Elizabeth Taylor’s Van Gogh Sells for $16 Million

Feb. 7, 2012 a Van Gogh hits the market. It’s not a well known painting, but the artist is certainly well-known.   The “Vue de l’asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Remy” sold at Christie’s International for a staggering 10.1 million pounds–$16 million US dollars.

Vincent painted this landscape in 1889, in Saint-Remy in Provence while he was at the St. Paul de Mausole asylum. I spent a month in the region this summer. The asylum was peaceful–part museum and part medical facility dedicated to helping those with mental illness and now with an emphasis on art therapy. It is in some ways a testament to all those who suffer with diseases of the mind. Their lives matter. They contribute to society in so many ways.

Christie’s International estimated that it would sell for 5-7 million pounds. An unidentified phone bidder 

St. Paul de Mausole, St. Remy

outbid 5 other bidders. Elizabeth Taylor was the previous owner and has enjoyed this painting in her home since 1963. This Van Gogh was a gift from her father–an art dealer who fled England during World War II. Taylor also owned a Renoir, which is also up for sale.

As a Van Gogh devotee, I find it amazing that his art continues to bring in staggering sales while his mental condition continues to be under such scrutiny. So many people consider his work disturbing–a reflection of his mental state. I wonder, isn’t all we do a reflection of our mental state?

For me, his work and his words inspire me. When I wonder if I should give up–or go on–I’m reminded of the emotional authenticity he brought to the page and to the canvas. And I take a deep breath and start again.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/02/07/bloomberg_articlesLZ1HKC1A1I4M01-LZ1HK.DTL#ixzz1lqh9iGza

Vision Exceeds Execution: The Gap Between the Artist or Writer You Are and Who You Hope to Become

It’s frustrating, when your art or writing doesn’t live up to your own expectations. It’s just not there yet. You know intuitively what you mean to convey…but how to get there? How do you reach for such an elusive thing? How can you even express what it is you are striving to say in your  art or writing? Why, if you can feel it, know it, can you not…show it? Why isn’t it on the page? On the canvas? What is the disconnect?

The book Art & Fear offers a different perspective. Authors Orland and Bayles suggest that we’re never supposed to reach our vision. Why? We should always be two steps ahead of ourselves. It’s that longing, that third eye knowing, that’s where art lies. Your true self, your art is always ahead of where you are. Xeno’s paradox. Every time you advance, your vision advances. It’s what will eventually will define your work and give it at least some of the qualities you’re striving for.

As a working artist and writer, let me share…it’s maddening. I ache when I’ve worked and worked and I still know that it’s not what I want/need it to be. It’s even more frustrating when that gap is visible to others. You become the naked girl in the room. Silly. Vulnerable.

That’s what art does to you. It asks you to risk. To strip and get up on the table. It asks you to allow others to critique you even when they wouldn’t be brave enough to attempt what you’ve recklessly, foolishly and wholeheartedly tried. Our authenticity isn’t in achieving that rare and brief moment when your vision and execution magically align. Authenticity is in the struggle.

Is there a solution? A partial one. Create lots of work. We close that gap (a little, if we’re lucky) by the very act of creation itself. Our art teaches us. 90% of our art is just a teaching tool. We have to be willing to ditch (I call it throwing our babies off the temple mound) almost all of what we create in order to find in the heap of mistakes the one gem, the one nugget of “what we mean to say.” In the end, it’s not about us, it’s about the work.

Ira Glass (over at NPR) created a video that is the best at explaining this gap and why it’s so important to commit to the creative-artistic process. I’ve never heard it described any better.

Check this out:

http://vimeo.com/24715531

 

If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.
Vincent Van Gogh

Resource:

Art and Fear

Carol D. O’Dell

http://www.caroldodell.com/

 

Writer, Artist, What Will Success Do To You?

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”

Marianne Williamson

People worry that success/achievement (publishing a book, getting a record contract, landing a major art show) will change them. It will, but like all new adventures–there’s a learning curve.

My dog, Rupert has a new toy–a bright blue knobby ball. He loves it so much that he takes it everywhere–under the table when we eat, into the bathroom when I take a bath (something he’s done since he was a puppy–I cup my hands and he drinks water from the tub), and on his pillow when he sleeps. He’s not interested in going outside or playing with any other toy. He doesn’t even want to eat and he worries about Kizzy, his mom, taking it. He worries so much he’s miserable. He’s exhausted. His new ball is his world.

