Donald Miller's Blog, page 58

A Dog’s Perspective on Human Love

A few years ago my owner, Don, took me to the pet hospital. I was feeling terrible. I’d eaten salmon, and dog’s aren’t supposed to eat salmon. It all ended well, obviously, but it was scary for a while. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me.

I had an IV and a cone and the whole bit.

Don had to spoon feed me baby food and I hated it. Finally they put a tube down my throat to get me to eat. Luckily they figured out the problem and solved it with a pill. No kidding, just a pill. I’d have died without that pill.

It was tough for sure, but I noticed something in the process. I noticed how much Don loved me. I mean he was truly afraid I was going to go away. It was something different than what I feel for Don. I mean I love Don, but my love for him is mostly about the fact we bonded early around a mutual appreciation for table scraps and long walks, swimming and an overall sense of security I get when I’m around him. I need Don to survive. But what Don needs from me is something more, something intangible but beautiful all the same.

I began to notice it everywhere, this human capacity to love. Back when we were at the pet hospital we were sitting in the lobby with a bunch of other pet owners and sick pets. It was all the basic stuff, itchy skin or throwing up. Nothing to worry about. I was feeling awful so I jumped up on the bench and laid all over Don’s lap.

It’s funny how each of us play a role for each other, often without knowing how important we are in each others lives.

And that’s when a woman walked in carrying an empty cat crate. She had been crying very hard, and she was walking slowly. The automatic door opened and behind this woman was her daughter, who was carrying a cat in a blanket very close to her chest. The little girl wouldn’t come into the ER, but the mom went up to the counter to let them know they were there. Apparently they were expected. Then the mother went back out to comfort the little girl, who was sobbing and holding her cat even closer in the blanket. Then the doctor took them back so they could say their goodbyes.

Don and I sat and watched and he was sad for them.

I wasn’t sad, really. I mean I was curious and a bit scared because I sensed the drama, but what Don was feeling was different, he was feeling empathy. I don’t have the capacity for empathy, you know. I was more afraid than sad. I knew that cat was about to die, but Don seemed to know something else was going to die, something intangible that had grown inside this woman and her daughter, an attachment, a bond.

And that’s when it hit me how remarkable a human’s capacity to love really is. A human can get attached to a person, to people, to a pet, to a home, to a job, to a painting or a piece of music, to their work and so much more. You guys call it love, but I don’t know what it is. We don’t have a word in the dog world for whatever it is.

*Photo Credit: Roland Willaert, Creative Commons

But it’s this feeling that you want something else to be better than you are. It’s a kind of willingness to die, and the more willing you are to die, the greater the love. It’s an actual desire to suffer so somebody else doesn’t have to suffer. Sure, Dog’s have it, and we have a lot of it.

But it’s different with humans.

It’s more beautiful and more robust. I know there are all the jokes about opposable thumbs, but what sets humans apart is something more special than that; it’s their remarkable capacity to love.

There isn’t a heart in all the animal kingdom that can produce as much love as a human. It’s their greatest and most distinguishing quality. And when they fail to develop that quality, they are a bit more like animals than humans.

It’s obvious they have to fight within themselves to be more and more human, and less and less animal like, but I think it’s a worthy fight. I hope the girl with the cat is okay.

It hurts to love, but it’s worth it.

Love wouldn’t be so beautiful if you didn’t have to die a little bit to create it. Love has always cost pain.

The doctors got me out of the hospital the next day and I’ve been pretty healthy since. I hope it stays that way.

A Dog’s Perspective on Human Love is a post from: Storyline Blog

Do You Own Your Failures More Than Your Successes?

When I was living in Portland, I decided to go through training to climb Mt. Hood. On one particular day, I was fifty or so flights of stairs into my workout. With only eight weeks of training left, I was having my doubts. I’d not lost the weight I thought I’d lose, to be honest.

That happened when I trained to ride my bike across the country, too, and everything turned out fine. And yet I worried. What if I didn’t make it? I started feeling defeated, even with plenty of time left to train.

I began to wonder if I had what it took.

But I reasoned with myself. I thought about all that I’d done before, and reminded myself that I had, indeed, ridden a bike across America. Yeah, but, I thought to myself, that doesn’t count.

*Photo Credit: knehcsg, Creative Commons

No kidding. That is what I actually thought. I had to stop for a minute. Now the truth is, I really did ride my bike across America. I rode around 3,000 miles in one summer (you can actually cross in less, but our team took a southern route, then turned north to add some miles for reasons I’ll never understand).

