Book Review and a Giveaway

Note: Congratulations to Jen from Pierced Wonderings–she’s the winner of Eric Maisel’s book, Making Your Creative Mark.

Making Your Creative Mark is Eric Maisel’s 40th book, and his 20th on working with the difficulties creative people have with their work. “Most likely you know how often you stall, block, and give up. Most likely you understand that the art marketplace is a difficult place. Most likely . . . you fret about. . .how often your discipline eludes you,” says Maisel. The nine keys in his book are his answer and solution to the common stumbling blocks artists come across.

Title: Making Your Creative Mark: Nine Keys to Achieving Your Artistic Goals

Author: Eric Maisel, Ph.D. (Therapist, creativity coach, blogger for Psychology Today magazine).

Details: Paperback, 226 pages, New World Library.

Book Chapters:

• The Mind Key –”mind your mind” –thinking thoughts that serve your creativity
• The Confidence Key–how confidence relates to the creative process
• The Passion Key–how to develop the interest required to face the rigors of being creative
• The Freedom Key–how to nurture and support a life in the arts
• The Stress Key–how to deal with creative stress
• The Empathy Key–how to remain aware of others on the creative path
• The Relationship Key–how to navigate relationships in the arts
• The Identity Key–who are you, really?
• The Societal Key–how do you show up in your world?

What I Like: Maisel is a master at keeping you in action. If you are the list-loving, check-it-off-as-I-do-it creative, you will love Maisel’s book. (In Meyers Briggs, you are a highly expressed “J”). He gives you tips, steps, and a no-excuse approach. For many people, this is a great way to get where you are going. You focus on the goal, and then march toward it with Maisel’s ideas at hand.

He’s a clear writer. No jargon, no rambling. Maisel writes smooth, declarative sentences and this books is direct and easy to understand.

Fish climbing up fish ladder. Hard work, but the only way he will get to spawning grounds.

Maisel is also practical and down to earth. No woo-woo, no waiting for the Universe, you build it yourself.

Along the way, Maisel gives a lot of examples that read like feature stories and make his ideas move from theory to real life situations. It helps you create a vision of the actions you could be taking.

What I don’t like: Some of the examples leave you hanging in mid-action. After three pages of reading  about Maisel coaching a reluctant and recalcitrant Marsha who is avoiding dealing with a gallery owner who likes her work, Marsha refuses to take any action and says, “I’m really difficult, aren’t I?” To this, Maisel adds, “Had we made any progress? Marsha was certainly not a changed person. . . I  would have bet that a seed was planted. . . . I had high hopes for our next meeting.”  And then we never hear about Marsha again. While it is absolutely true that many clients take a long time to take action, I’d like to hear about the coaching Maisel does that works now. Because the book expects you to behave quickly, too.

There are moments when the steps, tips, and how-to’s don’t quite answer the question (at least not for me). It’s a bit as if he were a diet coach (he’s not) and said, “Eat less, exercise more” and then tells you to eat less breakfast, eat less lunch and eat less dinner. Oh, and exercise more. I will freely admit that what I want is a little more emotion, a little more soul.

I’m not sure if my next “don’t like” is jealousy or the humility I learned as a child: By page 14, he’s mentioned three of his other books as recommended reading. I know you have to market yourself, but it made me feel slightly uncomfortable. If I like an author, I’ll immediately look up his other books on my own.

Giveaway: Leave a comment telling me you’d like to read the book, and I’ll hold a drawing on Saturday, May 25,  to give the book away.

Disclosure: Eric Maisel was my teacher when I was becoming a life coach and becoming certified as a creativity coach. I’ve read many of his books, but have over time drifted from his circle of influence as I developed my own path.

Leave a comment and form your own opinions by reading his book!

–Quinn McDonald is a certified creativity coach who believes all sorts of wild things that other people don’t agree with, either.

The End of the Angry Quilt

A few months ago I wrote about the mystery of the quilt my mother wouldn’t make for me. She stopped and started the quilt for more than 20 years. The part of the story that confounded me was that for the years my mom was in dementia care and in the years since she died, no one has been able to complete the quilt. People want to take it, but once they have it, their energy wanes.

Double wedding ring quilt, from SarcasticBlogger

Something happens to each person who offers to work on the quilt. Months or years after I hand the quilt over, I get it back, stuffed into a black trash bag and handed back quickly, as if it were an illegal transaction. Or one of mourning.