Sometimes success is like a knobby blue ball. It consumes us. We are so afraid it will be taken from us that we don’t enjoy anything else. We think we’ve gained so much and we don’t recognize what we’ve lost.

Does that mean it’s wrong to want success? Should we stay right where we are so we won’t risk hurting those we love, making blunders, getting a possible big head for a time, or facing what’s to come after the bright shining moment passes?

No. I don’t think we should hide from our art, our creativity, dare I say it–our greatness.

We are going to make mistakes–take it too far, become obsessed, protect it, hoard it, hide it, act like a buffoon, but like all new challenges, given enough time and experience and we’ll learn from these changes and we’ll adjust.

I experienced the blue-ball syndrome when my book, Mothering Mother first came out. I checked my Amazon ranking hourly, and yes, I even got up in the middle of the night to check it. I wouldn’t turn down a speaking engagement even if I had not been home to enjoy a quiet weekend with my family in ages (sorry guys).  I read reviews like they were a cancer diagnosis, zeroing in on any less than gushing remarks and arguing (muttering in the car, in my sleep) with this unknown critic.

I made lots of mistakes. Some were doozies. Success makes us vulnerable.

I also had a lot of fun. I celebrated. I sucked the marrow out of the bone.

I met hundreds if not thousands of new folks. I listened to their family issues and I really listened and cared about what they were going through. I poured myself into my book, its marketing, and sharing my message. Eventually, life returned to normal/quiet/easy and for a time I just wanted to do it all again. I was like a kid who had just gotten off the most amazing Ferris wheel and all I wanted to do more than anything was to go again.

They call it a high because it’s well, high.

Finally, I was able to see this first (hopefully) brush with publishing and success as part of a whole–from the seed of an idea, to the creating and writing, researching and revising, and then the rush of getting an agent, signing a contract, working with a publishing house, the marketing of the book, meeting my readers, sharing my message and being a part of theirs. This cycle, like the seasons must be allowed to run its course. Birth, life, death…that’s what we do, even in our art.

I now realize that there’s a sort of false pride that can come with refusing or denying our own potential. We wear it like a badge, but in reality we do ourselves and all those around us a great disservice. We live off each other’s dreams just as much as we live in our own. Every success offers the world a seed of hope.

I figure I’ve already learned how to fail, and I’m learning every day how to fail better–but I’m also growing less afraid of succeeding.Somebody’s gotta do it, so why not me–or you? There’s plenty of magic to go around. I figure I might as well accept all the lessons and all of the cycles of what it’s like to create, to achieve.

My new mantra: Arms wide open.

“We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” 
― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles

Writers, Artists, Are You Creating Momentum?

So much about art and writing is a game of hurry up and wait.  There are lulls and pauses in the creative process and all this stopping and starting can be a challenge. So how do you create and sustain momentum? Why is momentum important?

The roots of momentum is (of course) Latin and means ”moving power.”

It’s a  measure of the motion of a body equal to the product of its mass and velocity–thanks Webster.com.

Momentum is also a physics term:

A measure of the motion of a body equal to the product of its mass and velocity.

momentum = mass x velocity

How does all that correlate to creativity?

Quite easily. We come up with an idea (that’s what creating is–first in the mind)–and that’s mass. Then we have to do something with those thoughts–write, paint, sculpt–and that’s our velocity or power.

Or, you can look at it this way: we create (mass) and then we have to put it out in the world (aka market) and that’s where we need velocity.

(If I’m impressing you with my math/physics genius then trust me, it stops here).

I know as an artist when I have momentum and when I don’t.

That makes me think of another word–the doldrums–which is actually a place on a map. It’s the place where the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean come together–and it’s a place sailors dread because when there’s no wind  it’s completely dead. That’s the doldrums. I’ve been there, creatively and otherwise.

Usually, my creative doldrums are because I’m in a place of doubt, or I’m perplexed as to how to get to the next place my art needs to be. I feel stymied, paralyzed, and it’s not that I don’t want to “do the work,” I just don’t know how.

The whole publishing cycle can shut down a creative soul. You can get so wrapped up in waiting to hear about your last book that you don’t latch on to your next spark of an idea.

How do we create our own momentum?

