Tricks & Discipline

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.

—Ecclesiastes 4:9–10

I’m paying close attention to the change of seasons, because I need a change to move me forward, and I’ll take anything I can get. Today I need to end a season of time wasting, fear, obsessive blog-reading, and totally non-essential Wikipedia research. First step: I met a friend at a coffee shop. I left the house a mess, choosing to believe that writing is, for this morning, more important than cleaning up toys. Writing is a mind game, and I’m not above some tricks to get me out of this terrible stuck place I’ve been for about six weeks.

As I write I’m sitting with my friend Margaret, a screenwriter. We’re not talking, mostly, but we’re doing the most important work one artist can do for another: we’re keeping each other in the chair and off the internet. I can keep working if she can, and she can keep working if I can. Some days it all comes down to tricks and discipline.

Learn your tricks, find a friend, leave the dirty dishes in the sink for a while. Do the work, learn the skills, and make art, because of what the act of creation will create in you.