Quinn McDonald's Blog, page 102

Class shock

This is not about class warfare, or even the one percent or the 99 percent. This is about taking scrapbooking classes. To be honest, my experience at the class I took yesterday.

I have to say right up front, that I am not a cropper or scrapbooker. I loved the original idea of scrapbooking as a gateway to creativity, but left the arena when I began to notice an alarming number of items, supplies, equipment and tools that were one-thing specific. A tool to punch a hole. Another tool to punch a larger hole. A tool to cut a 12-inch sheet. A tool to cut a 10-inch sheet. I began to see the scrapbooking arena as being consumed by retailers who want to sell you more and more equipment because you believe that your next purchase will make you an artist. This is a hard idea to overcome.

The products and tools being turned out for scrapbookers are lovely and tempting, but so many of them don’t encourage creativity, they chase it out of the room and replace it with accuracy and project completion.

In that way, scrapbooking mimicks office life. You had to be fast and accurate, and if you followed directions, you got a project that looked just like the one on the cover of the kit. Good job!

It had nothing to do with creativity, it had nothing to do with meaning-making. It had a lot to do with peer pressure. Scrapbookers became brand loyal. If you had the blue one, you needed next year’s pink model. You bought the pink model although the blue one still works just fine? Good job! We love you! And like getting a nod from the boss, it is deeply satisfying. And has nothing to do with creativity. Or with meaning making.

Why do I say all this? Because I took a scrapbooking class.  I was the  only one who did not arrive wheeling a suitcase of equipment. The instructor came in, put five plastic boxes, one in front of each small group, and returned to the front of the room. I’m not pretending she represents all scrapbooking instructors. She did mention the brands she represents. And then, to my amazement, she recited the assembly instructions for all five kits, one after another. She moved smoothly from box to box, picking up the completed piece and describing how we were to peel this sticker and apply it to that transfer sheet and then transfer it again, noting sheet colors and decorations by brand name. I began to take notes and she told me not to. “Just follow what I say. As soon as you know what to do, start.”

Women (there were no men in class) jumped, snatched kits out of the plastic boxes and applied themselves with a fervor and concentration. Tools flashed. A woman next to me asked me where my tools were. I held up my journaling bundle. She shook her head. “You’ll never keep up with just that.” It seemed the goal was keeping up and completing. It was not a technique class by my definition, it was a multi-project class.

One of the coloring steps was interesting. I applied a color I like. The instructor was suddenly over me, tapping my transferred sticker and saying, “Pink. This is not supposed to be indigo, it’s supposed to be petal. Start over.”  I nodded, and waited for her to leave. I’m not a fan of pink. I continued on the indigo. The woman on my right looked at my work and shook her head. “That’s not right,” she said kindly, “You are doing it wrong. You’ll be here till midnight.”

I am not criticizing the women or the instructor. Many women left with completed project that looked just like the completed kits at the front of the class. I felt I’d spent two hours in a factory, failing at lining up the chocolates.

For me, this is not creative work, it is assembly work. It fosters perfectionism and obedience. It doesn’t allow for variation, play, or exploring.  For me, there was no meaning making.

Maybe a few people who are scrapbookers want more play, more exploring, less dependence on tools, more on intuition. Maybe they want a way to discover who they are, and what skills they have and how those skills can be important to them. If so, I’m interested in you. I’d like to know what your next step to creativity is. I’d like to know what you love about scrapbooking and what you don’t. I’m interested in meaning making and how we experience it.

–Quinn McDonald is the author of Raw Art Journaling, a book for people who want to make meaning but don’t know how to draw.

Filed under: Creativity, Raw Art Journaling, Recovering Perfectionists Tagged: Creativity, meaning-making, postaday2012, scrapbooking

Testing Resists

Resists are pencils, pens or liquids like rubber cement that prevent color from soaking into paper. I love using resists on my art journaling pages because it gives a type of texture to the page.

Tonight I tried three different resists, to completely different results and a big surprise to me. It seems the traditional resists I’ve used for a long time don’t always work the same way.

