Menna Van Praag's Blog, page 45
March 18, 2013
Day 77 of 99 Days
“Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same.”
― Audrey Hepburn (actress, 1929-93)
While I was an aspiring writer I believed that being a successful writer would change my life. Of course, I’d be much happier, I just knew it. I believed this all the years I was writing, right up until the day my first book was published. I’d planned a launch party to celebrate and it went spectacularly well. A few hundred people came, every friend I’d ever known, the book sold out and I was showered with love and praise. My cheeks hurt from smiling and saying “thank you”. And, at the end of the night, when all the cake had been eaten and everyone had gone home, I realised I’d been wrong all those years. I was exactly the same as before, I hadn’t changed at all.
Success isn’t going to save you. The way you feel now is the same way you’ll feel then. This often comes as a shock, I think, especially when someone has been struggling to achieve something for so long. So the sooner you believe this, the better. Then you can just enjoy any success for what it really is – the icing on the cake.
March 17, 2013
Day 76 of 99 Days
“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.”
― Ella Fitzgerald (singer, 1918-1996)
A few days ago I heard a book critic saying disparaging things about the authors of inspirational literature, those who dare to suggest there is room in the world enough for us all to fulfil our greatest dreams. He argued that it wasn’t possible, that societies as we know them couldn’t function if we were all as successful as we wanted to be. It’s an opinion I’ve heard before and I counter it with this quotation.
I believe in love and inspiration. I believe in passion and true desire. I believe that if a person follows the gentle urging of their heart then they’ll find success doing what they want to do. Now, it might take many years and it might not bring great riches, but then that isn’t the point. Wanting to be wealthy is quite a separate thing from wanting to do the thing you love. Babe Ruth said he’d have played baseball for food stamps, he simply loved doing it more than anything else. I feel the same way about writing. And, if that’s how you feel about whatever it is you really want to do, then you can’t go wrong.
Pic: the jewel-encrusted crocodile from Neverland, hanging out with some real-life crocs at Shepreth Wildlife Park.
March 16, 2013
Day 75 of 99 Days
“Nearly every glamorous, wealthy, successful career woman you might envy now started out as some kind of schlep.”
― Helen Gurley Brown (writer, 1922-2012)
This is funny and true and always worth remembering. At first, when I was a young, wannabe writer I made the mistake of comparing myself to all the writers I most admired. I read their books and wondered how on earth I would ever write anything even touching the lofty heights of their gorgeous sentences and beautiful stories. I’d look at my current work-in-progress and despair of my chances.
It’s a shame that published writers don’t share their first drafts. It’d be a wonderful public service, especially encouraging to those who want to follow in their footsteps. My latest book went through twenty-six drafts over two years. Some authors take ten or twenty years to finish a novel, which isn’t so long considering that most artists/actors/singers/entrepreneurs schlepped their way to success over many years. It’s wise then, when you’re still in the early stages of your chosen vocation, not to compare yourself to those who’ve already achieved what you want to without first realising what they did to get there.
Pic: Punting on the Cam.
March 15, 2013
Day 74 of 99 Days
“Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.”
― Helen Keller
No doubt you’ve read numerous quotations about the source of happiness being internal rather than external. But it’s such a profound and significant statement it always bears repeating. I particularly love this quotation because of the personification of joy, the suggestion that it’s a thing, a friend, rather than simply a state of mind.
For myself, at least, this notion makes the challenge of choosing happiness under difficult circumstances much easier. When we’re suffering, sadness is an automatic reflex. But, if left unchecked, it leads swiftly to self-pity, a pit of quicksand that’s almost impossible to pull oneself out of without help. Which is where your friend joy comes in. If you imagine that you’re not in anything alone, that you don’t have to pull yourself together or out of a slump, then you can reach out for the personification of joy. Fortunately, even if you don’t know any joyous people personally, you won’t have to look far in this world before you find someone.
Pic: one of the spectacular window displays in Fortnum & Mason. London, Piccadilly.
March 14, 2013
Day 73 of 99 Days
“I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.”
― Pearl S. Buck
I used to believe in the muse; the fickle, capricious creative muse who would strike if and when she pleased. I believed this was the cause of writer’s block, the desertion of inspiration, the termination of imagination, the ceasing of creativity. It was a slightly terrifying belief to entertain since it meant being at the mercy of this muse’s whims, being in the passenger seat of life without any control of when we started or stopped.
I don’t believe in the muse, or in creative moods, anymore. Of course, sometimes glorious inspiration strikes and I bask in its beauty for as long as it lasts. But it usually strikes after six hours or so of determined slog, of uninspired scribbling, plotting and pacing. And, if one was to wait for such a mood it might very well never strike at all.
However, there is a paradox here. You can’t push an idea into fruition. You can’t sit and wait and stamp your feet. Believe me, I’ve tried; it doesn’t work. But, if you want to achieve any artistic endeavour you must also be willing to work even when you’re not in the mood. That way, when a flash of inspiration finally strikes, you’re there to catch it. 
Pic: window display of teapots & teacups in Jo Malone in NYC.
March 13, 2013
Day 72 of 99 Days
“The formula for success is simple: practice and concentration, then more practice and more concentration.”
