Practical creative advice from Sean Connery…
When I was a kid, one of my favorite movies was Finding Forrester. With an unquenchable passion for both writing and basketball, this was the perfect film for me.
The story tells of an aging, ex-famous author (played by Sean Connery) who risks his much valued hermit lifestyle to spend his afternoons giving private writing lessons to an inner city, basketball playing, boy-genius. Their sessions start with one simple lesson.
"The first key to writing...is to write."
Many of us suffer from a backwards view of the creative process. We believe we must first find motivation, and then we can start working. So we spend hours staring at the blinking cursor or blank canvas and wonder why divine inspiration refuses to strike.
The truth though, is exactly what Todd Henry writes in his book, The Accidental Creative, "Action breeds motivation, not the other way around."
Think of it this way, if we always waited to pray until we felt fully immersed in the presence of God's Holy Spirit, then my guess is that most of us would have a pretty weak prayer life. When we are diligent about prayer though, regardless of how "inspired" we are to do it, that posture of obedience increases our sensitivity for a powerful encounter with God.
In the same way, we must be obedient to our craft. We cannot wait to be inspired to take action. We must deliberately take action in order to activate the creative muscles that make us more attune to inspiration when it finally does come. Momentum has a much stronger effect on what is already moving than an object that is standing still.
The story tells of an aging, ex-famous author (played by Sean Connery) who risks his much valued hermit lifestyle to spend his afternoons giving private writing lessons to an inner city, basketball playing, boy-genius. Their sessions start with one simple lesson.
"The first key to writing...is to write."
Many of us suffer from a backwards view of the creative process. We believe we must first find motivation, and then we can start working. So we spend hours staring at the blinking cursor or blank canvas and wonder why divine inspiration refuses to strike.
The truth though, is exactly what Todd Henry writes in his book, The Accidental Creative, "Action breeds motivation, not the other way around."
Think of it this way, if we always waited to pray until we felt fully immersed in the presence of God's Holy Spirit, then my guess is that most of us would have a pretty weak prayer life. When we are diligent about prayer though, regardless of how "inspired" we are to do it, that posture of obedience increases our sensitivity for a powerful encounter with God.
In the same way, we must be obedient to our craft. We cannot wait to be inspired to take action. We must deliberately take action in order to activate the creative muscles that make us more attune to inspiration when it finally does come. Momentum has a much stronger effect on what is already moving than an object that is standing still.