The first one I tried is white Uniball Signo gel pen from Jet Pens. I’ve used it to write on top of color and like the effect. It puts down a nice smooth, even line. I thought writing on Strathmore Ready-cut watercolor paper first, then using color, it would give me a nice resist. Not at all.  The gel ink soaks into the watercolor paper and the color goes on over it. I was surprised.

You can see the white faintly on the right side of the page.

I then tried Sharpie Poster Paint pens, which I did not expect to work well, but did, although it’s faint.  I used watercolor pencils and a wet brush. I painted the wet brush across the pencil and used it as paint. You can see the dots as well as the flower on the middle of the page, right side.

Colored grease pencils with wrap-sharpening showing. Image from Patronofthearts.com

Next I tried grease pencil, also called tile marker or china marker, is a white waxy pencil that is supported by a wrap of paper that you peel off to expose more pencil. I thought this would work; it’s my go-to resist pencil.

You can see a faint diagonal line at the upper right corner and a few dots.

It didn’t work as well as I thought. I’ll admit, it worked a lot better with an ink wash, but I was using watercolor pencils, so it’s quite pale, but visible.

What worked best? Utrecht liquid frisket. I applied it with a brush. Use a cheap brush and be prepared to throw it out. The bottle says you can rinse the brush with soap and water, but after I do that, I throw it out. It’s just not the same anymore.

Frisket works best, but I can't get even, straight lines.

The dots are clear because the frisket goes down wet, dries, and you rub it off like rubber cement. There are no straight lines, but I like the clear effect, even if the watercolor is pale.

So, there are three variables: paper, resist, and the watercolor. I need to try ink washes to see if I get better results than watercolor pencils.

-–Quinn McDonald likes the word “resist” because that’s what we do when we face ourselves in our art.

Filed under: Journal Pages, Links, resources, idea boosts, Raw Art Journaling Tagged: art journal pages, art journaling, mixed media, resist

Listen Up, Fashion Designers

Fashion designers work in a different world. Unfortunately, it’s the one the rest of us live in. Fashion designers design for the ideal, the wonderful. In Season 9 of Project Runway, one of the designers, Olivier Green (why didn’t I notice that name before?) complained that one of his models had boobs. He didn’t like that, it ruined the line of his work. He also complained about hips, legs that weren’t long enough, and shoulders that weren’t wide enough to make his creations drape right.

Hearing Olivier complain made me realize what happens in the translation from runway to store rack–and most of it goes wrong. Here’s what I wish designers would pay attention to a few details:

You looked at the buttons didn't you? Had some weird thoughts, too. Told you so. Image: Huffingtonpost Style section.

1. Just because it’s plus-size doesn’t mean the buttons need to be the size of dinner plates. Regular buttons will work just fine. Jackets or blouses with huge buttons call attention to whatever they are close to. When these giant buttons are also white, no matter what color the fabric, they look even more ridiculous. See image on the right.

2. Cross-body bags need to fit across the body of people with breasts.You can’t be Olivier and insist that your work is meant only for the super flat-chested. Even men have chest muscles that aren’t flat, and allow a heavy cross-body bag to shift and wind up in an awkward position. In the example below, the bag is meant for men to wear in front and women to wear across the back. That would be great if we never needed to take anything out of

If the cross-body bag is going to hug your body, make sure it doesn't become a one-sided push-up bra. For men or women.

the bag, didn’t mind if the person behind us in line does take things out of the bag, and didn’t have an impossibly wide or cuttingly thin strap across the front. Try them on real people before you make a million of them. Even the guy on the right doesn’t look like a good fit for this device, which is just big enough for a smart phone, keys and plane ticket. If that’s all I’m carrying, I’ll use pockets. Trouble is, when you fly, you also have a laptop, carry-on, water bottle, e-reader, jacket–none of which will fit in that contraption across your chest, which you will have to take off and send through the X-ray machine. So you’ll take out your boarding pass anyway and carry it between your teeth.

