Jena’s Reviews > Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear > Status Update

Re: Clive James: He realized that "failure has a function. It asks you whether you really want to go on making things."

Making art does sometimes feel like you're holding a séance, or like you're calling out in the night for a wild animal on the prowl. What you're doing seems impossible and even silly, but then you hear the thunder of hooves, and some beautiful beast comes rushing into the glade, searching for you just as urgently as you have been searching for it.

Perfection stops people from completing their work, yes – but even worse, it often stops people from beginning their work.… The most evil trick about perfectionism, though, is that it disguises itself as a virtue.

People don't do this kind of thing because they have all kinds of extra time and energy for it; they do this kind of thing because their creativity matters to them enough that they are willing to make all kinds of extra sacrifices for it.

If you want to be a professional artist, but you aren't willing to see your work rejected hundreds, if not thousands, of times, then you're done before you start.

How you manage yourself between those bright moments, when things aren't going so great, is a measure of how devoted you are to your vocation… Holding yourself together through all the phases of creation is where the real work lies.

But I remember thinking that learning how to endure your disappointment and frustration IS part of the job of a creative person.

Your own reasons to create are reason enough. ... Do whatever brings you to life, then. Follow your own fascinations, obsessions, and compulsions. Trust them. Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart.

"But I wish someone had been able to convince [Harper] Lee to keep writing for the entirety of her life... it would've been a gift to her... to have been able to remain a writer, and to enjoy the pleasures and satisfaction of that work for herself (because in the end, creativity is a gift to the creator, not just a gift to the audience)."

And you have treasures hidden within you--extraordinary treasures--and so do I, and so does everyone around us. And bringing those treasures to light takes work and faith and focus and courage and hours of devotion, and the clock is ticking, and the world is spinning, and we simply do not have time anymore to think so small.