After I wrote about the quilt, many readers made kind and thoughtful suggestions (you can read that blog post here) of what I should do with the quilt. Some offered to make me a new quilt, which was touching and amazing to me.

There were also a few mothers with difficult daughters who wondered if I might have been on the other end of the perspective. Maybe.  And at the end, I promised to tell you what I would do with the quilt.

I’ve thought about it for a long time. Here’s what we know: The colors (Williamsburg blue and milk chocolate brown with touches of ivory and burnt orange) are not a palette I’d choose. (Notice I’m not saying it wouldn’t match my walls or the couch–I don’t think art has to do that). The calico my mother used was not the cotton of today, and the fabric has degraded over the years.

I took the quilt to meditation and was struck by three shockingly clear facts:

1. The proof, rather than the quilt, was what I was after. I wanted my mother to love me, and prove it by making me a quilt. She made quilts for so many others, why not me? That idea set many years ago, and I never questioned it. When I did, the answer was–my mother did not finish the quilt. I need to accept that as I have accepted the other truths that didn’t taste great the more I chewed on them.

2. If the quilt were finished, what, exactly, did I want to do with it?  I did not want it to cover my bed. Don’t like the color, the design is incomplete, and it would be a reminder of the whole story of loss, every day.

3. The fate of the quilt would be to lie folded in a box in the garage, degrading some more until I pass it on to a relative whose history it doesn’t fit, and who does not need to continue the story.

It took a long time for me to mourn what I did not have and to decide on the next step. Part of my business is designing rituals for others. I join people in marriage or commitment; create and perform sacred ceremonies; end of life transitions; house selling, moving and new home blessings; even new job celebrations. What I needed was a ritual for letting go of the quilt. Vicky, one of my readers, has left the comment, “Burn it.” When I read it, I was shocked. And I knew she was right.

The quilt has served its purpose, and it is time to transition the quilt to another use. I am going to bundle it up, write a letter to my mother, releasing her go of the obligations to complete this quilt or  prove she loves me. I will then burn the quilt and letters and save the ashes. The ashes will be mixed with water-soluble varnish and distilled water and become ink. I’ll use the ink to record the history of the quilt in a journal. My mother was the quilter. I am the writer, and the quilt will find a purpose in the way I know how to use it. The lessons of the quilt can be passed on

• No one can be forced to love you.
• “If you loved me you would. . . .” is a sentence that is about control, not love.
• Loving yourself starts when you accept yourself and know you cannot change the past. Everything else comes after that.

When the day comes to burn the quilt, I will invite people to create their own ceremonies of letting go–of failed love, of regret, of a loss that won’t heal. Whether you burn old love letters or set your sorrows afloat, tied to a stick that you drop into a river, it will be a day to celebrate your own strength.

Take photos and write your stories, and we will create a blog chain of support and celebrate the power of letting go. I’m thinking that October is a good month to do this. I’ll remind you from time to time about your plan, so you will be ready. It will feel incredible light and right to let go.

–Quinn McDonald is a creativity coach and writer. Her word for this year is “let go.”

A Million Views–and a Giveaway

Photo: Lickthebowlgood.com

Yes, it’s happened. My blog passed a million views yesterday. That number sounds amazing to me. Oh, I know that the blog is six years old, and a million views isn’t record-breaking. Not the point. For me, it means that people keep coming back, looking at older pages, waiting for new pages. A million views.

It makes me happy and grateful that people have found me, stuck around, left and come back, and posted insightful, interesting comments.

So it’s time to celebrate! I’m giving away two, one-hour creativity coaching sessions. If I receive more than 60 comments, I’ll do one free coaching for every 30 comments left, and choose the winners from among the first, the middle and the last groups of comments.

Photo by Lynn Viehl

The coaching is not a demos. Real-life, get-down-to-the-issues creativity coaching session. Want to tackle your inner critic? Good idea. How about choosing your next project and starting it? Or taking a look at your perfectionism? It’s your choice. It’s a one-hour session, either by phone or Skype, and it is my gift to you. No charge, no sales pitch, just coaching.

If you’ve ever wanted to experience creativity coaching, this is your chance. You will experience the feeling of support and possibility, perhaps even a moment of clarity and a breakthrough. It depends on what you bring into the session, and I am excited to have the experience of free-form coaching again.

Here’s the small print: We’ll choose a time that works for both of us. You will initiate the call. If we use Skype, it will be computer to computer and without video. International entries are encouraged, if you have a computer and a Skype account (which is free).

