Marcus Lopes's Blog, page 30

Celebrate Your Wins

Being an artist — writer, painter, sculptor, dancer — can be lonely. We spend lots of time alone creating, practicing our art. We battle resistance, procrastination and self-doubt as we work to bring our art into the world.

As artists, we persevere. We keep going because this is our calling, and we must heed the call.

Sometimes, though, when we’re focused on achieving a goal, we overlook the progress we’ve made. When I’m writing a novel, I don’t really think about the long hours I’ve put in,...

Nothing is Impossible

“Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail.”

– Charles. F. Kettering

How many times have you let yourself be held hostage by the thoughts racing through your head? If you’re like me, too many. My inner critic shows up any time he can to tell me I’m a fool to dream, that my writing isn’t good enough, or that I’ll never ‘make it.’

But I’ve learned to trust my voice, my art, my calling. That means I’m showing up every day to work on my dream. So, I don’t give my inner critic any room to p...

Will You Heed the Call?

In our household, my partner loves to watch Entertainment Tonight. We only have one TV, so he learns how so many people are heeding their calling (or at the very least who’s divorcing whom). But as soon as the credits start to roll, I flip the channel. Now he must ‘suffer’ through the last half of Murder, She Wrote. Compromise? Maybe.

I’m not interested in celebrity gossip, but sometimes that thirty-minute broadcast — even though I try not to pay attention — offers a gem. That gem for me came...

Your ‘Why’ Will Get You Through

A couple of weeks ago, I received my editor’s critique of my latest manuscript. I’d been waiting for it, eager to get this particular book project moving again. As I digested all the comments — good and bad — I stalled. I didn’t know where or how to begin. Then I started second-guessing myself, that maybe this wasn’t as good of a story as I thought it was. Would anyone be interested in reading it? Then I hit rock bottom and thought … maybe, I should chuck it all.

Breathe

I’d let the drama fro...

Don’t Open the Door to Doubt

When I sit down at my desk in the morning, night is still fully in place. My companions are the muffled sounds of cars speeding down the Gardiner Expressway, the tick tock of the living room clock, and my partner’s snoring seeping through the walls. It is — living in a busy downtown Toronto neighbourhood — by all accounts … quiet. It’s the time of day I am most focused, when I can hear myself think.

I wrote this blog post last November. Then, the weather changed on a dime. Strong, 100km winds...

How Do We Find Balance?

We live in crazy times. Not necessarily crazy, but so much different from when I was a child. Technology has changed how we live and work. Politics are more divisive, and ugly, than I can remember. It’s a me-first world, and trying to keep up can leave you exhausted. And through it all, we’re trying to follow our own path, do what we love … be a beacon of hope in a world seemingly turning in on itself. To do that, to forge ahead, it’s important to bring balance to our daily lives.

Where We We...

I Know this Much is True

Writing is hard work. So is being a painter, a sculptor, a dancer. We show up every day to do the work, to share our vision of the world in the only way we know how. When the time is right, we release it into the public domain and wait. Wait for third-party validation. Wait to be told it’s good enough, or that it sucks. And as we wait, we’re already back in the studio, at the piano, or in front of the laptop creating again. We’re living our dream. We don’t give up.

Reality Check

No matter how...

Why Anything is Possible

Life is a journey. It takes us to many different places, some filled with optimism and joy, others clamouring with sadness, anger and distrust. But no matter where we find ourselves, we must find a way to shine — make the best of our situation — because anything is possible.

I’m on a journey that challenges who I think I am, and makes me doubt I can be who I dare to be. The scary part is that one question keeps poking at me: am I crazy?

Crazy to believe that I can achieve my goals? Crazy to b...

Count Your Blessings

When I moved to Toronto in March 2013, life overwhelmed. New job. New love. Figuring out how to make this new city feel like home. In an unexpected way, I found comfort reading Rhonda Bynre’s The Magic. Writing a daily gratitude list is a lesson and practice from that book that has stuck with me. When you count your blessings at the start of your day, it’s hard to be grumpy, cynical or pessimistic. Like writing, it’s an act that anchors me to the present moment.

Life is busy. I know. Building...

Surviving Doubt

Doubt is a powerful enemy, the first cousin to our Inner Critic. His goal is to kill every aspiration, hold back our dreams. If we let him, he’ll stop us dead in our tracks.

In my writing cycle, fall is the time of year where I find myself hunkered down on a writing project, trying to bring it full circle. That was true again between October and December 2018. Deep in the middle of a rewrite, I pressed on towards the finish line. The end was in sight. I could see it, danced with it as I lived...