enthusiasm more than discipline. Enthusiasm is not an
emotional state. It is a spiritual commitment, a loving
surrender to our creative process, a loving recognition of all
the creativity around us.
Enthusiasm (from the Greek, “filled with God”) is an
ongoing energy supply tapped into the flow of life itself.
Enthusiasm is grounded in play, not work. Far from being a
brain-numbed soldier, our artist is actually our child within,
our inner playmate. As with all playmates, it is joy, not duty,
that makes for a lasting bond.
True, our artist may rise at dawn to greet the typewriter or
easel in the morning stillness. But this event has more to do
with a child’s love of secret adventure than with ironclad
discipline. What other people may view as discipline is
actually a play date that we make with our artist child: “I’ll
meet you at 6:00 A.M. and we’ll goof around with that
script, painting, sculpture ...”
Our artist child can best be enticed to work by treating
work as play. Paint is great gooey stuff. Sixty sharpened
pencils are fun. Many writers eschew a computer for the
comforting, companionable clatter for a solid typewriter that
trots along like a pony. In order to work well, many artists
find that their work spaces are best dealt with as play spaces.
Dinosaur murals, toys from the five-and-dime, tiny
miniature Christmas lights, papier-mâché monsters, hanging
crystals, a sprig of flowers, a fish tank ...
Art evokes the mystery without which the world would