Momentum in art comes in two main forms.

Momentum is birthed from discipline. 

Boring word, discipline, but it’s what separates the creative wimps from the creative iron men, so to speak. When you finally take the leap and claim that you are an artist then you have to stop playing around with only doing art whenever you feel like it. That muse excuse is old.

Creativity coach Eric Maisel and other artists attest to getting up and going to your art–first thing in the morning–and committing to a word count (Eric says 1000 words a day), or a time period where you show up for the art–and whether inspiration or momentum occurs or not, you’re there on a consistent basis.

I believe that momentum invites vulnerability and authenticity. Why? Because you don’t have time to fake it when you’re truly in the vortex of momentum. You aren’t posturing, thinking about how you’ll look or what others will think–you’re in a pure state that doesn’t need these pretenses.

Momentum, like opportunity, is a wave that builds–so be ready, grab your board and ride it all the way to the shore.

When momentum does grace your shores, then ride that baby. Get up early, stay up late, drink more coffee and keep working through the backaches and ignore the interruptions.

Why? Momentum is pure magic, and once you’ve got it don’t you dare let go.

Why? Not out of fear that it won’t come again, (who knows when it will), but because it’s a life force and an amazing high. Momentum is precious and can be rare and once you’ve experienced it, well damn, it’s right up there with crazy-wonderful sex and butter brickle ice cream. Sometimes you just have to go all the way.

Momentum isn’t an either-or, it’s an and. 

Invite momentum by showing up at the page or in front of the canvas every day. Show creativity you’re serious.

And then, when you feel a surge in your soul, dive deep, balance as best you can, and let out a “WOWEE! –cause you just caught the magic wave.

Enthusiasm is the energy and force that builds literal momentum of the human soul and mind.
Bryant H. McGill

 

 

Was Vincent Van Gogh Really Murdered?

60 Minutes aired a segment about a startling new book that suggests that Van Gogh did not commit suicide–that he was murdered. After 121 years of everyone believing that Vincent ended his own life with a gun, it may turn out that some young boys were the ones who actually pulled the trigger.

Not everyone is convinced.

Leo Jansen, curator of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam feels that the evidence is inconclusive.

“Van Gogh, The Life,” by Pulitzer prize-winning authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith claim that Vincent’s last words seem to indicate that he was covering up for someone.

Until now, everyone believed that Vincent was painting out in the fields just outside Auvers de Oise on a Sunday afternoon and that somehow he managed to get his hands on a gun, (rumored that he bought a gun to scare away the crows who were taunting him) and that he angled the gun to his heart and shot. He then drug himself back two kilometers to the Auberge Ravoux Inn where he was staying, climbed the stairs and collapsed. Monsier Ravoux had seen him come in and went up to his room and asked if he had tried to commit suicide–something that was illegal at the time and considered reprehensible by the church.

“I believe so,” Vincent said and then added, “and don’t blame anyone else.”

It’s those last words that are troubling. And even I’m a little troubled by all this. I’ve spent years researching his life and reading every account and angle of not only his letters but also anyone else’s letters or documentation. I don’t have a Ph.D. in art history, just a passion about Vincent, his art, and his story.

The accounts of this conversation can only come from two people–Dr. Gachet, a local homeopathic physician–who was called from nearby, and Monsier Ravoux–and it was his daughter Marguerite who later shared her tale of that day in 1953.

The authors also claim that Vincent would not have considered suicide. They also claim that the gun was held too far away for him to have been able to hold the gun and shoot. I wonder if this was Dr. Gachet’s opinion because I never read anything about an autopsy. His body didn’t leave the inn until burial, as far as I’ve read.

As you can see, I have a few issues with this new theory.

For one, depressed people of all faiths attempt suicide–and mankind in general is notorious for doing the one thing they vowed they’d never do. Vincent most certainly suffered from acute depression (along with advanced syphilis, temporal lobe epilepsy, and probably alcoholism). He had already tried to commit suicide at St. Paul de Mausole in St. Remy where he had swallowed paints and turpentine. Was that a suicide attempt or just being out of his mind from the seizures, delusions, and voices he was experiencing. Is it suicide if that’s not what you cognitively intend, but perhaps intend to end the pain–on a more intuitive level?

I do know that the boys mentioned in the 60 Minute segment did indeed taunt him–mercilessly. So it’s not out of the question that something went terribly wrong.