3. Please give us colors we can wear. Want to wear. To work. Very few people can pull off the mango-tango color of the year for 2012. We’d like to pull it off and bury it, but it glows beneath the earth. No one larger than a size 4 can wear pants this color. OK, so maybe my slate-gray, navy blue, dark olive colors aren’t trendy. But give me a choice. Do the mango-tango, but also let me have granite, shale, mushroom and midnight slacks. Everyone in line will be grateful.

4. Not everyone is flattered by cropped pants or capris. I can’t find a pair of summer slacks that covers my cankles. For the vast majority of people, cropped pants are hideous, cutting the leg in two (a visual trick not flattering to those without legs that start at the armpit). The crops also hit the leg in a place that isn’t tapering so it looks like a wrapped fencepost. Please make a few long pants for summer. And don’t tell me it’s cooler. The crops were shown across the page from a matching selection of long-sleeved sweaters and knit cardigans. If I’m wearing sleeves on my arms I want sleeves for my legs, too.

5. Pants need pockets, shirts don’t. I have no idea what pockets on women’s blouses are for, but certainly not for an iPhone. I call half my clients every time I sneeze. And unless I tuck a calculator in the other side, I look like I’m pressed against a narrow wall. If I decide not to put anything in my pants pockets, that’s my choice. It’s not up to the designer to decide I shouldn’t and eliminate the pockets.

Please, designers, take a look at real people and design for them. Sew on buttons with more than two passes of thread, tack the end of the zipper so it doesn’t crawl out, cut the neckline so it covers the bra straps, and make my blouses long enough to cover the waist band when I hiccup. I will thank you and my colleagues will be able to look at me without smirking.

—Quinn McDonald is hoping to find just one pair of dark linen pants for the summer that not only fit, but have pockets.

Filed under: Creativity, In My Life, Opinion Tagged: clothes that fit, clothing, fashion, pants, postaday2012

Pencil Beats Disk

I love pencils. Cheap, available, usable. I have a pencil on my nightstand next to some index cards–in case I wake up and need to remember something but don’t want to turn on the light. A pencil always works. In the dark, without looking, the pencil will work. Ballpoints and fountain pens, which I also love, sneakily need to be warmed up and I don’t know when they’ve started working.

Yellow pencil. Colored pencil, ink. © Q. McDonald

The other night, I wanted to remind myself to take the white board to a workshop. I used a ballpoint pen (the cat had absconded with the pencil to blissfully chew the eraser to bits) and the next morning I read “uh tc bca d”because missing halves of letters looked like different letters–half of a W turned into a U, the O into a C.

When I got to the journaling workshop, I was asked the most popular question I get–why not just blog? Why not keep a journal on your computer? I love tech toys.

But I also have a shoebox full of diskettes in various sizes that no one can open and read. Some are in word-processing programs that pre-date MS Word or Wordperfect. Anyone remember Multi-Mate? Of course not. Some are on formats for which there are no matching slots in computers. The big 5.5-inch floppies. Punch cards. Those computers are long gone.

Lascaux cave drawing, hunt scene

It’s true that I lost a pile of journals to a flood in the basement, and to another to a fire in the attic. (Ah, the Old-Testament years.) But in each case, the journals I found were still readable. For that matter, so are the drawings in the Caves at Lascaux, which are about 30,000 years old and made with charcoal, an early pencil-substitute.

My son’s first drawings, love notes I scribbled, my parents notes to each other (my father favored light poetry directions and directives to my mother), in fact, my father’s sketches from when he was 6 years old–over a hundred years ago–are all still intact because they are in this simple medium. Pencil on paper. Timeless.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer who uses pencils, pens, computers, and inks to make meaning. Anyway she can. She’s also a creativity coach.

