The Artist's Way

page or on the canvas or in the clay or in the acting class or
in the act of creativity, however small.
Creativity requires activity, and this is not good news to
most of us. It makes us responsible, and we tend to hate
that. You mean I have to do something in order to feel
better?
Yes. And most of us hate to do something when we can
obsess about something else instead. One of our favorite
things to do—instead of our art—is to contemplate the odds.
In a creative career, thinking about the odds is a drink of
emotional poison. It robs us of the dignity of art-as-process
and puts us at the mercy of imagined powers out there.
Taking this drink quickly leads to a severe and toxic
emotional bender. It leads us to ask, “What’s the use?”
instead of “What next?”
As a rule of thumb, the odds are what we use to
procrastinate about doing what comes next. This is our
addiction to anxiety in lieu of action. Once you catch on to
this, the jig is up. Watch yourself for a week and notice the
way you will pick up an anxious thought, almost like a joint,
to blow off—or at least delay—your next creative action.
You’ve cleared a morning to write or paint but then you
realize that the clothes are dirty. “I’ll just think about what I
want to paint and fine-tune it while I fold the clothes,” you
tell yourself What you really mean is, “Instead of painting
anything, I will worry about it some more.” Somehow, the
laundry takes your whole morning.
Most blocked creatives have an active addiction to