Writing and Creativity

I have had a few recent successes - the AM New York column about me, the three-day WCBS radio interview, the Style Network's interest in me - and I can still barely process what has happened...or for that matter, why it's happened. I was so excited when it all began, and not a little proud of my accomplishments. However, I'm reeling in the aftershock of what was, in all respects, the tiniest media blip in history. I began to envision my name in print under a rave New York Times review. Now, I feel like this inner impetus to write the great American fashion novel that began to flicker inside of me has died with the huffing breath of anxiety.

I sat down to guest write a column for a very cool website, and wrote was, perhaps, my best work to date. Yet, I did not finish it. I have a literary agent interested in seeing the first five pages of a novel, and I haven't begun to write it. I have a blog that is getting more traffic than ever, and I'm not updating it. What is my problem???

It's not writer's block, really. I have ideas pouring out of me all of the time. I just have some enormous, monolithic object in my way that I couldn't begin to identify at this point. So, I've been lazy. Reprehensibly lazy.

That is, until I saw a TED lecture given by Elizabeth Gilbert. It turned out to be the most inspiring thing I've ever heard, and it was all about creativity. I want you to watch it, even though it's 18 minutes long (because what I am saying is going to make a lot more sense to you after you watch it, and because it's really, really awesome).

[ted id="453"]




I have put my anxiety on hold, and I have decided to replace my delusions of grandeur with allusions of candor. For now, it's just me and my genius sitting in a room, waiting it out.