“Creative work needs solitude. It needs concentration, without interruptions. It needs the whole sky to fly in, and no eye watching until it comes to that certainty which it aspires to, but does not necessarily have at once. Privacy, then. A place apart––to pace, to chew pencils, to scribble and erase and scribble again.”
Mary Oliver
“The creative does not live off wins. The creative lives off the work. That’s what keeps her nourished.”
Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 66)
“Like the volcano or the Phoenix, the creative process is an inferno that makes room for something new, something brilliant, something lovely. It’s messy. It’s bloody. It’s demanding. It’s rigorous. But, it’s also human. We destroy things not out of hatred but out of love—to make room to till the soil and plant the seeds of our vision. So, when you find yourself feeling self-destructive, don’t panic. Instead, reflect. What vision are you subconsciously making room for?“
Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 62)
“While competition certainly makes sense in the world of sports—where at the end of each game somebody wins and somebody loses—there’s no place for competition in the arts. One way to determine whether or not art is ‘successful’ is if it’s original. Ironically, it’s impossible to be original in the arts if you’re competing with another artist, because to compete is to agree you are playing the same game. And so in art, to compete is to lose.”
Cole Schafer
“Sometimes I’m afraid to write. While I love to tell stories, I occasionally freeze when I face a blank page. And I know I’m not alone. From the memoirs of famous artists and authors to discussion boards populated by blocked writers, it’s clear that, at one point or another, almost everyone struggles to overcome the sneaky creative fear author Steven Pressfield refers to as ‘resistance.’ Over the years, I’ve learned that (1) you just have to take a deep breath and get started, and (2) everything is easier once you have a first draft—no matter how bumpy it may be.”
Aytekin Tank, Automate Your Busywork (Page 103)