Filed under: Journal Pages, Raw Art Journaling, The Writing Life Tagged: journaling, mixed media, pencils, postaday2012

Five Tips to Improve Your Social Networking

First, you have to know I’m not a self-proclaimed social networking guru, genius, or miracle maker. I’m a writer, and social networking is largely about writing well. Whether you are a beginner or have been on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Goodreads, Tumblr, Flickr and Pinterest as soon as they launched, these quick tips will make you better at it. Some of the tips may be completely opposite to what you’ve heard. Writers learn differently from other people.

I love this image, but I still believe content is king. Image: http://www.digitopoly.org

1. Social Networking is about content. Cheap, starchy filler may attract followers, but it won’t keep them. Choose something you know about and care about and stick to writing about that.  At a book signing, I heard Martha Beck say, “Information is not power anymore. Attention span is power.” Content commands attention. Comment communicates.

2. Be curious about the world. No one loves a know-it-all. Even if you are an expert, there is plenty left to learn. Keep reading, keep researching, keep being curious. Learn from your readers and your audience. It’s contagious and your readers will love it.

3. Deliver what you promise. If you write a how-to article, make sure you show your readers how to do it. Too many articles that promise “how” simply tell you “what.” Be specific. Include steps. Imagine your how-to article being used to train your dog. If the dog is off chasing a squirrel at the end of the article, you either have a lab or your article needs re-writing.

4. Don’t be a tease. Tweets or Facebook posts that start, “Check this out. . .” or “Here’s what I think. . .” and then a link is not nearly as fascinating as you hoped. Give people a reason to click, a juicy temptation to leave the page they are on. And reward their decision with a great photo or article.

5. Don’t link all your accounts. Twitter is a different medium than Tumblr or Pinterest. If your audience overlaps, they really don’t need to see the same thing twice. Or six times. Automatically re-posting your Tweets on Facebook insults your friends and confuses your audience. If you are too lazy to re-write for a different audience and a different objective, do not expect your audience to find you fascinating.

A bonus tip: Size isn’t everything, particularly in audience numbers. Having a huge number of followers and thinking they care about you is the same as standing on top of the Chase building in Phoenix and thinking you are influencing the Valley just because you can see from Goodyear to Gilbert.

Social networking is about influence, and that’s not necessarily about numbers, it’s about what those numbers do, think or say.

—Quinn McDonald is a writer who finds social media fascinating, weird, unpredictable and wonderful, frequently simultaneously.

Filed under: Art/Freelance Biz, LinkedIn, Opinion, The Writing Life Tagged: content is king., postaday2012, social networking

Setting Boundaries: Hard, but Worth It

The life of a freelancer is full of pitfalls. It’s also a wonderful way to work if you are determined and strong. In yesterday’s post, I talked about guidelines for taking on a job. I missed a lot of the warning signs and had to quit a job. Today, I’m talking about boundaries necessary for a freelancer to establish a healthy relationship with a client.

I have many wonderful clients in my life; I’ve been fortunate to have a long line of great clients. But the freelance relationship needs boundaries to make it work, and when I don’t enforce them, I wind up in trouble. Here are some rules I’ve learned to set. Sometimes I’ve learned them over and over again.

1. The best a client is going to treat you is when they want you to take the job. If they are angry, shifting blame, or unclear then, it will only get worse. Smile, thank them, and leave. Fast.

You can build your own boundary, of your own design. It has to work for you, it's not meant to work for others. It does have to be fair. Image from coolboom.com

2. Set boundaries early on. Boundaries help keep your hands and decisions clean. Be clear. “I don’t work on weekends, so getting me the team materials on Friday afternoon and having it due on Monday won’t work for me.” You get to choose and set your boundaries. Your boundaries should be fair, simple, and clear.

3. Expect push-back on your boundaries. The client may think all freelancers work from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. each night and both days all weekend. The client may want to treat you as an employee, but without the benefits. The client absolutely doesn’t understand how freelancing works–that you get paid only for times you are working, and waiting doesn’t count.

The client generally doesn’t understand that you have other clients for whom you are also doing rush work, and can’t push it aside every time they phone. Everyone always knows his job better than anyone else, and you know freelance.

