You will hear me refer to Resistance a lot in this blog. Steven Pressfield coined the term for that “intelligent, active, malign force” that works against us when we endeavour to create something. He defines it clearly in his book The War of Art and elaborates a bit more in his book Turning Pro. But…
One of the mantras I’ve been repeating for the past few weeks is “Progress not Perfection”. I’m sure it has been said by many people, but I most recently heard it from Marie Forleo. Whenever I’m getting beaten up by Resistance and I’m getting distracted from doing work, those three words give me hope. And…
“How long does it take you to write a draft of play?” she asked. Such an interesting question! How long does it take to create something? If I take a look at the play I’m currently working on, A Killing at the Cottage (AKATC), it took me 8 hours of writing to complete the first…
I have a bad habit of taking long breaks between writing projects. I finish one project and it takes me months to gear up and start working on the next one. Why? It’s not from lack of ideas. I’ve got more ideas than time to write them all. It seems to be more from a…
I’m a terrible procrastinator. Which means that I’m a really good one. Anyone who knows me, knows that I put things off. Especially writing projects. Since January, I’ve been meaning to write the next draft of my play Out to the Folks, do a quick update and polish of The Lost Years because we’re thinking…
Just do it. Such simple advice, yet so easy to ignore. I’ve only written 5 blog posts in almost two years. It’s not because of a lack of things to write about. Like most writers, I have tons of ideas. But getting the ideas onto the page (or screen) is the challenge. It’s frustrating because…
Tomorrow I start a new job. It’s funny how the working life affects the creative life. For years, I had a routine that seemed to work very well. I would write and/or read on my commute to work, taking tiny steps towards a project. If I had a deadline, I would also do some work…
Here I am trying to get this update in before the month ends… As usual. December was a good month for the Genius Project. It was actually my best year of 2015, which is surprising because it was a very busy month with work and family activities. It just goes to show that committing to…
This was the first month that I was able to stay on track for the Genius Project in a long time. The key to doing it was taking baby steps and focusing on the process instead of the product. In terms of overall time, this was my best month so far with 43.75 hours on…
Often the process of reaching a goal is straightforward and progress is definitely incremental. Sometimes, it’s a little less obvious and for every two steps forward, you take one step backward. And sometimes, you get to a point for every step forward, you take TWO steps backward. Or at least it feels that way… My…
peter gruner 