This is something about which many of the readers will disagree: I have a very powerful belief in creating. I think that it is the purest, and most satisfying of jobs, to create something new. I do not think that it is by accident that many of the most well-paying jobs, and many of the wealthiest/famous people in history were creative in nature. To make something that has never before seen the light of day, and leave it in the world for all time, to be remembered and known, is the closest thing we can find to immortality.
Some people might find a creative/artistic career to be feminine in nature; I disagree. It is my contention that many (if not most) of the greatest creative and artistic minds of all time were men, and it is my belief that there is no other kind of job that can fulfill a man to such an absolute degree.
Whatever the creation is, a new company, a new product, a painting, a song, a book, a piece of furniture, a sculpture, a design, a computer, whatever, it is nourishment for the soul to create. To create, truly, is to be a playmate with God.
There are many things I endeavor to create in my lifetime, many of them very ambitious and complex, but perhaps among the simplest and most direct of them, I desire to write. I have written before. In fact there are multiple books on sale at Amazon.com with my pen name across the top, but I don't take any credit for it. I have lent my talents and vision to family and friends' dreams and creations, and once even, I tried to copy another's formula for a successful novel to create a marginally (better than average, but nothing like I'd like it to be) large selling work, but it was not inspired, nor was the dream ever mine.
I want to create something, to write a story, to paint a picture with words, that others will read and desire to own for themselves. I want to make something that will bring my name to tongues around the world. The story must be an inspiration of mine, the language, the diction, must be my own, the themes and characters must be of my mind, and the story and its implications must be born from my own life.
Since I have this goal, (presumably many goals, since I will probably write many books in my lifetime, hoping that just one of them is the creation I am longing for) it only makes sense to apply the challenge of the brodyssey to it.
Romance author, Shannon Evers, issued a Writer's Challenge quite a time ago. She urged any aspiring writer to just type 1000 words a day, every day, until the book was completed. This kind of segmentation of goals is the stuff from which success is born.
She adopted that challenge for herself, and now she is a successful author of more than 20 books.
Miss Evers and I are moving artistically in very different directions, but that doesn't mean that I can't use her challenge and ambition to reach my own goals.
When I started this challenge, I only had a very basic premise of what my story would look like. I knew how it would feel. I knew the truths I wanted to be in it, and I knew from where I could find most of my inspiration, but actual facts and details of the story, I had very little of.
But this challenge forced me to sit every day, and invest thought and time and words into the story. Truthfully, some days I did not have 1000 words to give to the story, because there was not yet a story to write. Now, however, I am proud to announce that the difficult part is over. I forced myself to sit and work on this book every day, and now the full outline of events is complete, chapter by chapter. I have begun writing it, and the words flow easily.
When you have a goal, whatever it may be, if you just take a tiny step in the direction of its completion every day, even if its a TINY step in the direction of a MASSIVE goal, you are still getting closer. And with every step you take, you will find that the next step is even easier, until eventually, your momentum catches you up, and sweeps you down with it, and your mind creates things about which you've only dreamed.
Go create something.
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