Your boundaries have to reflect your reality. Often it’s like explaining to a horse what a hamburger tastes like–an exercise in futility. That why boundaries are practical–they require enforcing, not explanations.

Surveying the boundaries to keep them in place. Image: enterconstruction.com

4. Don’t change your boundaries. Even if you want to be nice. Even if you want to please the client. Even if sucking up is in your DNA. Once you change the boundaries, the client will know they are paper boundaries, not brick boundaries. Boundaries protect your strength and your ability to work hard when you are working on that project. Backing off on the boundaries encourages the client to engage in scope-creep (asking for more and more for the same price and deadline). Pretty soon you’ll be giving up your kidney.

5. It’s OK to stick to your rules, even when the client doesn’t like you. The client doesn’t like you because you are sticking to your sensible rules. You chose them because they are sensible and healthy. Expect accusations like “you aren’t a team player!” or “I’m really disappointed in you!” or “You are not professional!”  or “That’s industry standard.” When those accusations are hurled at you it’s a good time to remember that we often accuse people of faults we have ourselves.

Stand your ground.

Create your own list of non-negotiable demands and boundaries. Make them fair. Then stick to them. If you get bowled over, outvoted, and threatened with public disgrace, take those threats seriously. You may have to walk away from the job.

Quitting or firing a client lets you leave a lost battle before you get burned. If you stay, you’ll not only get burned, you will also have to dig through your charred remains, searching for your soul.

Quinn McDonald sets boundaries, but will always need practice in enforcing them.

Filed under: Art/Freelance Biz, In My Life, Opinion, The Writing Life Tagged: enforcing boundaries, people pleasing, setting boundaries

Busting the Myth of “Never Give Up!”

Winston Churchill said it, so did Ross Perot. Never give up. Never, ever. It’s downright un-American to give up. Suck it up, soldier on. No matter who tells you you can’t, do it anyway. For me, there is a difference between being determined and being stubborn. Half of being smart is knowing what you are dumb at and not doing it. The other half is knowing what you are smart at and doing that, instead.

Winston Churchill, from NobelPrize.org

So, just to set the record straight, what Churchill actually said was:

“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never, Never, Never, Never give up.”

The capitals are Churchill’s. Notice the small part we seldom see,”except to convictions of honor and good sense.” And those are the ones I didn’t see either. Churchill was determined, but he was no fool. And I was. I should have memorized the “except . . .good sense.”

Freelancers (full disclosure: I’m one of them) actually have excellent reasons to give up. My failing is that I seldom do give up when I should. No, I will cause myself harm in order to please my client. It’s simply not a good idea.

Here’s what happened, and it was totally my responsibility: I took on a job that was missing five of the seven non-negotiable demands before taking on a job. What was I thinking? (What did I learn from this?)

1. Read the Statement of Work (SOW). All of it. If the client says, “the other three pages are just budget stuff that you shouldn’t see,” a sticky-note-size red warning flag should start to wave. If the client says, “Here’s the paragraph that is about writing, I’ll just tell you about the rest of it so you don’t have to read it,” the red flag should double in size. Maybe more, the size of a placemat.

2. Know your team. If you haven’t met the team, don’t agree to anything. I’m not a big fan of teamwork because past experience has proven (often) that 20 percent of the team does 80 percent of the work. At the very least, get the team members’ emails, and ask for a meeting well before the project starts. If you don’t get any answers, call them. If you still don’t get answers, the red warning flag is now the size of a table cloth. You are in Dismal Swamp territory of work.

It's a choice. Sign from linguagreca.com

3. Know the exact pay and how it will be paid out. Just because you have worked for the client for years for the same amount does not mean the amount didn’t get cut in half last week. Ask. If the amount is much less than usual, ask to think about it overnight. Do not nod your head because you want to be nice. Nice is wonderful, but think over your decision.

Can you afford to be nice?
Are you being nice just to be a people-pleaser and you are already feeling resentful? Not fair to anyone.
Does nice pay your mortgage or buy enough groceries?