Thanks so much for continuing to read my blog and celebrate with me!

--Quinn McDonald is thinking, “A million views. Wow.”

Photo credit: Cake:  Lickthebowlgood.com Spring challenge.
Sparkler: Lynn Viehl, photographer.

Giving Away Your Work and Benefitting

Note: Thanks to all of your thoughtful comments about the poetry class. I’m mulling over your suggestions and will let you know about the class as soon as the details are done. And the winner of the T-shirt will be chosen on Friday. Thanks for the thoughtful comments.

*   *   *   *
If you are a freelance writer, artist or have a talent, offer a service or product, you will be asked to give it away for free. Often it comes with the promise of “getting your name out—good marketing.” I’ve talked about avoiding false marketing schemes, but today the issue is different.

Donating your work for free can be a gift to you. . .

A good way to get your services, company’s name or your own name in front of people is to donate your product or services in a way that it will get seen by your target audience. The key is, as always, the right audience. Let’s assume you are fielding requests from several good organizations, all with your target audience.

The request involves both your time and materials, which have a value. They also require time and effort, which has a financial worth–part of the price. (Price and value are two completely different things.)

. . .or you can feel like a garbage truck is sitting on your chest.

How much should you give away? How much free time is too much to give away? Don’t get angry at people for asking you. It’s a sign they think you will generate traffic for them, so it is flattering. Be smart when you make donating time, services and product part of your marketing budget. (You don’t have a marketing budget, do you? OK, I know. But this will still work for you.)

1. Treat the request as a real job. Never give away something sloppy because you aren’t charging for it. If you are contributing, it represents you, so it has to be your best. Many requests will try to make the request look smaller by saying “just send anything.” Don’t do that. What you send represents you to your potential audience. Send your best.

2. Limit your time and costs. Not by being fast or sloppy, but through smart time management. Instead of starting from scratch, re-write a good article for this specific audience. Make new art, but not with a new technique. Create something you already know how to make, but in a new color.

3. Know when to say ‘no.’ Ask about the deadline before you agree. Most requests for “free” also come with tight deadlines. Don’t be afraid to turn down a request if the deadline doesn’t work for you. Know your limit for “free.” A good rule of thumb is between 5 percent and 10 percent of your non-committed time in any quarter. That figure includes all charitable work–from volunteering to producing. And count in all of your production–planning, buying materials, production.  (Check with your tax person about how much of these donations are tax deductible. It’s much less than you think–your time isn’t tax deductible in most cases.)

4. Plan out the project. Let’s say you offer to write an 800 word article. Use your calendar to block out the time for research, writing, re-writing, proofreading, as if it were a real assignment. The entire block of time is now not available for any other charity work. Putting it in your calendar is a handy reminder to do the work, but also a good reminder that you can’t do any more volunteer work at the same time.

5. Understand your motivation and stick to it. Most of us get in trouble because we want to be nice, friendly, helpful and loved. So we don’t say ‘no.’ We say ‘yes,’ become resentful, rushed, and do a bad job. And inadvertently become not-nice, cranky, a problem and hated. The opposite of what we wanted in the first place. You cannot accept work to be loved if you don’t have time to be loved.

6. Know how to say ‘no.’ Saying ‘no’ doesn’t have to be a rejection of the person who asked.  Here are some ways to say no that are both clear and kind–and that’s the real key to turning down an offer. Be clear and kind.

–Say ‘no’ to now, but offer a time that’s realistic for you. “Thank you for asking for an article, Mary, I’m honored you want me to be a guest blogger. I’m booked up for the next two weeks, so tomorrow doesn’t work for me. I could get you something in three weeks from Thursday. Would that work for you?”

–Say ‘no’ because you have booked up all your volunteer time. This shows you are already loved and booked. “Thanks for asking, Mary, but Carlos asked me last week, so my volunteer time for March is already booked. I’m honored you asked.” Delivered with a smile, this feels good and is clear.

–Point to another source. This will make you a valuable resource and not cost you future work. “Thanks for the offer, Mary, normally I’d jump at the chance. I’m booked right now, but you might want to ask Haji. He’d be great for your project.”

Free work, handled like real work, can be a good marketing idea. Or it can be the project from hell. Either way, it’s yours to accept or turn down. Don’t create your own hell, I learned that lesson the very publicly embarrassing way.