That’s when I realized, I don’t own my successes.

So I kept climbing the stairs, and began to reflect on the idea that I would readily accept a failure, even meditate on it, but I wouldn’t accept an accomplishment.

There’s nothing healthy about that. The truth is, we operate out of who we believe we are. And God needs us to be strong, because there is important work to be done.

God isn’t served when we can’t own our own accomplishments.

He doesn’t want us arrogant.

But He does want us confident. God has delivered us in the past (in partnership with our actions) and He can do so again.

I made a mental list of all my accomplishments. I thought about them as I climbed the stairs that day, and have come back to them since. I want to learn to own them, so I’ll be prepared the next time I’m challenged, so I won’t be burdened by doubt.

My question to you is:

Do you own your accomplishments?

Do you own your failures? And if you own your failures, and not your accomplishments, why? Does God want you to disregard the memory of the things you’ve done well?

I don’t think He does.

Would you mind doing something for me today? Would you pull out a sheet of paper, or open your journal, and list your accomplishments? Just keep a running list, all day. I think you’d be surprised at who you really are. I think you’d be surprised at what God could possibly call on you to accomplish.

Do You Own Your Failures More Than Your Successes? is a post from: Storyline Blog

What We Can Learn From The White Flag Bandits

Last week, two white flags mysteriously appeared on the Brooklyn Bridge.

NYC police and counter-terrorism units were disturbed by the “breach of security.” While this is true from their perspective, I like to think something more beautiful happened. I think whoever put up those white flags had a brilliant idea:

Create a clear vision of peace.

Maybe the flag bandits wanted something more, something better than our current reality. I think maybe they were raising white flags of surrender.

*Photo Credit: Dan Dilworth, Creative Commons

The past several weeks have brought an onslaught of terrible news all over the world. For this our hearts are heavy and for this we pray. For planes shot down, for lives bombed and destroyed, for missing Nigerian girls, for all heartache and tears—we pray, Jesus.

But strife has not been limited to the distant fields and remote places of war—rage and accusatory speech has become the popular voice. Our new trend is a scorched-earth policy, a burning of the opposition. If anyone disagrees with the vox populi stand on health-care, contraception, the Middle East, gay football players, politics, they are burned to a crisp. In our current free-speech economy, there can be no dissenting voices.

No prisoners, no survivors.

This grieves me.

Some popular media outlets turn up the volume on rhetoric. They hawk fear and overstate facts. Billions are made by creating “straw men stories,” then tearing them down to the point of absurdity. There is immense financial pressure, earnings per share, for website clicks and viewer attention. Manufactured drama is a proven way to increase ratings and make money. Outrage equals cash.

My temptation is to fire right back. But I am not called to imitate this outrageous tone.

There are times to speak out.

But my default reaction cannot be rudeness, push and shove, or angry fire and brimstone. I can do great damage in the name of political correctness, equality, love, or worse, in the name of God. In my worst moments, I try to push God off His throne and become the one in charge of judgment. And I know I am not the first “species who was deceived, who lusted for His job.”

We must relinquish our throne-lust.

When we default into judgment, we do not embody the strange Love of Christ.

Love calls us to offer our other cheek.

It calls us be “patient and kind.” (I Corinthians 13) This strange Love is something different than the popular voice of manufactured drama.

Loving our neighbor means, for our part, being friends with people who believe and behave differently than us.
Loving our neighbor means loving everyone, even those with whom we disagree. Especially those.
Loving our neighbor means emptying our hands of verbal hand-grenades and replacing them with flowers and boxes of pizza.

It means hearing the Quiet Voice say, once again, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven… if you love only those who love you, what reward will you get?” (Matthew 5:44-46)

May we all be white-flag bandits.

May we raise the white flag of surrender—even if it is hard or scandalous.

May we remove our hand from the panic button, even if everyone else is pushing it. May we think before we tweet our reactions or call people names on social media.

And may we embody the Love of One who was loud in His silence, and thus be known by our love and our strange-loving Christ.

What We Can Learn From The White Flag Bandits is a post from: Storyline Blog

Are The People In Your Life Enough?

I have this bad habit. I like to plan out my day and keep a running mental list of all of the things I’m going to do. Then when I am doing task one, I start to think about task two. When I start task two, my mind wanders to task three. And so on and so on.