4. Know the project leader. If there is no leader, run. The idea that any idea is as good as the next idea, or that no leader is needed, or that any process will do, just doesn’t work. Don’t Twinkle, Block. The red flag is now big enough to cover a king-size bed, with room for pillow shams. (Yes, I deliberately used “sham.”) If the leader is weak or over-stressed, you are in way over your head.

5. There must be a kick-off meeting. Without a kick-off meeting that includes the team leader and all the team members, no work can start. Kick-off meetings clarify roles, set priorities and deadlines. Everyone must know them, hear them from the team leader. Red flag is now the size of a tarp on a baseball field in the rain. 

6. Know the deadlines.The biggest warning sign of all is a starting date that

Know the deadline and how firm it is.

has been pushed aside by the client several times, with no corresponding shift in the completion date.

7. Ask to see the pre-work, or existing materials before you start. A client may say, “Half of this is done already,” but if you don’t see it, that half may be just in the client’s magical thinking list.

It’s easy to ignore the rules if you have worked with a client for a long time, if you are an inveterate people-pleaser, or if you afraid of being disliked. If you break your rules, you will be stuck with someone else’s rules. There is a time to quit, and that’s when the signs point to disaster that you can’t fix, adjust or avert.

And that’s what I did. With five of the seven signs flapping in the tornado of disaster, I told the project leader I couldn’t continue. I was disappointed in myself and then learned why I set boundaries. More on boundaries tomorrow.

Oh, as soon as I said I could not meet the deadline under the circumstances, and was told I had agreed to it, and I was breaking the contract (I hadn’t signed one), and shamed; as soon as I walked away, the deadline was moved weeks into the future. Because, you know, it wasn’t possible to meet it.

–Quinn McDonald is re-reading the seven non-negotiable steps to taking a pressure-riddled job. Because she needs to.

Filed under: Art/Freelance Biz, In My Life, Opinion, The Writing Life Tagged: enforcing boundaries, give up, Never give up, setting boundaries

Bloomin' Spring

There's a time of year in the Sonoran Desert when plant life is perfect. That time is now. We have a few hot days and a bit of rain, and the Ocotillo, which looks like a collection of thorns and sticks, breaks out in leaves and flowers.

Close up, the flowers are incredibly beautiful, but they have no scent. Although hummingbirds don't seem to mind.

Then there is a paddle cactus in the front yard that is covered with blooms. In the morning they are bright yellow.

In the afternoon, they deepen to orange.

And in case you aren't completely sure if you prefer pink or yellow, this agave has a flower spike of each one.

It's a wonderful time of year, it lasts about four weeks, and then hell comes to spend the summer. But right now, it's gorgeous.

–Quinn McDonald is a naturalist, artist and creativity coach who lives in the Sonoran desert.

Filed under: Nature, Inside and Out Tagged: agaves, ocotillo, Sonoran desert

Container Recyling Joy

OK, I'll admit to being a container hoarder lover. When the Container Store opened in the Phoenix area, I was thrilled–for two reasons. First, it's a Container Store! Second, it was 15 miles away from me, making it accessible but not too convenient.

Not all containers have to be new. Every student in my classes know what brand and flavor of yogurt and cream cheese I use, because supplies come packed in them and they are used as water containers in class.

Most of my art pals and I share the same bad habit–we dip our watercolor brushes in our coffee-, tea- or soup mugs. Sometimes we continue painting with the coffee, tea or soup. I'm waiting for that habit to become an established mixed media technique. Someone will soon teach "Layering Soups and Gesso,  Split Pea or Cream of Tomato?" (If you think you hold the copyright to that class, please don't write me. I don't want to know.)

Cleverly divided for those who don't want their yogurt and fruit to touch.

I'm not a fan of precious lunch food containers–pre-packaged convenience foods. So when I go out to teach training courses, I pack my lunch with a sandwich and fruit, protected by an ice pack because many places I teach don't have a fridge in the training area. (Usually it's behind a door that won't unlock for a stranger with a paper tag labeled "Visitor".)