― Babe Didrikson Zaharias (athlete, 1911-56)
Very few of us are born geniuses. Even those who are still spend most of their time practising their God-given talents, concentrating the laser beam of their focus into shaping and perfecting their skills. But the rest of us – without that innate spark to spur us on – can forget the importance of practice and concentration.
At a dinner party last Friday night a woman asked me if I thought everyone had a book inside them. I told her of my experience years ago of working for the BBC, reading scripts submitted on spec with the hopes of being produced. I was constantly astonished by the covering letters. Most of the submissions were first drafts of first works. These people had spent hardly any time at all shaping and perfecting their skills. Needless to say, none of these early efforts were picked up but I would encourage these people to write several more scripts and then send us their sixth one. The first draft of Pride & Prejudice, entitled First Impressions, was turned down by the publishers by return of post. A few years later Jane Austen gave it another go, proving that even geniuses need to practice and so do we all.
March 12, 2013
Day 71 of 99 Days
“You are your best thing.”
― Toni Morrison (writer, 1931-)
This is such a simple but brilliant and much needed quotation. I’ve not yet met a person who doesn’t underestimate themselves, who isn’t shocked to realise what they’re able to accomplish and what an incredible impact they can have on other people. My dear friend, Leah Curney, who wrote and stared in her first off-Broadway show last week, was stunned by the amazing reception it got. Having read the script, and being moved to tears last time she sang to me, I wasn’t surprised in the slightest. But, when I got an email last week from a reader writing to thank me for Men, Money & Chocolate: “for the words that inspired me to become the me I always wanted to be”, I soaked up startled tears of surprise.
It’s usually that way. We don’t see our own gifts, just as we don’t see the self-sabotaging traits that hold us back from success. So it helps to employ the compassionate, honest eyes of friends or mentors – people we can trust to see the truth and show it to us. But, even then, we’re often more able to hear negative than positive feedback. To be told that we’re lovely and amazing can, strangely, be a hard thing to hear. How easy is it, after all, to hold the gaze of someone who loves you for a long time? Most of us have a low threshold for such intimacy and adoration. And yet, if we can’t let much love in, then life will never work out the way we want it to. It is then, something for us all to practice.
Pic: WOMEN OF THE WORLD Festival & the London Eye.
March 11, 2013
Day 70 of 99 Days
“I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life – and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.”
― Georgia O’Keeffe
Courage, I believe, is the most important trait when it comes to living a full and glorious life. Without it, you can have more talent and tenacity than anyone but it won’t matter. It takes courage to connect with people, to tell them your dreams and show them your skills. It takes courage to keep going, to suffer all the inevitable setbacks, rejections and disappointments and not give up. Talent, self-belief and tenacity matter not a jot without it. Courage underpins everything.
I used to think that successful people aren’t scared. I believed they achieved greatness because they were far braver than I. I imagined they had special reserves of fire that I would never have. For I couldn’t imagine speaking to audiences without passing out, or giving interviews without garbling my words. And I knew that being a successful author would certainly involve such things. So I watched them enviously, wondering how they were so blessed with courage and why wasn’t I? Then I met a few and found out I was wrong. These people weren’t without fear, they simply didn’t let it stop them, which, of course, is very the definition of courage: to be scared and not let it stop you.
Pic: O & I at the Quentin Blake exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum – taken by Bec.
March 10, 2013
Day 69 of 99 Days & Mother’s Day!
“All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.”
― Helen Keller
We’ve all suffered, some a great deal more than others. Suffering is unavoidable, the question is whether or not we will overcome suffering to live. Living is more than merely surviving: heart still beating, blood still pumping, breath still blowing, but that’s all. Surviving is like lying in a coma, everyone around you laughing but you don’t know how to join in, you don’t know how to smile. You’ve been battered and beaten and, worst of all, lost hope that life will ever be any better.
However, challenging though it is to overcome suffering, many people have experienced pains I can’t possibly imagine, yet overcome them to live – not merely survive – but actually live so brilliantly and brightly that they inspire us all. When I meet or read about such people I feel doubly blessed, once again awed by the power and beauty of the human spirit.
People who overcome great suffering and great odds hold us all in their hearts. They show us what’s possible. They remind us that, when we want to give up hope, that we don’t have to. They inspire us to keep going and not stop until we’ve fulfilled every single dream we have in our hearts.
Pic: Happy Mother’s Day!
March 8, 2013
Day 68 of 99 Days
“It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
Wishing, hoping and dreaming is essential. Without it we’d give up. But wishing for something is only the beginning. It’s the surge of desire, the flush in our hearts that lets us know what we want. It’s the first step, and not necessarily an easy step for some. I was never in any doubt about what I wanted to do, I only doubted I could do it. But those who’ve suppressed their self-expression for so long must first reconnect with themselves in order to know the wishes of their hearts.
However, once you know what you wish for, it’s time to take action. It’s time to plan and then execute your plan. If you wish to be a writer, you must craft something into a work of brilliance and beauty, before it can be published. After that you need to contact agents and so on. And, if plan A doesn’t work, you move onto plan B. For my first novella, Men, Money & Chocolate, this meant self-publishing until a publisher picked it up. It’s not enough simply to write and wish for something wonderful to happen. The point is that wishing takes as much energy as action does. So, once you know what you want, don’t waste any more energy in wishing, channel that energy into actions that will make those wishes come true.
Pic: A Treasury of Poems for Almost Every Possibility!
