block—the deadly disease that makes you stare at a blank page for hours, without the slightest clue what to write. I’ve heard of this Writers’ Block. I’ve even known people who claim to have had it. I never get it myself.

Maybe this is because I’m a working writer. As a copywriter, I work under deadlines. I have to get a brochure or an article in to my employer within a certain amount of time, and if I don’t, I don’t get paid. That incentive will kill any budding tendency toward Writers’ Block, in my opinion.

Maybe it’s not fair to say this—I’m sure there are plenty of people for whom Writers’ Block is a debilitating condition. But in my opinion, Writers’ Block is a luxury for amateurs. When your next paycheck is riding on you coming up with something, you come up with something.

Hanging Out at the Intersection of Poetry and Sensuality

I’m a member of this group called the Poetry Brothel. They have groups and events in dozens of cities and countries, and I have to tell you, if you ever get a chance to go to one, do it—it will blow your mind.

At the poetry brothel, patrons get the chance to buy poker chips which they can give to the “whores”—all really amazing and talented poets, both men and women—for a private poetry reading. There are public readings throughout the night as well, burlesque performances, a musical act, tarot, and other fun stuff—but the real attraction is this intimate and interactive new way to experience poetry.

Defining My Relationship With New York

Sometimes you come across a concept phrased a certain way and it just hits you in the chest with its truth and makes you understand a huge facet of your life more deeply. Trolling around Happy Opu the other day, I had an experience like this—when I read a description of New York as a place that has plenty of potential to hurt you—but also a place that “begs you and eggs you on to be exactly who you really are.”

Reading that sentence, I totally understood, in a way I hadn’t quite been able to before, exactly why I’m here—and why I need to be.

I’ve lived in a lot of different places. I grew up in a rural area in Vermont, and I love the country. I love hiking and camping and living in isolated spots in the woods where I can’t see anyone else’s house from mine. I love falling asleep to crickets chirping and swimming in ponds and rivers and going barefoot all summer. If I had kids, I would want to raise them in a place like Vermont. I might want to settle down there myself one day. But not yet.

The Ethics of Commercials

I just landed an agent for commercials. Which is really, really exciting. I'm dedicated to the craft, and there's nothing I love more than Shakespeare and language and real, meaningful theatre that moves people and tries to shake up the world. But I love the idea of doing commercials too. Not because they would satisfy my creative urges, but because they're a good way for actors to make money and advance their careers. There are so few of those out there, folks. You have to give us what little there is.

Want to Write a Novel? Make it Your Job.

This weekend, I've had several conversations with people who want to write novels. I meet a lot of people like this. Would-be writers who insist they have a novel in them, but who just sit down and nothing comes out. Or they're writing about a page a month because they want everything to be perfect. Or they're just not...sitting down, or writing, at all. I've written three novels and am working on a fourth. All are in various stages of disrepair and chaos--I haven't gotten orderly first drafts out of my process so far. But I do have finished first drafts. I can't say it's a perfect process, but it's better than doing nothing.

So if you've been working on your novel on and off for decades already, or you just haven't sat down and started, here are a few tips for getting a finished first draft.

"Write What You Know": Bad Advice?

I took a lot of creative writing classes in college. And over and over again, in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfic classes, I received the same advice from professors: write what you know. I heard this over and over. If I wrote about something beyond my experience, I was sometimes told I was overreaching—and I heard friends and classmates being told the same thing. Often, I was told to dial it back—to reach within my own experience for ideas.

I think this can be great advice—but also very limiting advice. Too limiting if you take it literally. And it depends on the type of writing you’re doing. For instance, I write both poetry and novels. My novels are all over the place—I write fantasy, romance, historical(ish) fiction, and the occasional YA. None of my storylines are ever based on my own life.

Summer In the City--And You're Long Gone from This City

Whatever it is in New York at the moment, it is far from summer. But this line from Regina Spektor’s song “Summer in the City” totally captures my mood lately. I’ve lived in small towns and big cities alike—and sometimes, living in a big city is lonelier.

My boyfriend lives in Europe. And while I have a lot of great friends in New York, I also have a lot of close friends and family live at least several states away, at most an ocean away. Sometimes I’m too busy to think about it—too busy to think, period. But other times I feel the absence of people I love. I wish I could drop in on my parents for some wine and a home-cooked meal. I wish I could meet my sister for an all-afternoon-long lunch-turned-shopping spree. I wish I could drink margaritas with my best friends from college on the roof of a hotel, several times a month. I wish I could come home to my boyfriend.

YA Heroines and the Discovery of Sexuality

I love reading YA. And I love YA heroines. I’ve been seeing them much more in the past few years than I have when I was younger, which is really heartening—it means hopefully the publishing industry is becoming more comfortable with publishing YA novels with female protagonists.

I’ve understood that in the past, publishers avoided female protagonists for YA because while girls will read about girls and boys, boys only want to read about boys—so sales are better for male protagonists. Which I think is a huge shame—because I remember as a child (I grew up in the 80’s) absolutely hungering for strong female characters I could relate to. My favorite character in Lord of the Rings was Eowyn—a minor character to many readers, but to me, she was crucial.