–Quinn McDonald is a creativity coach who has to say No to things she would love to do. Choosing is always going to be hard.

Images: Giftbox from VectorDiary.com, garbage truck from DailyBargain.com

The Commonplace Journal

The instant Kaisa from Valkoinenponi mentioned it, I recognized the Commonplace Journal.  For me, it was a book I had seen before, with the words Vade Mecum printed on the cover, that my father used. It was a small notebook, and he took notes in it. About the weather, numbers and measurements he needed to remember, quotes on prices and on wisdom. Vade Mecum means “Come with Me” in Latin, and the book went most places with my father, the original life-long learner.

In the early days of printing, Vade Mecum became a name for books that published information–general or specific–in a variety of topics. They contained medical information, wieghts and measurements, and recipes for healing, cooking, even alchemy.

Vade Mecum had another name, starting in the 15th century: Commonplace books and Zibaldone. These notebooks were a combination of a scrapbook and a note-taking device. Students who were studying by apprenticeship would sketch or write information for their professional learning into the books. As the students became masters, they would allow the next generation to learn from these books. In the 1600s, most college students learned from the professors through keeping a Commonplace Book. Oxford University and Harvard taught via Commonplace Book well into the 20th century.

When I was in college, I created a Commonplace timeline in my room. Every time I learned something in one field, I’d mark it on the timeline–when it happened, who did the work. I’d add notes from other fields. By the middle of the year, I could tell you that while Bach was studying music, Peter the Great was building St. Petersburg (later Leningrad) and that 9,000 people died in England in a huge windstorm with gusts that reached 120 mph. The timeline wrapped around the room. The arts, music, science, literature–all trailed around the room, helping me understand the relationship between politics, culture, and science.

I still keep a Commonplace Book. It holds quotes, book titles, ideas. I wish it looked more like Count Laszlo’s private diary in The English Patient (the 1996 movie made of Michael Ondaatje’s book). You can see a glimpse of it at the 4:00 mark in the trailer. But it is, well, commonplace. It is also the reason that I can’t keep an art journal without words as the origination source. I understand books without words, just colors or images when others do them, but for me, words create the book. And the image.

I love the idea of important pieces of learning and experience caught in one book. Paging through it, I can remember so much of where I was and what I was learning.  You can start your own, but if you already have one, please leave a comment about what you keep in it.

--Quinn McDonald is a romantic at heart. But don’t tell anyone; it’s hard to be a level-headed creativity coach if people think you are a wild romantic.

The Hard Work of Hard Work

When I teach work skills to the unemployed, there is a section about re-writing your resume for online job applications, and I tell the class the two steps that are vital to make your resume visible. Inevitably, someone asks if they need to post a new resume for every job application. When I say yes, there are frowns.

Without direction, you are just wandering. Image from rambling-frans.blogspot

Hands shoot up in protest. I hear about a friend who never updated his resume who got a great job, a woman who wore flip-flops and torn jeans to an interview and got the job, the cousin who got laid off and in a month the boss begged them to come back because they were indispensable. It’s the urban legend and Holy Grail of the unemployed–there is a job that is wonderful, pays well, has a great boss and is easy to find. And then comes the clincher: all you have to do is manifest it by believing, or praying, or following the steps in The Secret.

The horrible truth right now in Phoenix is that there are not enough jobs for everyone who wants one, and the only way to find a job is to keep looking for one. It’s hard, tedious work, and the best person is not always chosen. But you can’t stop trying. And while I believe in prayer and having goals, and positive thinking, I do not believe in magical thinking.

I do not believe that the websites that promise you the “job of your dreams” if only you click on “tell me how” or takes you to another page that doesn’t list a price for anything, and calls the money they are scamming from you, your “investment.” I’ve seen the same websites for finding the partner of your dreams, the SEO of your website’s dreams, and the secret that will make your video go viral.

What’s missing from all of this the is practical application of the ancient Arab wisdom about losing your transportation: “Pray to Allah, but tie up your camel anyway.”

I believe in hard work. I know that people with connections often get the job before people who would be better suited. But if you don’t have connections, you are going to have to work around that lack. In the end, it is doing the heavy lifting, the tedious application, the refusal to give up that moves you along your journey. You can chose to sing to make the work easier, laugh to make the time lighter, or pray for spiritual support and strength. In the end, what you get from your effort is what you put into it. There isn’t any other way.

—-Quinn McDonald has not yet manifested the magical short cut. So she’s doing the work, plodding along the trail, and keeping a journal.