Presence of mind and focus is a struggle.

I’m the only person affected by this when it comes to things like cleaning my house, running errands and other non-social things, which isn’t so bad. It probably just makes me less productive.

However, I do this same thing when I’m at lunch with a friend or coffee with a coworker. I’m looking at her and she is moving her mouth, but I don’t hear what she’s saying because I’m thinking about task two or meeting two that is to come. My mind races ahead leaving the person in front of me in my dusty cloud of “you’re not enough.”

Because that’s what I’m saying to them.

I’m saying, “you’re not enough for me in this moment.”

My excuse for this behavior has long been that I’m a planner and a doer and like to keep busy. In this fast-paced and frantic world, who isn’t like this?

*Photo Credit: Mario Mancuso, Creative Commons

But this isn’t actually what I’m doing when a friend is pouring her heart out to me and I’m jumping ahead to my dinner plans and the grocery store I have to hit up on the way home and “Do I have gas in my car? Where is the nearest gas station from here? Oh, I need to call my mom back. Did I set a reminder for that?”

I owe my friends an apology.

I know many of them have fallen victim to my eyes-glazed-over, I’m-thinking-about-something-else look. It’s not that I’m just so busy and scheduled and frantic; it’s that I have thought that my life and my plans were more important than you, and for that, I’m sorry.

It’s like when you’re at a party and the person you’re talking to keeps looking over your shoulder for someone better to mingle with. You’re not enough for them.

So maybe the answer isn’t practicing presence of mind and focusing on the here and now. Maybe the answer is assessing your own level of contentment.

Will the people in your life ever be enough?

Or will the grocery store and filling your gas tank and checking off that next task continue to propel you and make you feel competent? If so, you’ll never feel that way. There is always more to do.

So perhaps it’s time to start listening to the person in front of you and stop looking over her shoulder.

Are The People In Your Life Enough? is a post from: Storyline Blog

Be Careful Where You Look For Glory

Jesus said, “I do not receive glory from people. I know that you do not have the love of God within you.”

If there was ever a statement that invited trust, it’s this one. In a sense, Jesus is saying “I don’t need you to affirm me. I’m not looking to you for any kind of completion. Your association or disassociation does not affect me.” And from there He tells the truth about our condition, and the more wonderful truth about His grace and our own forgotten worth.

As creators, when we seek glory from people, we drink from a poisonous well. We can get love from other people, for sure.

But love and glory are different.

Love from our friends comforts, but glory, that is the love of God that will be poured through our souls upon our reunion, is what we are really looking for. If a child is not loved, the child will likely feel a wound for life. Love is that important. But God’s glory is what love speaks of only in metaphor.

As a creator, we are better off pointing people toward glory than seeking glory ourselves.

*Photo Credit: Dustin Gaffke, Creative Commons

If you’ve got a gallery opening coming up, it’s going to be a miserable experience if you are hoping for glory. If you are hoping for love, have a ball; I hope people show up and affirm your work and your art. But let’s be careful about the glory part. People are human and flawed, and they cannot give you glory like the presence of God.

So what do we do to get the glory?

You wait. And you love each other to comfort each other while you are waiting.

May your work point to the glory that “will be” revealed.

Be Careful Where You Look For Glory is a post from: Storyline Blog

Will Your Story Be One Of Awe Or Fear?

Last week I made the trek to visit my niece and nephews in Oregon. Piper, the oldest, turned 5 years old not too long ago and much like I was at her age, she’s fearless.

One afternoon, we were playing the infamous airplane game, in which I lay on my back and balance Piper on my feet while she “flies.” I was holding onto her hands to keep her from losing balance and falling when she looked down at me and said, “Aunt Cadence, don’t hold my hand! I like scary things.”

I slowly let go of her tiny fingers.

I watched as she balanced herself without holding on and giggled with satisfaction. But I mostly couldn’t stop thinking about how courageous her spirit was, how foreign the words I like scary things sounded and felt.

*Photo Credit: Austin Kirk, Creative Commons

When I thought about it later, I realized a younger me would have used the phrase “I like scary things” too. I remember rushing into the house after school to watch episodes of Are You Afraid Of The Dark? when I was 6 years old, high off the thrill of watching ghost stories rated for a “Y7″ audience. I’d whiz through Goosebumps and Nancy Drew novels, climb tall trees and high dive from pools like there was no tomorrow.

I liked scary things too.

