3 – The Grindstone

MODULE THREE

Core Question

How often do you mistake the lack of ideas with a lack discipline?

Core Practice

Cultivate a discipline of being present in your work, “scratching,” capturing ideas, and fighting resistance.

I want to give my life to helping you make better.

It would seem then, that to develop a course that I believe in so deeply would be relatively easy. Shouldn’t the core of what I want to do come naturally and with ease? I wish I could answer in the affirmative. But that would be a lie.

The truth is, doing good work – in our art, or in our lives – is really, really, really hard. There are no easy answers, there are no magic tricks, there are no shortcuts.

Making better is really hard work. Often, creative work can feel like you’re pressed against the grindstone.

It’s a sobering fact, but one that will make your life much easier the sooner you begin to accept it. As you become more skilled, certainly you’ll find that you’re better at this or that part of the process, but making beautiful things, making the world a better place, making your life one of meaning, ain’t easy.

It’s slogging around. It’s getting your butt in whichever chair you must, every single day. It’s scratching about, hunting and gathering for ideas. It’s capturing the ideas your muse offers in nets that are useful. And it’s battling resistance on a minute by minute basis.

For Module Three, we’re going to get down to the nitty gritty with some time-tested, uber practical ways to make better.

KNEES OR BUNS

Our three year old, Ruby, is a girl on the move. She has never had a drop of caffeine in her life, but is as busy as all get out. Especially at the dinner table. We’ve been thankful to have some really great friends who are also amazing parents, and our friends, Shauna and Aaron, are no exception. Shauna tells a story in her book, Bittersweet, about when their little guy, Henry, was just starting to eat with with them at the table. Each night at dinner, they gave him two very simple options for maintaining a presence at the table: “knees or buns.” Once he had gotten himself to the table, he wasn’t allowed to get up or  he’d risk an early bedtime.

The phrase, “knees or buns,” has been incredibly helpful, and keeps Ruby in her place throughout dinner most of the time. But the phrase has also made its way into my work as well. If I am to find inspiration, it must find me, in my chair, at my desk, every day, on my knees or on my buns.

“Inspiration exists, but it must find you working.” – Pablo Picasso

Steven Pressfield, author of one of my all-time favorite books, The War of Art, puts it like this: 

If you wanna get strong, go to the gym.

If you wanna get fast, go to the track.

If you wanna get rich, go to (I’ve never figured that one out).

The point is: where the body goes, the spirit follows.

Therefore, move thy butt.

Put your ass where your heart wants to be.

If you want to paint, don’t agonize, don’t ikonize, don’t self-hypnotize. Shut up and get into the studio. Once your physical envelope is standing before the easel, your heart and mind will follow.

If you want to write, plant your backside in front of the typewriter. Don’t get up from the chair, no matter how many brilliantly-plausible reasons your Resistance-churning brain presents to you. Sooner or later your fingers will settle onto the keys. Not long after that, I promise, the goddess will slip invisibly but powerfully into the room.

That’s the trick. There’s nothing more to it.

Your chair might be a physical one in front of your desk, it might be the dance studio or the rehearsal room; your chair might be standing in front of a canvas, or standing in front of the classroom. Whatever the thing is you want to make, you must come before it on a very regular basis. And you mustn’t get up. You must sit…on your knees or your buns.

TIME OUT

In your workbook answer the following:

What is your “chair?”

How much time do you spend in it?

Do you ever find it hard to stay on your own “knees or buns?”

What is preventing you from sitting or spending time in your “chair” every single day?

LESSON

Because writing is such a gateway to creativity and to our lives, whether you’re a writer or not, pledge to write 500 words a day this week.

Everyday this week, I want you to practice sitting in your chair of choice. Sit there, “knees or buns,” and stare at the blank page, feel the anxiety pulse through your body, and then, in an act of defiance, WRITE.

You don’t need to do it forever.

Just do it or the next seven days and see what happens.

For a bit of inspiration, have a read through this article about Virginia Woolf and the importance of keeping a journal.

SCRATCHING WHEN YOU DON’T ITCH

Now that we’ve found ourselves sitting firmly on our knees or buns we need raw material to come to the table with. We need ideas!

An appropriate question then is:

How do we get ideas in the first place?