The Noise Around Us

“There is music everywhere.
This is what strikes me most about my first few minutes walking about the flying city of Columbia in Irrational Games’s upcoming BioShock Infinite”
—.From Erik Kain’s review of BioShock Infinite in Forbes magazine, Dec. 07, 2012.

It’s hard to be different, an outsider, and still feel part of a group. Living in Arizona, and having a different view on immigration and, well, a lot of other issues, I have learned to keep my opinions to myself. After all, if the dentist has sharp instruments in your mouth and is on a rant, you don’t want to disagree too strenuously.

There’s such a conflict rising in me when I hear someone saying something I don’t agree with, particularly if it’s mean. I think the quote attributed to Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” or the William Butler Yeats quote, “The  best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” It’s from the poem The Second Coming.

This is how I felt.

So it was that I felt really conflicted in a recent class, when one of the participants, without asking, turned on her iPad and began to play music loud enough for all to hear. She insisted she had to have music to work. Unfortunately, I can’t work if music is playing. Yes, I know this is odd. We are surrounded by music. My bank has a braying TV on all day, so does every doctor’s office, airport, restaurant, car repair shop, sports equipment shop, pet store and harware store. Still, my studio is quiet. For me, being grounded and in the moment means being quiet so I can hear what I’m thinking.

In class, I asked, somewhat fearfully, if we could work without music. Two or three class members said they liked music. There was no vote, and about 12 class members, so the three who spoke up weren’t a majority. But no one agreed with me. So the music stayed. There was no offer of compromise. No agreement that when the music-needer went to lunch, she could turn off her iPad. The woman at the table in front of me began to sing with the music. I’m sure she was all heart, but she was also off-key. For three days, it did not change.

And so I sat at my table, trying to focus. I had paid a full fee to be in the class.

And this is what it sounded like (just to me).

Did I have a right to ask the music-needer to put on earphones? I lacked the nerve. So I put mine on and listened to white noise, which helped me focus, but I stayed unhappy.

I had to do a lot of self-management, and felt alone and disconnected. Not one person suggested that we alternate or that a vote be taken. When I tried to turn down the sound when music-needer went to lunch, she came back, turned it back up, and asked the women who agreed with her if they wanted it on at lunch. Yep, they did. Still, only three.

Finally, I had to settle. I was not going to get a ruling from the instructor, who had been present for the conversations. I was not going to get a break from music-needer. So I went back to my earphones and did what I usually do when I am distracted and unheard: reviewed goals. Set priorities.  I’d come to learn the technique, to create a piece with that technique and to get feedback. That part was happening. So my goals were being met. Past that, things were not going to go my way, but my top priority was met. I sucked it up.

I’m still not sure if I should have done more. I don’t know what I could have done. A vote might have clarified things, but it would have had to be called by the instructor. I was aware that I wasn’t in charge, and wasn’t getting support. Past that, I was also not getting what I needed to work in class.

What are the rights of people who prefer silence? Or who prefer music? Where is the line between getting your way and bullying? When class participants disagree, is compromise possible?

What would you have done?

—Quinn McDonald is looking for answers, and trying to be fair.

 

Authority Neurosis

This weekend, I was talking to someone for whom I have great understanding–someone with an bit of an attitude about authority. Maybe even an authority neurosis. Someone who doesn’t like being told what to do or how to do it. I know this feeling. What we hate in others is what we hate in ourselves. What we admire in others are our own good qualities. And that gives us a hinge to authority troubles.

Authority figures show us our own unclaimed power. The part of us that didn’t make it to the top of the heap, the part of us that, our Inner Critic tells us, just doesn’t quite cut it. And we become angry at those  in leadership who are not as bright, talented, disciplined as we are, but who made it to the top anyway. They got discovered. They had mentors.  And since they don’t deserve respect, we don’t give respect. And that’s where thinking trips over its own shoelaces.

No one is going to come up and ask to mentor you. No one is waiting to hand you the Crown of Retribution and congratulate you for your leadership. See that cape on the ironing board? The magic is not in the cape. It’s in the story you tell yourself about the cape.

Some people believe what authority figures tell them to believe. A few more believe what their friends tell them. But everyone believes their own story—the one they tell themselves. And once you believe it, you tell it to others and they believe your story, too. The one where you never got the breaks. About being overlooked and under-appreciated. And then others don’t give you breaks, overlook you and under-appreciate you. Because you told them to.