A 1956 interview by a wealthy French
businessman, Rene Secretan, who admitted that he and his brother had tormented him and that Secretan, (inspired by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show that had toured France just a year before) had borrowed a gun from Monsieur Ravoux  but he claimed the artist stole it from him. Is that the truth–that Vincent did shoot himself–or was that the closest Secretan could come to a confession?

And what happened to Vincent’s paints? His painting box was never found.

I’m not sure we’ll ever know what really happened, and I’m not bothered by that. It’s not his death that enraptures me–it’s his art, his words, his devotion to color, to expressing life and beauty and meaning.

Time has a way of smearing the facts but when it comes to Vincent Van Gogh time has only proved what a staggering artist and heartbroken man he really was. However he died, he left us with many, many gifts.

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible,
but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining
ashore.

Vincent Van Gogh

Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/v/vincent_van_gogh_2.html#ixzz1b4qR9lCD

Resources:

CBS 60 Minutes Link:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7384904n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox

Associated Press–Van Gogh Museum link:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ihP0qjAk6U1JB4NewlMW_2GfrXFw?docId=c27b6165b2e84e6a890b43d7fe7d99c4

 

 

 

Writing, Rejection and Celebration: Why I’m Enjoying Champagne on a Monday Afternoon

I dropped by to visit a friend. She had received a rather stinging rejection last week and I thought she could use a writer bud to commiserate with. “I even bought champagne for when I get a contract,” she said, her fingers curled around the frig door handle. “Let’s drink it,” I suggested. “It’s time to stop waiting for the world to celebrate us!” I’ve learned that rejection comes with risk and risk comes with opportunity. I wish I knew another way but I don’t.

We sat in camp chairs in her driveway, our cell phones in one drink pocket, our mini  bottles of champagne in the other. Korbel Brut Blush. Cold and pink and oh so bubbly. I swear, champagne tastes like celebration–a synethesia of confetti and horns and new opportunities. And today, it was pared with rejection.

We didn’t talk about it. Didn’t need to. We’ve both received our fair share of “Sorry, but it’s not for us.” We watched migrating egrets and terns, rosette spoonbills and herons gather on the shore of a nearby lake. We sat and drank. Nothing like two women in camis and sweatpants sipping on the bubbly at two in the afternoon, but who cares? I’ve always been a front yard sitter–it’s the Southern way of life.

“I don’t know what to do next,” she said.

“Revise–submit, you’ll know, give it time.”

I hate that I sound like I know what the hell either of us should do.

“Sometimes I just want to give up, you know?”

‘I know.”

“But I really love this story–I really think it’s supposed to be–out there.”

“I know.”

We finished our champagne.

 I ate some peanuts and waited for the buzz to slide. They say the perfect complement to champagne is potato chips, but we didn’t have any. We hugged and as I drove home I thought about what it took for her to pop that cork. We drank that champagne in spite of or because of rejection–didn’t matter which.

We toasted to our own courage. To risk. Salute!

I’ve learned that I can’t control what the publisher wants to buy. I can’t always figure out what’s right–or not so right about my story. But I do know that I’m a storyteller, so it’s my job to figure it out.  I have to write and rewrite until something reverberates in my bones. My next job is to shove it through the diner window and yell, “Grub’s ready–come and get it!” Where it gets delivered, that’s not my job–I’m just the cook.

I brought my mini champagne bottle home today–and cut a rose from my garden. A Jacob’s Coat rose, all deep red at the center fading to yellow then orange then gold. graces my window ledge and remind me to celebrate.

Every chance I get.

Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from
making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.

Vincent Van Gogh

~Carol O’Dell

www.caroldodell.com

Art, Writing, Creativity and Scientific Validation of the Power of Intention

Every painting, every novel starts with an intention. Inspiration lights up our brain–an idea, a spark, a melody, a character…and we’re off. This power of intention now has scientific backing. Medical breakthroughs allow us to bypass paralyzed limbs and short-circuited spinal cords and help people communicate via computer or use bionic limbs that enables wheelchair bound folks to walk again–all through the power of what they intend.

How does it work?

Before we reach for that coffee cup or lift one foot to climb the stairs we make an intention. We decide–to flinch away from the candle flame, to extend our arms in a hug–our brain can do this in a nanosecond, almost as an involuntary response to pain or fear, or it can be very deliberate–as in drawing a line or conducting an orchestra. First comes the idea and the intention, then comes the movement.