And perhaps, more importantly, how we conjure them consistently?

Or, in the words of my friend and this week’s interview subject, Todd Henry, author of, The Accidental Creative, “how do you come up with ideas before you need them?”

The beauty of rituals (say a daily 500 word goal) is that the most elusive ideas begin to appear in the midst of the rigidity. It really is a fascinating, almost counterintuitive process, but I guarantee that if you can develop and maintain a few key personal disciplines for the remainder of the course, you will end with an enormous cache of ideas you didn’t even know you had.

I recently took to Facebook and Twitter and asked people to tell me how they come up with ideas. I was awash in answers.

Twyla Tharp, a world-renowned choreographer, puts most of these bullet points in a category she calls “scratching.”

According to her, scratching is an act best done as a routine designed to gather and collect small ideas to be used at a later date.

In my opinion, it is the single most important tool you can cultivate for coming up with ideas.

Whether it’s on Spotify, or in a museum, I love wandering, hunting, and gathering. It took me awhile to figure out that I was doing this naturally, but once I put some structure to it, it completely changed the way that I worked.

Here’s how it looks for me:

Because many of my ideas come from listening to music, I tend to start there. Every week I carve out an hour in my schedule and begin to dive into the rabbit hole of songs on Spotify. I move quickly, listening for melodies that move me. If it doesn’t do something to my heart in the first couple measures, I move on. But, if something does stir me, I crank the volume, and with pencil (or keyboard) in hand, wait to see what comes. When I do this I’m not necessarily looking for big ideas or even for ideas related to a specific project, I’m just cataloging the things I see or how I feel.

As thoughts come, I write them down in my moleskine or my Evernote. As songs inspire I put them in “mood playlists” or “scratching piles.”

Another way my ideas come is via images, so I often apply this very same technique to Pinterest to great effect.

As you can imagine, scratching works in many different ways for many different people.

For me it might be listening to music and staring at photos of water, for you it might be simply stopping, sitting, and giving your head some space to be free for a spell. There is no right or wrong way to do it.

“Scratching can look like borrowing or appropriating, but it’s an essential part of creativity. It’s primal, and very private. It’s a way of saying to the gods, “Oh, don’t mind me, I’ll just wander around in these back hallways…” and then grabbing that piece of fire and running like hell.” – Twyla Tharp

While this wandering may seem like little more than daydreaming, I agree with Twyla that scratching is absolutely necessary if you are hoping to create.

In fact, I am of the opinion that these small, routine moments of seemingly meaningless gathering when no one is looking has the potential to save you when everyone has their eyes on you.

The power of scratching is enormous. For a tangible example, watch the piece I created below and then read how it came to be.

I had opened my mouth in a creative meeting and shared a big idea. It required flexing muscles that I hadn’t used in a number of years and a lot of work I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to do. A few weeks later I was told the team had decided to go with my idea over a handful of others. Gulp. What had I done? I was given a due date and with that I was out the door.

Weeks later. Nothing came. And I mean nothing. I simply could not bring myself to sit down (knees or buns) and attempt a draft of my idea, which now had to be made into something real. Every time I tried to write, the idea overwhelmed me. I didn’t know where to begin. I had the big idea but nothing to support it.

Or so I thought…

The morning of the day I had to present my new draft, which I still hadn’t written, I sat down and forced myself to write. I forgot about the bigness of the idea and instead looked for something manageable. I decided to start with a scratching pile from iTunes that I had made a few months ago. Slowly I played one song after another remembering the feelings and visions I had when I first heard them. As I let those small scratches wash over me, the big idea began to take shape. The disconnected ideas began to connect all the little dots that made up the huge, previously overwhelming dots of my current project. Suddenly I had a direction, a script was quickly formed, and I was saved.

I had never been more thankful for my scratching pile than I was in that moment. It literally saved me. I could have never known that when I tagged those songs months ago they would be used for this project. In fact, I shudder to think where I would be right now had I not been diligent enough to catalog those tiny little thoughts.

So, scratch when you don’t itch. Make it part of your weekly routine and stick to it. Then capture and catalog whatever comes.

