The creative life isn’t an easy one. You seek to translate the ideas in the head into words or art on the page. Sometimes, the ideas become realities. Other times, the ideas turn into something more wondrous than anything you could ever have imagined. You stand back, wondering, grateful. Many times, though, the ideas crash against the page and burn. The words don’t come. Everything comes up stick figures. You find yourself angry and frustrated—with the work, with yourself.
Writing Life
You Keep Going
To create art is to risk failure. It’s that simple. Some people can’t live with that reality. They want their work to come forth fully formed, Athena emerging from Zeus’ head.
How to be a Better Writer: Face the Lion
A work in progress quickly becomes feral…It is a lion you cage in your study. As the work grows, it gets harder to control; it is a lion growing in strength. You just visit it every day and reassert your mastery over it. —Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
Starting a new draft has fears associated with it. Continuing with the one you’ve begun is a different matter. It has its own fears.
Running the Metaphor
Sometimes, you end up running the metaphor. The rain starts to fall, externalizing, echoing the heart’s aches. It drums against the body, perhaps a soft, warm brush against skin or staccato. Hard, abrupt, cold.
The Blessing of Undistracting Excellence
We will try to sing and play and pray and preach in such a way that people’s attention will not be diverted from the substance by shoddy ministry nor by excessive finesse, elegance, or refinement. Natural, undistracting excellence will let the truth and beauty of God shine through. We will invest in equipment good enough to be undistracting in transmitting heartfelt truth. — John Piper, Desiring God
Pinning down the Details
I’ve always known the importance of details, but working with the production team at The Austin Stone has made the knowledge more concrete. More than that. The knowledge has been etched in sharp relief. Every detail matters, from the background visuals for a song to the timing of the words.