Photo: CBS Sunday Morning Show: The Next Step in Bionics

It’s the same with our art. We get an idea for our next novel, we ask, “what if?” We get an inkling of the place, the crisis that is to come–all before we ever type one word.

Wayne Dyer should be smiling about now. He’s been talking about intention for years–and even wrote a book about it: The Power of Intention.  He’s not the only one–everyone wise one, shaman, guru, minister has their own language–ask and ye shall receive, name it and claim it, visualization, law of attraction, many of these messages all come from the same kernal of truth–that the mind and spirit has a powerful effect on the physical world. Turns out they were on to something and science is just catching up to speed.

And while all of this feels like something that should be in the sequel of Push (love that movie), it’s not outside our own grasp. Artists have long tried to explain where or how their inspiration comes. It often sounds quite woo-woo and magical, which I happen to love, but woo-woo rhymes with poo-poo, which is what we get when we start talking about our sparks of insight, dreams and visions, and tingly sensations we often get when creativity bursts into life.

Some people like JK Rowling knew Harry Potter’s fate from the moment she intended to write the first sentence–she “saw” (felt it might be more accuarate) it all at once. Other times, our visions roll in like a fog bank, lifting slowly, revealing more and more over time.

Intention, Dyer reminds us isn’t just about wanting something. It’s about allowing–making room for possibilities. Intention is in essence, about connection. I take this concept to my art–forcing it to deliver or pay up isn’t the way I want to approach my artistic journey. If I do that, my ego is driving the car.

I don’t always know the direction it will take, whether something has mega-buck potential, and I don’t want to know. Being inspired means being “in spirit,” and that’s pretty cool.

Exploration allows for all I don’t know.

Dyer further explores the concept of giving without expectations by quoting the great poet Hafiz: “Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth ‘you owe me.’” Dyer finishes his thought, “Just think of what a love like that can do. It lights up the whole world.”

Sunrise and the Power of Intention

Science is just now tapping into what the brain can do–and I’m pretty jazzed about living long enough to witness this breakthrough. On the home front, I’m pretty jazzed at what I can might be able to accomplish and create with the time I have left on this earth, too.

QUESTIONS:

How is the intention to create art different than the intention to complete art?

Which is harder for you–the early stages of creating (the first page, the first lines of a painting or song? Or is it harder to go that last minute, polish and submit?)

Carol O’Dell

www.caroldodell.com

Steve Jobs and Creativity: The Legacy Lives On

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.” ~ Steve Jobs

The world is grieving the loss of Steve Jobs. His legacy–of creativity, risk, and play are hallmarks of this life well lived. Not only did he give the world innovative technologies, he attracted energy around these projects. Meeting the world in a black shirt and jeans, he was a quiet rock star and the whole world listened.

Steve became synonymous with his creations.  Apple products are always fresh. Crisp. Simple and elegant, they invoke loyalty and passion. People love their macs. Love their iPhones.

They’d rather lose their wallet than to leave  their iPad on a plane. All of this seems gushing, but it’s true.

And yet his beginnings were dicey. He was adopted and raised in of all places, Silicon Valley. He dropped of college in the mid 70s and “invented Apple in his parent’s garage.

 He slept at friend’s apartments and walked across town to the Hare Krishna temple for free meals. This “drop out” period gave him time to take a calligraphy class, which later would be used in the first Mac’s typography aesthetics.

“If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do,” he said in the commencement speech at Stanford.

It wasn’t smooth from there on out–he was dumped by Apple, the company he and Steve Wozniak started–and didn’t come back for fifteen years. But he wasn’t off in some corner pouting–he started Pixar. Not a shabby side job.

And all that creative juice just marinated.

Simplicity and focus became his mantra.

When he stepped back into Apple in 1997 he brought a new surge of ideas and revitalized a saggy company. iPod followed by iTunes followed by iPhone followed by iPad. How’s that for a string of home runs?

We may not have Steve with us, but cancer didn’t win, not really. We have his spirit and example, and that has now become a part of our collective conscience. His DNA is in the stars above us and the dust around us, and I for one invite his lessons–his dare-devil do what you love and you better be passionate about it–into my life.

