“Tree of Hearts,” (conte, and pastel drawing), Copyright © Attaining Creativity 2008

It never fails that when I write or think about something, the universe responds and overwhelms me with support and information about the same topic I’ve thought of. So in response to my latest blog entry, the universe has provided me with this matching inspiration:

• The same church sign that dared me to jump in, this week says: “It is too soon to quit.” Could this have any better timing?
• In watching a little league game, I overhear a 6-year old yell out: “You don’t have to swing if you don’t like it.” We may be trying to force things to happen because we need money or for something, anything, to happen, that we go down a road that ultimately ends in disaster. Trust your gut – if it doesn’t feel or look right, however promising it might seem - trust your gut, even if it means letting what seems like a good possibility pass by.
• Creative Every Day has posted too very fitting entries, one about rejection and one that contains a very inspiring poem by Marianne Williamson that will keep me going daily.

What are you thinking about, contemplating, worrying about? What are the little signs, all around you, guiding you forward?

“Forest of Offerings,” (conte, and pastel drawing), Copyright © Attaining Creativity 2008   

This week, I participated in three art fairs, and in each one, I met up with a person who was on the edge, the cusp, of following their dream. In some instances, it wasn’t particularly a full-time dream, but they were on the edge of either staying true to their personality or wanting to fit in with what the world deemed appropriate. In all three instances, I was more than happy to tell them to stick with their gut and to allow the world to see who they really were. As Luann Udell stated on her blog, and I’m paraphrasing: There has never been anyone like you before on this earth, and after you are gone, there will be no one just like you ever again. So, with uniqueness comes a “responsibility” to share that individuality with the world, in whatever creative form you decide.

In “The Boss of You”, by Lauren Bacon and Emira Mears, the “Personal Measure of Success” exercise asks that I write down what I defined as success (and what I highly love about this book is that while it has business savvy, it strongly encourages you to think outside of just making money and taking over the world). What surprised me, and what I kind of had known all along, was that part of my definition of success was encouraging others to follow their own path (even if it meant they wanted to be an accountant). In many instances, we all find ourselves facing a multitude of roads, and some are proven and tried and successful, and there are others that are unmarked, treacherous, and scary looking. If the Attaining Creativity blog entries can be a light along that scary path, one of the many lights, I will count myself successful.

The wonderful, and also scary, thing about unmarked paths is that each one of us will explore and find different curves and stretches along our journey. Because of our beautiful uniqueness, none of us will travel exactly the same path. And that is a beautiful thing, because it will make our story even more individual, a story that can be passed on to future generations and maintain its individuality through the ages. What we will share is the spirit, the daring of the journey. We will share the downs of spending days cutting down trees that seem to overwhelm us and the ups of reaching a clearing from where we can see the whole valley below us.

With technology that allows millions of us to share our stories, we can also find comfort and inspiration in how others are faring in their journeys. We can pass kindness forward and help others out when they are feeling low or uncertain. We can ensure that people know that they are worthy of success, and so much more, and that they shouldn’t settle for anything else.

I will end this entry with this: I sit here on a foggy, rather sad looking morning, after an unsuccessful fair in which I sat for hours without making a sale. As I listen to this song and think of the movie “Love Actually” I remember that with death comes life, with loves lost comes new loves, with mistakes come success, and with trying anything new comes heartache and smiles and an unexplainable feeling of delight. Ups come with downs, but the trick, and the secret, is that eventually the sun will come out again (as it is right now), and life will remind you, subtly, in the little details, that beauty is all around you and within you. Life will give you a kick in the butt and demand that you share yourself with the world. So, pay attention to the little details. If everything else around you feels overwhelmingly dark, look for the little light that remains. Follow it, nurture it, and watch it grow until the room is ablaze in fire. I know, I know how difficult facing that darkness is. Keep going forward.

A Bouquet for You (Detail) - Greeting card of conte, and pastel drawing, Copyright © Attaining Creativity 2008  

Sometimes, it is the simple things that get us moving at light speed. Things like:

• Waking up at the crack of dawn, willingly and eager
• Enjoying a quiet hour in the morning, in the light of dusk
• Completing a set of business tasks (uploading products to website) by the time everyone else is driving into work
• Chatting with friends and making new ones

What is your inspiration for today?

