Did You Show Up For Your Job Today?
One of the best speakers I ever heard discuss creativity and writing was Elizabeth Gilbert, a writer best known for her memoir Eat Pray Love. She also wrote, before that international bestseller, a National Book Award-winning biography of Eustace Conway called The Last American Man, a Pushcart Prize-winning volume of short stories called Pilgrims and a truly excellent New York Times Notable novel called Stern Men.
I mention these accomplishments because I’m betting most of you only know Gilbert from the sudden celebrity stardom brought on by her memoir. You may not have even picked up the book because it was sure to be one of those weird viral quirks that went big just because it was trendy, not because of the quality of the writing.
But Gilbert’s writing blows me away. This is a woman with some serious writing chops, people. And that’s why what she has to say about the creative process is so important.
Gilbert gave a twenty-minute talk on creativity at the TED conference in 2009. It’s an entertaining talk, and I highly recommend it to anyone who’s been feeling lousy about writer’s block or writer’s inadequacy or any of the other issues we writers struggle with now and then.
What I particularly want to draw your attention to, though, is a really important concept:
You are separate from your inspiration.
Gilbert calls it “your genius”. Her thoughts are that instead of striving to be such creative geniuses, we should be grateful that every now and then a little piece of genius drops out of nowhere and flies through us, giving us the ideas and inspirations for the stories we want to write.
This idea is awesome. It takes the pressure off us as writers and puts the focus on hope: We hope that today, a little piece of genius will find us.
Sounds pretty good. Now we just have to hope that genius finds us and we don’t really have to do any work until then, right?
Afraid not.
One day, Gilbert was writing and writing and getting nowhere, having one of those terrible days where nothing comes out right. She sat down her creative entity and gave it a talking-to:
“Listen, you, thing, you and I both know that if this book isn’t brilliant that is not entirely my fault, right? Because you can see that I am putting everything I have into this, I don’t have any more than this. So if you want it to be better, then you’ve got to show up and do your part of the deal, okay? But if you don’t do that, you know what, the hell with it, I’m going to keep writing anyway because that’s my job. And I would please like the record to reflect today that I showed up for my part of the job.”
I think this is brilliant. We’re used to not thinking of our creative endeavors as a job. A job is what makes you money, and then you write because you have to or because you want to or because you need an outlet for your creativity.
We don’t think of writing as something we should do unless the genius has already shown up that day.
Think of it this way: Let’s say you have a job building a house. If you show up every single day to work, but the person who hired you hasn’t delivered the materials to build the house, then the house won’t be built. If, on the other hand, the materials are delivered but you’re not there to receive them, the guy who delivered the materials might just decide that you don’t need them, and he’ll take them away again.
And the house still won’t be built.
It’s your creative entity’s job to deliver the materials. It’s your job to be there when they arrive, so you can take those materials and build something wonderful with them.
That’s why it’s so essential to sit down and write every day, preferably at the same time. Your genius knows exactly where to find you so he can deliver the goods. And if he doesn’t show up with the delivery? Hey. At least you were there.
So the next time you’re stuck, ask yourself this question: did you show up to work today?
James Chartrand is the pro in the know on how to write stories that grab people by the heart and keep them reading. Visit James’ blog at Men with Pens, where he and Taylor will keep you hooked – and get your readers hooked on reading your words.
Excellent post!! Thank you so much!
Katie Lance
Marketing Manager, Inman News
Thanks for this post James! What you say is really true – it is important for us to treat our creative endevours as a job, and to turn up and be present. Whether our muse shows up is another matter, but at least we have tried. And the more that we turn up for work, the more like our muse will come.
Stephen King talks about this too in ‘On Writing’, about how we can’t wait for our Muse to show up on demand and do our bidding. Why should they work hard, if we aren’t prepared to do the actual hard work?
Great post James, thanks again.
Alas, James, you have made the cardinal mistake of ignoring the role of inspiration.
Inspiration is divine and not under the control of any convention like a job.
Yes, sitting down every day to write can work for some people, but not for others.
Your one-size-fits-all way of thinking needs to be re-examined in light of reality. However, I do appreciate your point of view and think highly of you as a writer. Your posts are excellent.
