Art, like science, springs from questions. From acknowledging what we don’t know, and searching for answers.
“Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous ‘I don’t know’ … this is why I value that little phrase ‘I don’t know’ so highly. It’s small, but it flies on mighty wings. It expands our lives to include the spaces within us, as well as those outer expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs suspended. If Isaac Newton had never said to himself, ‘I don’t know,’ the apples in his orchard might have dropped to the ground like hailstones, and at best he would have stooped to pick them up and gobble them with gusto.”
— Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012), in her acceptance speech for the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature; quoted by Victor Lodato on Writer Unboxed, 7/4/24
I’m sure you’ve had the experience editor, author, and teacher Tiffany Yates Martin describes in this post on persistence: Knocking your head against the wall — figuratively, we hope — over some element of your craft that continues to trouble you. You work hard on it, and you get better, and yet — that’s the thing that tests you, over and over.
“These things that vex you now aren’t because you haven’t learned well enough or don’t have enough talent or skill or experience. They will likely always trouble you from time to time—because this is what a creative career is, just like getting and staying in shape. You have to keep doing hard things because it’s the only way to get you where you want to go. … We may keep making the same mistakes, facing the same challenges, and missing the same blind spots in our work. Persisting doesn’t mean that you get to the point where that never happens. It means that when it does—and it will…it always will—you know how to fix it and have your tools at hand, maybe not immediately, but eventually.” – Tiffany Yates Martin, What It Means to Persist
Me, I think that element that continues to test you is probably one of the things you do best and care most about, which is why you so want to get it right.
(Photos taken by the author at Roozengarden, Mount Vernon, Washington.)
I’ve long followed Dan Blank of The Creative Shift and deeply appreciate his insights into applying our creativity to our sharing and promotional efforts, as well as his emphasis on building and supporting the creative community. So I’m sharing this recent quote from his Substack article:
“Support those who create before they are gone. Is there an author whose work you appreciate? Send them a thank you email. Is there a local bookstore you love, but you just don’t get there often enough? Take a trip this week and set the intention to spend a certain amount of money to support them. Is there a local nonprofit in the arts that you admire? Go to their website and see how you can support them, even if it is just showing up for an event or spreading the word.”
We’re big supporters of local galleries and art centers, and love going to openings — First Friday Art Walks are especially great in the summer. This week, I took Blank’s advice and wrote thank you emails to the authors of two books I recently read: Anthony W. Wood, author of Black Montana: Settler Colonialism and the Erosion of the Racial Frontier, 1877-1930, and Michael K. Johnson, author of A Black Woman’s Montana: The Life of Rose B. Gordon, the daughter of a former slave who was born in a small central Montana town in 1883 and lived most of her life there. I read both after I finished my short story collection featuring another early Black Montanan —All God’s Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection — coming in September, so they didn’t directly contribute to the writing, but both books helped me better understand Mary’s time and era in Montana, something that will be a big part of my book talks this fall.
Will either man reply? I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. I simply wanted to acknowledge their work, something I suspect authors of books that lean toward the academic side don’t often hear! (Wood’s book is more academic than Johnson’s, but both are excellent explorations of a little known part of Montana history.)
So what can you do this week to support your creative community — local or otherwise?
(And no, I’m not fishing for thank you notes — spread the love around!)
I subscribe to the newsletter of Tiffany Yates Martin, an editor, teacher, and writer. She recently wrote about meeting artist and illustrator Bob Eckstein at the 2024 Erma Bombeck Writers’ Conference, and talking with him about his work. One topic was creative confidence—although that’s my term, not theirs—and I very much appreciated this observation:
“[I]t’s more than simply believing in yourself. It means allowing yourself a free hand in your initial creative efforts, knowing that you have the talent and skill and persistence to be able to continue to hone it in subsequent revisions to make it what you want it to be. That kind of faith is freeing, allowing you to take chances, to loose your wildest imagination, to risk failing because you know it doesn’t make you a failure. It’s simply one step on the road to success.”
It’s a natural follow-up to last week’s quote about perseverance, because you get confidence not from rubbing a magic shamrock, but from doing the work.