Even I get tired of sandwiches, so I've taken to carrying yogurt. I generally eat plain yogurt with chopped mixed nuts or fresh fruit, but it makes a complicated packaging job, so I've succumbed to the yogurt packaged with fruit-next-to-it.

Do I do this because it is delicious? Not so much. I prefer plain, unflavored, unsweetened yogurt. I do it because the empty containers are perfect for traveling art journal water containers.

The large portion is for rinsing the brush, the smaller portion for picking up

Stackable, too, for travel.

clean water. Or, the larger portion is for rinsing the brush, the smaller portion for holding ink (which I use instead of watercolor in one-color illustrations).

Or, one side holds medium, gesso, or glue and the other side water for rinsing and consistency-changing for tiny mosaic pieces or other small bits.

I must admit that I bought several of these clever containers because I'm teaching a class at Valley Ridge and want to bring along several for just such purposes. In fact, there are a few places left, so I'd best buy a few more. Just in case.

Quinn McDonald has not yet mistaken yogurt for glue, but she thinks it's probably just a matter of time. She does place her coffee cup on the non-dominant hand side of her desk to avoid rinsing her brush in the cup.

Filed under: Creativity, Links, resources, idea boosts Tagged: art recycling, mixed media, postaday2012, recycling containers, travelling art containers

Starting Fresh

We love starting over. It wipes the messy slate of our past clean, and lets us start fresh. We can put on a new face, a new attitude, a new effort. It seems like we can create a whole new identity when we do a new article, book, or website.

The gallery is in Yarmouthport, Mass.

Soon enough, that new effort is overwhelmed by the old ideas fueling the effort–the old us. Alcoholics Anonymous figured this out years ago when they said, "If you are a drunk in Cleveland, moving to Peoria for a fresh start isn't the answer. You'll be a drunk in Peoria, too." It's a wise saying, although a

tough one. (AA never pretended to have easy answers.)

When I went to Catholic school (I'm not a Catholic, but that's another story), I loved seeing my friends go to confession. They'd say their prayers and their sins were wiped away. Poof! Just like that, they were brand new and sin free. Unfortunately, the old habits didn't vanish, and my guess is that the same sins got repeated in the confessional time after time. And since there were different priests, no one really noticed or cared, and little personal growth resulted.

And that's the danger of new projects. They seem free of the past baggage, but they are not free of us. We show up with our past, and relive it because it's familiar. In a few days that new project looks like the old us. If we don't like the old us, we'll hate the new project, too.

Teresa Jennings Robinson read this post and sent me the gorgeous hand-lettered quote she made for her art journal. See more of her work at rightbrainplanner.com

I have friends who are start-up junkies. Addicted to new beginnings, these eager people will start up a company with the fervor of Ron Popeil selling the Veg-O-Matic. But they aren't good at running a company, which seem tedious and boring, so they dash off to do another start-up, leaving the clean-up team to handle the rest.

The phrase I hear most often when people find out I'm writing another book is, "Oh, if you need some creative ideas, let me know. I'm really creative!" When I ask if they would help with some research, checking some facts, I get turned down. "Oh, no, my skills are creative ones!" I never say it to them, but creativity is not defined by one brilliant ideas. Creativity means showing up every day to do the hard work. The book I am writing is hard work. It's satisfying, and I enjoy it, but it's not fun and doesn't involve sitting in Starbucks drinking coffee and writing. My editor has often reminded me that books aren't written, they are re-written. I often think of this at midnight, when I'm re-writing.

Creative work is hard. We want to give up, we hate what we've done in the past, we want to do something fun and new. Yet what gets the work done is moving steadily ahead, when it's not fun and not new. The secret to creativity is determination and persistence. Learning from your mistakes and getting up every time you fall is what the real creativity looks like.

--Quinn McDonald is a life- and creativity coach. She watches her clients start a lot of new projects for many different reasons. Sometimes they figure out why.

Filed under: Creativity, In My Life Tagged: Creativity, postaday2012, starting over, stating fresh