Each of us leave a creative legacy and Steve’s life is a North Star.

“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
– BusinessWeek interview, May 1998

Creativity and Writing and The Art of Doing Nothing

Never clearing our schedules is like never emptying the sink trap–your life starts to stink after a while (based on a quote my Martha Beck). We tend to believe that busy equals important. Being authentic and being creative means not always being busy. Yet most of us (self-included, most days) act afriad to sit still–to be quiet.

Maybe it’s our upbringing–idle hands are the devil’s workshop kind of thing. Most parents think that if their kids are busy they won’t get into trouble (they’ll get ulcers instead). I like to ask in my writer’s groups what they did on a lazy Sunday afternoon when their parents were napping and they couldn’t leave their house or yard unless by foot–what were they drawn to?  (Before video games and cable with a thousand channels) Drawing? Writing sappy poetry? Building a tree fort or baking cookies?

Our true selves are somewhere beyond boredom.

I like to spend most Sunday afternoons doing nothing. Putzing. Napping. Wandering around the yard, watching the birds migrate. Watching the sun sink below the horizon.

This no-thing time wipes my “Beautiful Mind,” a million jumbled OCD thoughts and images clean. I stare. I lay on the couch and then lay on the hammock. I snap a photo of the birds. I trim back the rose bushes and abandon the shears and my half-finished job and take a mid-day bath.

Why not? It’s Sunday. No day.

I get frazzled if I don’t do this at least a couple of times a month. Does it better my art and writing? I think so, but I have no inclination to analyze it. Maybe the half a Mary Oliver poem I read in the hammock at sunset before dozing off sparked a memory that will turn into a prize winning short story, I’m not sure. I don’t care. If it feeds my creativity and writing, then I’m grateful, but doing nothing loses something if I pimp it out to force it to feed my art.

Blank is blank. Empty is empty. And that alone, is Divine.

 

 

 

Critique Groups: Creativity and Strengths, What Do You Do Well?

Writing and art critique groups can either be supportive or devastating. It can be easier to say something negative than positive believing that will help the most–but does it? Creativity can be squashed, but how else can you grow and challenge yourself without feedback? Does pointing out what doesn’t work–really work?

In the long run I don’t think pointing out what’s wrong more than what works is helpful to the creative process, and damaging to the creative newbie. There’s something insidious about planting that seed of self-doubt. All it takes is a bit of over-analyzing along with some obsessive worry and self-loathing kudzu is now covering all you thought you knew.

Jamie Buckingham, author of Discover Your Strengths Now. Buckingham cites neurological testing in which neurological research has shown that we’re born with far more synaptic nerve connections than we need and as an infant our brains look like an intricate net. In time, as we settle into who we are and what stimulates our brains according to our personalities and environment (nurture and nature) some of those neural net connections recede from one area and bundle with another–creating stronger connections around what interests us most.

I’m not saying that writers and artists are wimps. We’re not. We can (most of the time) be  objective about our work. We can learn and grow and change and accept the challenges that come with really listening to valuable feedback.

Critique groups can actually help the writer or artist prepare for working with editors–and trust me, they’re not going to worry about your fragile self-esteem. Most are professional and they care about making your work the best it can be–for what they need it to be. They’re not adopting you and paying for your therapy.

I’m fortunate to be a part of the Chats Noir Writer’s Circles. I started this group to surround myself with writers (if I’m being honest) but also because I wanted to offer a safe and nurturing haven, the kind I’d be proud to be a part of for my own growth.

We keep it about the work. We start each discussion with what the writer did right, followed by where the story lose me, where we got confused, what word or concept didn’t seem to jive–and then we wrap up with suggestions, if we have any.

Sometimes the author must find their own path. It’s not that we don’t discuss word choice, harp on clichés and adverbs and all that writerly stuff, but what matters most is what we do well. Some can wrap up a story in the most satisfying way. Another has the best didn’t-see-it -coming humor, and another’s personal journey is heart-wrenching without being sardonic.

Critique groups give us the chance to bring our gifts to the table. We have to listen for and build a foundation on what we do well. It’s easy to ignore the positive comments and beat ourselves up, but we do ourselves a disservice when we allow what doesn’t work (yet, that’s why we revise) to overshadow all that is powerful, vivid, and true.

QUESTION:

What if you had to believe somehthing good about your work? What would it be?