I had fears. Big fears. Soul-crushing fears.

Let me give you an example. In 2003, I was a semi-finalist in the Writers of the Future contest. I’d sent in my story (which, BTW, predicted Bluetooth headsets 15 years before they became a thing) after months of sleepless nights and fearing what would happen.

I finished in the top 10, but I didn’t win.

Every quarter, WotF receives some 4 000 entries. My story was in the top-10 of those entries. The top 0,25%. It was judged to be better than 99,75% of all stories submitted that quarter.

But I didn’t win. (more…)

This is one of those insights where you’ve either figured it out and it’s perfectly logical or you haven’t thought about it before and it sounds absolutely preposterous.

Me, I force-figured it out by reading :the Artist’s Way: by Julia Cameron. It’s a guideline to getting your creative juices flowing and writing/painting/dancing/what-have-you-ing with joy and immediacy. In effect it’s a workbook where Cameron takes you through a week-by-week course in, well, finding the joy in creation. Yeah, I’ve used joy twice. That’s what it feels like after you’ve followed the guide for a while (and if you’ve followed this blog you’ll notice how I keep harping about it – it really did change my creative habit, my self-image and my willingness to show courage).

Now, most of the chapters deal with stuff like finding the strength to follow your dreams, or the persistence, or feeling safe with your creativity. But one deals with silence. Specifically the silence of not doing any creating. And it’s the most glorious feeling ever. (more…)