That’s why I always try to make it a point to ready your articles/pieces.
By the way: let me issue a clarification. William Wordsworth wrote his famous poem about “Daffodils” while going for a stroll in the Lake District of England years and years ago.
As for writing, you can write anytime or not at all…it does not always have to be so disciplined or regimented. History is witness to thousands of people who wrote whenever inspiration struck them. Such writers have become famous and some have not at all.
The point is, you don’t have to write every single day at a particular hour. Creativity is about play, not about compulsions or habits. The muse can strike you at any time. Cheerio.
I don’t think James has ignored the role of inspiration at all, and he certainly never said that inspiration cannot strike at any time.
However, there is only so far our creative minds can take us. At some point we have to actually sit down and WRITE. And that takes dedication, hard work, and discipline, just like a “real” job.
Great post. I’m reminded of a quote by the novelist Philip Pullman
“Writer’s block is a condition that affects amateurs and people who aren’t serious about writing. So is the opposite, namely inspiration, which amateurs are also very fond of. Putting it another way: a professional writer is someone who writes just as well when they’re not inspired as when they are.”
I can’t wait for inspiration to strike. I must show up for work every day. One thing that really stood out to me that I’d never really thought of though is the importance of showing up at the same time every day. I’ve always just written whenever. I’m now beginning to see the wisdom of keeping a schedule.
Refer to “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield. It covers this post and this discussion in delicious clarity and simplicity.
Basically: Sit down to do your work and create a pleasing arena which the Muse will wish to enter.
Yeah, you’ve got to show up, but maybe not every day. I do get tired of that meme – that somehow if I don’t write every single day my muse will die or my creativity will dry up.
Not so, at least not for me and a whole bunch of other writers I know.
Many days, yes. On a mostly predictable schedule, yes. And write even on those days when “Idonwanna!” yes.
But not every day. I need some serious no writing time… usually a day or even two a week. Seems to help prime my pump.
With due respect, I disagree, but only partially. Here’s what I mean. Trying to clarify.
Writing works differently for different people. I think the words “discipline, hard work, showing up, job” are over-rated where creativity is concerned. Let us not look at this in absolute terms. Writing is not a job in the sense we understand the conventional nature of work; that ignores the role of the subconscious mind. You can’t force writing to happen or any work of art. Then again, there are exceptions to that rule too. See what I mean. Here we find the principle of relativity at play rather than trying to put the idea into a straight-jacket.
It depends. It varies. It’s different. This is a better way to look at it rather than all the regimented stuff we put ourselves through. You don’t have to sit at a desk every single day and you don’t have to have a morning ritual or daily routine. Again, yes, this works for some writers, but not necessarily for all writers. This truth is a bitter pill to swallow, however, for some people who have a fixation for time-tables and schedules. Art is different, folks.
William Wordsworth would probably never have written the poem “Daffodils” had he been sitting at his desk and plugging away in long-hand (no computers or laptops at that time). Wordsworth just wanted to clear his mind and therefore decided to go for a casual stroll and divine inspiration struck him. The natural world has inspired many creative people.
Inspiration can indeed strike from anywhere, sometimes, as in your Wordsworth example, it does take getting out of the office to inspire “daffodils.” However, I think the point of this post was to point out that sometimes in order to get the work done you have to sit down and simply do it and that this too can bring about inspiration from a different source.
I very much like the idea of a drop of genius occasionally striking me, rather than feeling I have to somehow dredge up genius from within. It just seems to fit more with the whole feeling that accompanies those magical moments of inspiration.
And thinking about it in this way shapes your outlook, in order to help you find more inspiration. Or at least, put yourself in a position where inspiration can find you; put yourself in inspiration’s way, in other words. This might be by reading widely; listening to podcasts; watching films. Genius is just waiting to drop on you from many sources.
Keep the good information comming, we need more authors like you!
This is a wonderful post James. I am thankful that I finally sat down to read it. I have not thought of writing as a job, because I do not receive payment for it. But I believe a change in thinking is required. If I take my writing seriously, I should show it the same respect as I do, my 9-5 job.