CAPTURE

 “I’m not writing it down to remember it later, I’m writing it down to remember it now.” – Field Notes

In Elizabeth Gilbert’s famous TED talk on her creative process (which I highly recommend you watch), she tells an amazing story about poet Ruth Stone, now in her 90’s. Ms. Stone recounts being on a walk when she is unexpectedly hit with the line of a yet-to-be-written poem. She hears the line coming and then she feels it as if it’s entering her body. She sets off toward her house knowing she has only a matter of moments before the series of words placed just so in her mind are lost forever. She races in, grabs her pen and notepad, grabs the poem by the tail, and splashes the ink onto the page.

The dinner napkin has been become a ubiquitous part of the creative process.

How many stories have you heard of companies, books, entire new philosophies and connections being created all from a sketch on a dinner napkin? I will confess I’ve saved a number of gems, mostly drawn on tiny paper squares handed to me by a United flight attendant.

Once I’ve put my butt in the chair and begun to scratch, I must be ready to grab the onslaught of ideas by the tail and splash ink onto the page. In other words, I must be ready to capture.

Capturing is the only way ideas become real.

Again, this may seem like a simple, “duh” kind of concept, but if we don’t talk about it and develop ways that work for us, we will let those ephemeral beauties slip through our fingers.

In an article by Peter Drucker on the Harvard Business Review, he writes about how Beethoven was a diligent notetaker.

“Some people learn by taking copious notes. Beethoven, for example, left behind an enormous number of sketchbooks, yet he said he never actually looked at them when he composed. Asked why he kept them, he is reported to have replied: “If I don’t write it down immediately, I forget it right away. If I put it in a sketchbook, I never forget it and I never have to look it up again.” – Peter Drucker

Personally, I use two forms of capturing. One digital and one analog.

I have what I’ve named the “Spark File” in Evernote and whenever I have a random thought I pull up the app and write it down. I average probably about 50 of these random thoughts a week. Side note: I notice that the weeks I’ve really stuck to my ritual that I have more “random” thoughts. Hooray! More to capture! For more on creating a Spark File of your own, check out this awesome article by Steven Johnson.

The other device I use is a simple, black moleskine notebook. Oh, and only Pilot G2 .38 Ultra Fine ballpoint pens if at all possible. It may seem silly to desire to work with such a specific style of pen, but you would never fault a painter for wanting such a specific color to paint with, would you? I didn’t think so!

CURATE

Then after you capture, you must curate.

In addition to the hour I spend listening to music or scrolling through images, I schedule 30-60 minutes a week to curate. I go back through the playlist, the scratching pile, or my Spark File and again, but this time I move a little more slowly. Now, I’m looking for connections – connections to projects I’m currently working on. A song for that one scene. An image to send to a designer for reference. A quote that sparks a new chapter. Time and time again, I find that ideas that are needed now are found buried within a mere 90 minutes of work.

Too often we say we don’t have time to brainstorm. Of course, because it feels overwhelming. But, if you can put some structure to it, if you can scratch, capture, and curate, I promise you’ll have more great ideas than you know what to do with.

TIME OUT

In Module Two you discovered how you were moved. Now it’s time to doing something with all that wondrous beauty.

Whatever your medium, pull out your calendar and schedule two meetings (just for yourself) to do the following:

SCRATCH AND CAPTURE: 45 min. – Sometime early in the week.

CURATE: 30 min. – Sometime near the end of the week.

This week, put your butt in whichever chair you must to scratch, capture, and curate!

For a little inspiration, have a peek at my own personal scratching piles and Spark File:

Spotify playlist
Scratching pile Pinterest board
Evernote Spark File (below)

RESISTANCE

In the introduction to my book, UNTITLED: Thoughts on the Creative Process (get it here for free), I begin with the following words:

It is the artist’s job to accept that the work will be very, very hard; to understand the importance of deep reflection, and to fight the forces of fear and resistance, all in the name of filling blank pages and creating beauty.

Probably the most important bit I write in that introduction is that of resistance. Again, another word from Steven Pressfield:

“Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That’s why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there’d be no Resistance.” – Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

C.S. Lewis once said that the greatest thing the devil did was convincing people he didn’t exist. The same could be said for resistance in the creative process. Whether you’re making art or love, if you don’t acknowledge your fear, it will undo you.

