I think eventually I have understood what it means to be an artist. To describe it with a metaphor: You are an instrument that is played by God Himself. A constant flow of brilliant ideas is always present in your environment, in every tree, every flower, every color and every stone. Someone who is an artist just knows how to get access to that flow, how to listen to it and write or paint or compose or carve what it is whispering in their ear.
Thanks to a great book I think I mentioned before (‘The Artist’s Way’ by Julia Cameron) I can now say that I know what writing REALLY is all about. It’s not about perfection, it’s not about grammar, it’s not about the perfect writing style like I thought until now. It’s about loving it. It’s about enjoying it and not considering it as a necessary exercise that needs to be done. Art is so much more than that! And it doesn’t matter whether it is in the form of words, colors and shapes, notes or anything else I can’t think of at the moment.
The most important thing is to have fun with what you’re doing.
I consider myself lucky that I found out at such a young age. Now I know that I don’t become one of those pathetic forgotten writers who burned their beautiful pieces of art instead of taking the leap and getting published (or even getting anything done). I will never burn or delete anything. Everything has some value, although that’s not visible at first sight. Or even at second, or third …
Anyway, I just have to keep that in mind. Today I met two other writers who are living in my town and of whom one is also participating in NaNoWriMo (yay!). We had a great talk for a little more than two hours. We laughed, we had fun, and we talked business – writing business of course. It was huge fun! I can’t believe how someone can have so much fun, such a perfect meeting with two complete strangers. At the end of the session they weren’t strangers anymore … and that’s the thing that feels best about it … I guess I can call Eva whenever ...
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