Two Writers Lift My Creative Melancholy

The Amateur's Advantage and What the Creative Process Is

Writing on a Sunday in 2017 when it all began

People like us want to matter.

We want to spend our moments well—and as these minutes accumulate, so our lives—in ways that make a difference.

I am five weeks out from my book’s pub date on April 15 and there are SO MANY THINGS to get done. I’m an early riser; I typically make little lists and charge into the day.

But I’ve been suddenly struck with melancholy. There’s an accumulation of things: A dear friend died unexpectedly last week. My grandkids just visited and I yearn to spend more time with them.

The news.

Against these events a voice whispers, “Who are you kidding? Your story doesn’t matter.”

It’s just a skip to: “You don’t matter.”

What do people like us do?

We remember.

Do It for Love

When I first began thinking about writing a book, I was typically head down, fully engaged in a professional career as a senior marketing executive. Not much breathing room for thoughts of any other pursuit. It literally took a kick in the gut to force me to remember a promise I’d made myself decades before.

Changing the course of my life did not happen over night, of course. But I’ve recalled again and again, a few writers who wrote something I read at just the right time.

For example, one day I read the definition of “amateur” in

Austin Kleon’s book Show Your Work!It caught me like a fish hook.

Kleon shared, “Today it is the amateur— the enthusiast who pursues her work in the spirit of love, regardless of the potential for fame, money, career—who often has the advantage over the professional.”

Why the advantage? Because for the amateur the field’s wide open to sow whatever funky seeds come to mind and then see what pops up. And it’s done in the spirit of love.

Huh. Not the defaults I’d learned: “fame, money, career.”

Such a contrast to my normal state. So foreign to the mental mechanics I’d trained to be second nature: Being averse to experimentation, adept at metrics, reliant on research, masterful at meetings.

The idea of being an amateur felt like a permission slip.

Be a rookie.

It’s Normal to Take Awhile

I’ve written before about how I ultimately sputtered a start into being a writer: I forced myself to write a weekly newsletter. An agonizing Sunday routine of such angst and vulnerability it literally took me all day.

Patient friends and laughing family willingly gave me their email addresses so I’d be accountable to people I cared about and so send it out.

Sometime in those early stages I read a statement from Ira Glass, the creator behind the Pulitzer Prize-winning public radio program/podcast, This American Life.

His comments on the creative process proved to be a godsend. (This innovative You Tube version is fun to watch.) Here’s his response to what the creative process is.

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, and I really wish somebody had told this to me.

All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there is this gap. For the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good. It’s not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not that good.

But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you. A lot of people never get past that phase. They quit.

Everybody I know who does interesting, creative work they went through years where they had really good taste and they could tell that what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short. Everybody goes through that.

And if you are just starting out or if you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week or every month you know you’re going to finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you’re going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions.

I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It takes awhile. It’s gonna take you a while. It’s normal to take a while. You just have to fight your way through that.—Ira Glass

Get out there. Butt in chair. Do the work. Buckets of it. Make mistakes. No holds barred. Be tired, be distracted, be inspired, be. . .

You get it.

As I write, my melancholy is lifting.

What Now

It’s now seven years since I read Ira Glass’ statement. The recollection and reading his words again are making me happy. I’m realizing how far I’ve come. I am grateful beyond words for the new people and skills and incredible books I’ve read since choosing to write full-time.

Grateful for the evolution of my own work.

Even with the thousands of words and many drafts yet to write.

It’s striking me right now that isn’t it interesting that the threat or actual cancellation of so many U.S. programs dedicated to serving others—veterans, children, older adults, dedicated government employees, allies, countries in need overseas—carries the same subliminal message I started this essay with: “You don’t matter.”

People like us notice.

For of course we know that’s not true.

What’s our response? Perhaps a hint lies in the words of Zen monk Shunryn Suzuki: In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind, there are few.

We’re amateurs.

We work in the spirit of love.

Boundless possibilties.

(Melancholy obliterated.)

Let’s go.