So, you ask, does one overcome resistance?

Allow me to tell you a story.

Proteus lives at the bottom of a treacherous cliff near the edge of the sea. You have been told that he has the answer to your question and you are desperate for an answer. As you begin your climb downward, be careful not to loosen any gravel or rocks. If Proteus is disturbed or senses your presence he will surely run. You are told you must sneak up on him quietly, get right behind him, put your hands around his neck, and hold on for dear life. You must hold on to him while you ask your question. As you hold on, Proteus will transform into the shape and form of the thing that terrifies you the most in order to get you to release your grip. But if you can hold on through your fear, he will return to his real form, and answer your question.
(source: Nick Flynn)

I have friends who are moving, contemplating retirement, doing things in their jobs they’ve never done before, becoming first time parents, wrestling with major career decisions, and some who are just starting their “try’s.” And in each instance, my friends must decide whether or not they will venture down to the edge of the sea, sneak up on their fear, and hold on until the terror passes.

Unfortunately, this journey is one very few people take.

No, most of us spend our whole lives doing everything we can to steer clear of Proteus and his cliff. The answers to our questions just aren’t worth the feelings of fear and resistance that accompany the journey. In fact, many of us do everything in our power to never be in situations where we don’t know the answers in the first place. We live safe lives where things are known.

These kinds of people do not change the world.

On the other hand, the people who enact change in their lives, their families, their organizations, and their world, are the ones who will stop at nothing until Proteus gives them what they’re asking for. They make the trek down the face of the treacherous cliff. They face their fears no matter the cost.

Want to beat resistance? You must face it. Wrestle it to the ground. And then allow it to transform you.

Allow me to tell you another story.

I was 12 days away from the first draft of my book being due and found  myself toe to toe with the beast of Resistance.

Instead of trying to fight fire with fire, I thought it best to name my issue. And so I took to my newsletter and confessed.

This is what I wrote:

Today I’m battling with Resistance. It comes in various forms and today it is shape-shifting like you wouldn’t believe.

For me, Resistance looks mostly like fear. I’m afraid it won’t sell and the publisher will be disappointed and will never speak to me again. I’m afraid the writing itself isn’t any good and the few that do read it will respond with hatred, or worse, apathy. I’m afraid that my biggest desire, which is to convince people that the beauty they can make is worth the work won’t be clear or inspiring enough.

Resistance also looks like distraction for me.

Yes! Another email to read and respond to! Don’t mind if I do.

A blog to comment on? Of course!

Oh, that’s right, I still need to install my new Apple TV Ruby got me for Father’s Day AND my Twitter feed keeps updating. Hooray!

Distraction is more or less easy to combat. I will put on my big boy pants and focus.

Fear, however is a little more tricky.

Upon hearing my fears of the inevitable downfall of this little book project, my friend Jarrod said that I better start thinking that what I’m writing is good and meaningful and possibly important for others to hear, or else prepare to enjoy my self-destruction.

Got it.

My wife has said the exact same thing.

Now I turn the conversation over.

Resistance is real. It is coming after you now.

So, tell us…

What does Resistance look like for you today & what are you doing to fight it?

That day, hundreds of people shared with me what they were afraid of, they named their Resistance and then they told me how they were going to fight it. It was amazing and it brought me tears.

TIME OUT

These kinds of confessions – naming and sharing what looks like Resistance to us – are incredibly powerful. As I’ve said before, the power of Make Better lies not only in the content, but in the community.

Take a moment in your workbook and then on the Facebook group to share what Resistance looks like to you.

What does Resistance look like for you today & what are you doing to fight it?

Be brave! You can do it!

INTERVIEW: Todd Henry

My friend Todd Henry is prolific and amazing. He shares some awesome ways to get after the disciplines of making things in my interview with him.

NOTE: Please forgive the not-so-great audio. We were on a Skype call and the connection wasn’t great, however the content really is.

Enjoy!

SOUNDCLOUD: Interview with Todd Henry

NOW, IT’S TIME TO GET TO WORK.

Take our your workbook and begin to answer the Module Three questions.

And as always, please email me with any questions at blaine@letsmakebetter.com

ADDITIONAL READING & RESOURCES