“Don’t quit. It’s very easy to quit during the first 10 years. Nobody cares whether you write or not, and it’s very hard to write when nobody cares one way or the other. You can’t get fired if you don’t write, and most of the time you don’t get rewarded if you do. But don’t quit.“ — Andre Dubus
“[A]llowing yourself to feel pride and delight in your craft is what keeps you coming eagerly back to it day after day, which is what keeps you constantly improving.
Be honest with yourself: How do you feel when your daily writing time approaches? Are you chomping at the bit to get in there and start weaving your imaginary worlds? Or do you dread it, worrying about whether you’ll hit your word count, whether you’re any good, whether the story is working, whether anyone else will ever read it or like it?
Which approach do you think is more likely to entice you back to the desk? Which do you think is more likely to put you in the relaxed, open state of mind required to tap into your fullest, freest creativity? …
Let yourself love what you do.” – writer, editor, and teacher Tiffany Yates Martin, newsletter, 4/4/24
A few weeks ago, I had to replace the wireless mouse and keyboard I use (liquids were involved but Mr. Kitten is blameless), and in the process, cleaned out the lap drawer tray on my desk where the keyboard lives. I had all kinds of notes and quotes taped inside it. (Plus some fur, for which Mr. K is entirely to blame.) This one is worth sharing:
“You never get it done and you cannot get it wrong. Life is supposed to be fun: you are creators; you are a focusing mechanism, and you are here in an environment that is very conducive to that. When you get hold of an idea, play it out for the pleasure in it. If you are doing it for any other reason, then you are not connecting to your Source Energy.”
– Abraham, via Esther Hicks
(So maybe you aren’t keen on spiritual entities channeled via humans. Not sure I am, either, but let’s forget that and focus on the substance. A reminder, regardless.)
In April, I went to both Left Coast Crime, the mystery fan convention held in late winter or spring somewhere in the West, and Malice Domestic, the fan convention celebrating the traditional mystery held in Bethesda, Maryland the last weekend in April. Two weeks apart — remind me not to do that again. But it was great fun. (More photos below.)
Nominees for the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel (clockwise from lower left: Korina Moss, Tara Laskowski (winner), Annette Dashofy, Ellen Byron, Leslie Budewitz (moderator), and Gigi Pandian)
I love meeting readers in person, and both cons are great opportunities for that. It’s also wonderful to hear authors, readers, booksellers, and editors speak on panels about various aspects of the writing craft, bookselling, and publishing. The conversations over coffee or dinner and in the hallways are priceless, especially for a writer like me who is happier and healthier because I spend most of my time alone with people who only exist because I made them up.
I always come home exhausted, but inspired. Inspired to read more, write better, connect with more readers and writers. No doubt that’s why I reached for a notebook during Nina Simon’s remarks on accepting the Lefty for Best Debut for Mother-Daughter Murder Night, when she said “Creativity comes from the community.”
It does, doesn’t it? From our brains and hearts, but in communication with all we experience and all those we connect with.
On this writing journey of yours, don’t go it alone. Create a community, online or in person, with others who care about books and creative work just as you do. Nurture it. You — and your readers — will be happy you did.
Join the fun next year! Registration is open for both Malice and LCC.
Three Sisters in Crime presidents! Past President Lori Rader-Day (2019-20), me (2015-16), and current president Kelly Oliver
I’m a big fan of the group blog Writer Unboxed, where more than 30 authors share advice on the craft and business of writing, and on motivation and inspiration. On the surface, this quote seems to speak mainly to authors of fantasy or magical novels, but I think it says more than that. It touches on a point I’ve often made here, that our work should say something true, something not immediately visible. Something you have to quiet your own mind and listen to the world to grasp, and to figure out how to express.
“Where do writers get their ideas? Sure, we might just be making it all up. But what if a writer is the only point of contact with an urgently real-in-its-way world that’s hidden from all others? We rub the membrane thin, and story leaks out. Or maybe we raise our lightning rods, and story flashes down our arms and onto the page. Or we open a door, and the ideas rush in. Choose your metaphor, but in every case, it is your role as a writer to document those moments of connection. Without your books, other worlds remain obscured. Without you, we will never be transported to the time and place that you alone can find.” — Kristen Hacken South, “Thin Places,” on Writer Unboxed