But the older I’ve gotten, the more familiar phrases like “play it safe” or “don’t get too crazy” or “wait for the right time” have become instead. I’ve let my fears, much like I did with Piper, instruct me to hold onto things even when I know I can balance without them.

So I’ve found avoiding scary things doesn’t help me grow—it limits me. When I’m avoiding taking risks in life, whether small or big, it’s a good indication I’m trying to maintain a false sense of control. It’s a good indication I’m more scared about what could go wrong than hopeful about what could go right.

And scary can be fun if we’re hopeful.

I never once saw an Are You Afraid Of The Dark? episode that didn’t end happily. Part of the fun in watching was having hope that things would work out—that the viewer journey I’d embarked on would turn out not to be as scary as it’d seemed in the beginning.

When we’re more interested in trying to control outcomes rather than experience a hopeful journey, we keep a tight grip on the safety bar of our roller coaster lives. And consequently, we miss out on the fun of putting our arms up in the air.

My niece is insatiably curious, spending hours in suspenseful fiction or climbing hills in her backyard looking for bugs. And her willingness to face scary things only makes her more joyful about what she finds and gets to share. She lives with both her arms up in the air, confirming this truth:

When we’re less filled with fear, we create more room to be in awe.

So is it worth gripping the safety bar?

Is it really worth losing our sense of wonder and awe for a false sense of security?

I know the easy argument here is that Piper is a five year old in a loving family who likely hasn’t had her heart broken or gotten the bad end of business deal yet. And taking risks, of course, is more intimidating the older we get. We have complex factors to consider and have probably been knocked down a time or 10—but I think that would be a terrible reason to shrink back from life.

Do we really want to let our worries and wounds be steering us? Do we really want to go through life wondering “what if” instead of telling stories that start with “but then…”?

Risks may set us back at times.

But they’re also necessary to move forward. You can’t live your dream if you’re not willing to take the risks of making it a reality.

Quit the job, move to the city you think of most, tell that one person how you feel about them, share your idea or your art—do the scary thing you’re tempted to keep putting off.

I bet if we started approaching our dreams more like fearless five year olds, we’d experience more of heaven than we ever knew possible on earth (Mat 18:3). Let’s let go of our safety bars and live with our arms up in the air.

Will Your Story Be One Of Awe Or Fear? is a post from: Storyline Blog

Why Creators Are Happier Than Consumers

I’m no fan of the “there are only two kinds of people” idea but in the realm of being a creator or a consumer, I do believe each one of us leans toward one side or the other. I’ve blogged about it before, but it’s been a while and I think I have a clearer view of what these poles suggest, and a much better understanding of how learning to live more as a creator and less as a consumer makes us more happy.

First, definitions.

Creator: A person who leans toward being a creator is not necessarily creative; it only means he believes he has the power to create the kind of life he wants. Within reason.

Consumer: A person who leans towards being a consumer believes he has little power to create the life he wants and instead must shop for it in an endless sea of options being presented to him.

Here’s how it works in real life.

If a consumer longs for community he or she goes online looking for a place to plug in. He might look for a church, a sports league, a class he can take, whatever. And that’s all fine.

But when a creator longs for community he or she invites the neighbors over for dinner, he puts up a screen in his backyard and hosts a neighborhood movie night, he starts a frisbee-golf league, or he teaches a painting class.

*Photo Credit: memories_by_mike, Creative Commons

See the difference? One person shopped to get his needs met and the other created something to meet his needs.

So the real problem with being a consumer is this:

Consumers believe their options are limited.

And if they’re really far on the consumer side, they might even get depressed because they can’t find something to fulfill them. Which is sad, because the whole time they likely could have just created something.

As people get more and more busy, they have less and less time to create solutions and so those who do create products, services and community become more and more influential. The only people who influence culture, after all, are the creators. Consumers only guide culture with their buying choices; they aren’t actually “making” culture at all, only voting for it.

So how do you know if you lean toward consumer or creator?

Here are four informal questions to ask yourself:

Do you often find yourself meditating on your lack? If so, you’re likely leaning toward being a consumer. Creators meditate on what they can do and their imagination excites them.
Do you look for the “right” way to do something? Creators tend to not think something is the “right” way and instead believe there are a myriad of options to get the job done.
Do you look for security in the opinions of others? Consumers tend to go with the flow and feel more comfortable if large groups are affirming their choices. Creators look for options that haven’t been created yet and are okay looking odd to find them.
Do you “moralize your preferences”—meaning do you believe there is a right way to clean the kitchen and mow the lawn and pursue faith and so on? Consumers tend to believe their way is the right way rather than realizing most issues are not moral at all, just practical and pragmatic. Consumers associate their security with following somebody else’s instructions rather than creating their own.

