Motivation: Don't fear the crayons.

This is a continuation of last Monday's post. (See Motivation: Get the crayons back.) As I mentioned, I checked the book out of the library. The quote I used last week turned out to be a heading for an entire section on the subject, which seemed directed at me. It read:

So you've got the itch to do something. Write a screenplay, start a painting, write a book, turn your recipe for fudge brownies into a proper business, build a better mousetrap, whatever. You don't know where the itch comes from, it's almost like it just arrived on your doorstep, uninvited. Until now you were quite happy holding down a real job, being a regular person...

Until now.

You don't know if you're any good or not, but you think you could be. And the idea terrifies you. The problem is, even if you are good, you know nothing about this kind of business. you don't know any publishers or agents or venture capitalists or any of these fancy-shmancy kind of folk. ...

Besides, if you write a book, what if you can't find a publisher? If you invent a new piece of world-changing software, what if you can't find a financial backer? If you write a screenplay, what if you can't find a producer? And what if the producer turns out to be a crook? ...

Heh.  That's not your wee voice asking for the crayons back.  That's your other voice, your adult voice, your boring and tedious voice trying to find a way to get the wee crayon voice to shut the [heck] up.

Your wee voice doesn't want you to sell something. Your wee voice wants you to make something. Theres a big difference. Your wee voice doesn't give a [darn] about publishers, venture capitalists, or Hollywood producers.  

Go ahead and make something.  Make something really special.  Make something amazing that will really blow the mind of anybody who sees it.

If you try to make something just to fit your uninformed view of some hypothetical market, you will fail.  If you make something special and powerful and honest and true, you will succeed.

The wee voice didn't show up because it decided you need more money, or you need to hang out with movie stars. Your wee voice came back because your soul somehow depends on it. There's something you haven't said, something you haven't done, some light that needs to be switched on, and it needs to be taken care of. Now.

So you have to listen to the wee voice or it will die...taking a big chunk of you along with it.

They're only crayons. You didn't fear them in kindergarten, why fear them now? ~Hugh MacLeod, Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity, pp. 26-28.