 Flowers, Anyone? (conte, and pastel drawing), Copyright © Attaining Creativity 2008  

I started the day early (thanks to a couple of women who worked together to help me start the day at 5AM) and have just kept going.

I have passed through the emotions of elation (for completing a simple task within a designated time) and extreme fear (I’m considering joining a weekly craft market in Monterey, CA and I am shaking in my boots at the thought). And now, as I have continued to just keep plugging along, the fear of actually selling my wares (and myself) have lessened – but only slightly. 

In the interest of keeping myself sane, at least for the next couple of hours, I am refusing to keep thinking of the possible obstacles. Obstacles like “do I have enough variation of things to sell, how will I display my creations, who will buy my stuff, can I do this by myself?” I am simply deciding that with each nagging thought, I will take a deep breath and think of a solution. It may not be perfect, but as long as I remove the obstacle, I can keep moving forward. And the good thing is that within the next couple of days, as I program my mind to keep thinking up solutions, the perfect answer might just arrive at my door, and I’ll be ready to greet it.

On another note, as I continue to research and read blogs and books and ask other creatives out there for guidance, advice, and feedback, I’ve come across an old acquaintance. Alyson Stanfield, the Art Biz coach, was someone I found on the web years ago (when I made my first attempt at attaining creativity). Through the beauty of the web, where I go to one page and then jump from one link to another page to another page, I found the Art Biz coach again.

And so I’ve been checking out her blog and trying to find the time to enact her suggestions and comments. Today’s topic has to do with blogs, so it seemed appropriate that I dwell deeper into the article and see what I needed to do to “liven” up this blog. The suggestions and comment s are good, and along the similar lines of other “pimping up your blog” entries. Although one of the suggestions is to link up (and I’m doing that right now), the reason why I bring the article itself up is because we can get so bogged down with suggestions and spend time reworking everything that in the end, we don’t get anything done.

I’m more than willing to follow the suggestions the Art Biz pointed out – because they work. But this is something to do moving forward, and to check in with myself and make sure that this is the type of blog that I would like to keep up, and for you to visit. I do know that putting in links will result in more traffic (all those trackbacks, permalinks, etc.) but I don’t want the entries to be just highlighted linkable text either. And since this blog is about a journey to attaining creativity, sometimes there may not be links to put in, since everyone’s experience in regards to attaining their own creativity is just that: their own.

I do look for blogs and websites that inspire me, and by inspiration I mean that they uplift me, or the blogger may be going through a rough time, but they are still expressing themselves so well that I am inspired by how they are still progressing through a dark time. There are of course plenty of websites and blogs that give tutorials and tips about the business of attaining creativity, but I’m not sure yet that I want to overload this blog with all of the “textual” side of creativity.

I am resolved however, to insert how I integrate the non-creative side of this business with the creative journey itself. With keeping my mind open, and in looking for solutions, I bumped into this TV episode and caught at just the right time to hear that I should be saying YES to just doing, even if they are unknown, scary, dark, unknown, scary. Being in the journey to attaining creativity means that there will be plenty of unknowns and if I am to properly continue on this journey, I need to say YES to fear, to doing things outside my comfort zone.

The challenge for you today is: are you willing to say yes to the scary parts of attaining your own creativity? Share your success story of overcoming a fear, big or small.

• A boy dressed in red rain boots, enjoying the 70-degree sunny day
• A woman walking away from the farmer’s market with 6 bouquets of flowers, so many that I could hardly see her face
• Three children playing violins and violas with all their might, and producing a mighty fine tune
• All sorts of flower bouquets for less than $5, freshly cut and fragrant
• Fresh strawberries and all kinds of berries, planks of produce fresh from the farms, smelling like fresh ground soil and intriguingly inviting me to make a delicious meal
• The beauty of a sunset by the coast
• The surprise of buds finally peeking through the dirt in my vegetable garden

A challenge for you: what 5 things did you experience, hear, see, taste, or touch today that motivated and inspired you?