The reason creators are more likely to be happy than consumers is they get their needs met more often and rarely get stuck in fatalistic thinking.

The creator’s world is not a menu; it is an infinite list of ingredients.

What we lose when we lean toward consumer-thinking over creative-thought is our “selves.” As consumers, we wear the clothes, listen to the music, attend the church, vote for the candidate and so on that is presented to us on a menu. Because of this, we stop influencing the world and become a reviewer of it. And yet reviewing somebody else’s products and culture is not the same as having an impact on it.

What if what the world really needed was you?

What if your ideas mattered but they were getting lost because you forgot you were allowed and even created to create? What if God created you to shine, to speak, to influence, to help other consumers realize they could have a fulfilling life of their own making? What if, as Walt Whitman said, you could contribute a verse?

What if, this week you analyzed two things in your life you were dissatisfied with and brainstormed possible solutions you just hadn’t thought of yet.

Go off the menu.

What could you do to make money? What could you do to better organize your time? What could you do to build community? What could you do to express and pursue faith?

What if God was writing a poem on the world and your verse was being silenced?

What if you yelled your contribution for the world to hear? Gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. Let’s be creators like the one who made us!

Why Creators Are Happier Than Consumers is a post from: Storyline Blog

You Don’t Need More Talent Or Time

Dear Glennon,

I want to write, but I feel like I’m not special enough. Also, I have no talent or time. Still, I feel this yearning…

YOU! YES! You are the one! Please write. The most important quality in a writer is her certainty that she is not special.

We do not need more artists using art to prove their specialness.

“Special” artists don’t move us.

What moves us are artists who show us that our shared, ordinary human experience is special enough.

No talent? Good, that’s one less thing that might distract us from your message. Art is not for the talented; it’s for the honest.

It’s for folks brave enough to show us who we are and kind enough to love us anyway.

No time? Perfect. Give us raw and hurried over polished and careful. We humans are neither polished nor careful. We are raw and hurried, so we will recognize ourselves in your delivery. Don’t give us someone who knows how to string together lovely words—as if words were flowers and writing simply a matter of arranging them attractively. Give us someone who fills up her trembling hands with her dirty insides and holds them out to us and says, “Are we sure this is dirt? Might it be gold?”

Because after that question—that question that all good art poses—it becomes clear that the magic is not in the art itself.

The magic is the moment after we encounter good art.

It’s the moment when that question hangs in the air between us and the artist—unanswered. The magic is inside that in-between in which we are stunned by the artist’s audacious forgiveness of herself and of us and so we stand there, shaken and flung far from our usual understanding of how alone and dirty we are. While we try to find our balance again, we can’t help but wonder, is it possible that instead of being filled with dirt—I might also be filled with gold?

*Photo Credit: Daniel Sandoval, Creative Commons

When I was in second grade, I wrote my first poem. I was a good girl then, all smiles and nice hair and decent grades and always “fine,” you know. But when my teacher asked us to write a poem, I found my pencil scratching the word MAD onto my crisp, clean sheet of lined, white paper. I traced over the word again and again until each letter was thick and black and until there were scratches through the not-so-neat-anymore paper and there were marks all over my desk and the lead from my pencil was worn completely down and my hands were covered in black dust.

Then I put down my pencil.

I stared at my art like I was seeing an x-ray of my insides for the first time.

My teacher walked over and while all the other children had their heads down writing words—long, fancy, impressive words—she stopped behind my desk and lingered over my shoulder. In this moment—immediately after reading One True Word from the insides of a little girl—my teacher was shaken and flung far from her usual understanding of how alone and dirty she was. She leaned down and whispered into my ear, “me too.”

And of course, I looked back at my dirty paper and my tiny, dirty hands and wondered, could this dirt be gold? It’s thirty years later and I’m still trying to write as brave and true as I did when I wore a plastered-on smile and pig tails.

You, the one without time or talent, you are the one. Write, paint, dance as a public service to our human family. Be a servant with your art.

Don’t use it to say “Here I am!” Use it to say “Here we are. We are okay, you know.”

Forget talent and just use your hands.

Large swaths of time are not needed. It took me three minutes to create the most honest piece I’ve ever written: MAD.

Show us how beautiful and brutal we are and love us for it. Give us that moment in which we wonder if we might one day forgive ourselves for this state of being we seem stuck in—this dirty, golden state of humanness.

The only requirement of an artist is this: You must try to love and forgive yourself completely before you create.

If you are ashamed of any part of yourself, you will hide the one thing from us we most need to see. If you keep from us the dirty gold, there will be no in-between moment for us. And the in-between moment is everything.

Only the forgiven and loved can help others be forgiven and loved. Only the free can free others. Don’t be talented, be free.

Write on, friend.

You Don’t Need More Talent Or Time is a post from: Storyline Blog

Are You Blinded By Your Own Certainty?

Just recently I had a dentist appointment, and was without a car. No problem, I thought to myself. I’ll just ride my bike. The dentist’s office is only about two miles from my house.

But both tires of my bike were flat.

Still not a big deal. I had time to walk.

However, it was really hot outside, and by the time I got to the dentist, I was overheated, sweaty and, perhaps, a bit cranky. I have issues with dentists anyway because of my hockey playing days in Minnesota and the movie Little Shop of Horrors, so that was probably messing with my head a little too.

When the check-up and cleaning and annual criticism of my oral hygiene was completed, I set out for home.

It had gotten at least 10 degrees hotter outside.

Five minutes into my soggy walk home, my wife called my cell phone.

“Where are you? I got home early.”

“I’m walking home from the dentist,” I said through bleeding gums.

“In this heat? What street are you on? I’ll come get you.”

My wife is the kindest person I know. I told her where I was, what side of the street I was on, and showered her with gratitude. I walked a few more blocks, thinking she’d be along any second. I even slowed down.

Finally, my phone rang again.

“I’ve driven up and down the street a couple of times looking for you but can’t find you.”

Then I spotted her tan car, sitting at a traffic light a few feet in front of me.

*Photo Credit: epsos .de, Creative Commons

“Look over your right shoulder,” I said. “I’m coming up behind you.”

“There’s no one behind me,” she said.

The sun was blazing against the glass, making it impossible for me to see in the car, and, apparently impossible for her to see out.

“Now I’m right next to you,” I said. “Look out the passenger side.”

“I’m looking out the passenger side and I don’t see you,” she said.

Then I did something dumb, and probably a little dangerous.

I stepped directly in front of the car. Maybe exasperated.

“I’m right in front of you,” I said, waving my arm over my head at the driver in perhaps a condescending “Now do you see me?” gesture.

At the very instant my wife said “I’m in the parking lot of the grocery store, and there is no one waving at me.”

I looked at the driver of this car that was clearly not my wife’s, who had a horrified look on her face. She stepped on the gas, swerved around me, and fled for her life.

I was sure it was her.

I was even annoyed that she didn’t see what was so obviously true. Despite the reality of what she was telling me, I didn’t believe her. I knew what I knew. My certainty caused me to take a dumb risk and scare the people around me. And I was wrong.

Ever done something like this?

How might your certainty be driving you away from the truth? What wrong move might you make because you haven’t considered someone else’s point of view?

Before you move forward in what you think you know today, ask yourself if you’ve considered the advice and warnings from the people in your life who care about you the most.

They might just keep you from walking out into traffic.

Are You Blinded By Your Own Certainty? is a post from: Storyline Blog

Does Talking About Your Work Keep You From Finishing It?

I think half the battle of a creator is in finishing his or her projects. I wonder how many of the world’s greatest creators never created anything great, because while they may have had the intelligence and even the skill, they weren’t finishers.

Finishing is part of the art.

A guy I met once ran into Norman Mailer at an airport and asked him what he was working on. Mailer politely declined to answer the question, saying that when he talks about a book too much, it steals his motivation to write it.

*Photo Credit: Hash Milhan, Creative Commons

I agree with Mailer, and I also think it was a brilliant way to get out of answering a question most writers are asked fifty-thousand times a day! Regardless of his intention, it’s true that when we talk about our work, we give ourselves the feeling that we are working on something when truthfully…

We aren’t.

If you sat down with a pen and paper and counted the hours you’ve been working on your project, would the number be embarrassing?

Let’s stop talking about our work over coffee. We can talk plenty about it when it’s done.

Does Talking About Your Work Keep You From Finishing It? is a post from: Storyline Blog