Tell yourself that cape is yours,. Then iron it and put it on. It’s time for you to step up and re-claim the powerful bits of yourself you storied away, hoping people would disagree with you.  Being a leader doesn’t mean being given power. It means working with people who believe in you.

Be the person people can believe in, and you’ll have your power. If you believe in it yourself.

—Quinn McDonald is a believer. In herself and in others.

Images from: A Pretty Cool Life.com

Creativty, Originality, and Good Manners

If you do any creative work, you know that you will have a brilliant idea, fall in love with the idea, polish it, then release it to public view. As soon as you do that, you will see the same idea all over. You get angry. Who stole your idea? The answer is–nobody. There are several reasons this happens.

Parallel Universe from May 8, 2012 edition of the NY Times eXaminer. No photo credit is given.

1. Heightened awareness. Once you begin to concentrate on an idea, and certain words, phrases, images begin to repeat in your head. Your heightened awareness makes you see those words “more often,” when you are really simply more aware of seeing them. This happens when you learn a new word–you suddenly see it three times in a day when you don’t recall seeing it before. This is the same reason that gratitude journals work, but that’s another blog post.

2. Mysterious parallel universes. OK, I made that up. If you were to ask a Russian who invented the telephone it’s unlikely they would credit Alexander Graham Bell. They would mention a Russian who invented the device roughly at the same time. Simultaneous invention, writing, advertising ideas do happen. Regularly. And has happened for years. Now, with the increasing speed of knowledge shared through the internet, more people come up with similar ideas more often.

From SquawkFox.com

3. Your grass seed, my lawn. When we talk about our ideas to a friend, the friend often takes the next step with the idea. You talk about creating a journal page using a dictionary page, and suddenly your friend is teaching a class on altering dictionaries. And that’s when things get sticky.

This is the hard part. I know exactly how hard it is, because I just had to go through it. One of my favorite techniques (and the basis for the upcoming book) turned up on another site. Yes, I was angry. Yes, I felt cheated. But I also know that ideas can’t be copyrighted, and that my idea doesn’t belong to me exclusively. What to do? Well, break that list into legal, ethical and generous steps.

Legally, I notified my publisher, so if any of the images I shared or the journal prompts I created and shared appear on another website, the publisher can handle the copyright violation.

Ethically, if my idea is similar to another artists, I have to follow the rules The Ethics Guy uses to judge actions as ethical. (Bruce Weinstein, Ph.D. is the Ethic Guy). This isn’t that complicated:

• Do no harm
• Make things better
• Be respectful
• Be fair
• Be compassionate

But the items may be hugely difficult to manage. If someone treats you unfairly, you don’t want to treat them (or anyone else) fairly. But you have to. The entire reason the world doesn’t collapse into savaging each other is that most of us want to be fair and even generous.

How do we act fairly and generously? We give credit. It doesn’t detract from our work, it adds to it. Giving other people credit for helping you get to your own idea is a wonderful way to increase your creativity and your peace of mind.

Saying thank you on your blog, in your classes, in your articles, even giving up some of those precious 140 characters in a Tweet to thank someone, is a gift to yourself.

Thanking and crediting others relieves you of guilt, makes you feel generous, expands your creativity. And I’d like to thank my editor, Tonia Jenny, for helping me come to that conclusion.

–-Quinn McDonald keeps a gratitude journal and another one for ideas on change. Sometimes she writes one idea in another, and then alchemy happens.

Behavior Modification for the Creative Soul

When you hear “behavior modification” it often seems to be a negative way to get a positive result–stop eating what you love, stop doing some behavior that has become a comforting habit.

The trouble with empty calories is that they are fun and taste good.

I was journaling last night and had a big “Aha!” moment. Two, in fact. One was about the way I’m changing my relationship with food. I’ve finally crossed over from anger and resentment to experimenting with new foods and old foods in different ways. And liking it. (Well, that took only seven months). Yes, I still miss cookies and chocolate and all the things my sweet tooth loved, but it’s been replaced by a satisfaction that I am managing to stay on track. Mostly.

Here’s the more important thing–behavior modification also works with creativity. But you have to look at it in a different way. It’s not stopping what you love doing. It’s doing what you love already in a more supportive way.

It’s easy to want to start 50 projects–pile up your creative plate with the creative equivalent of cookies and cakes–work that tastes delicious, gives you a rush of joy, but doesn’t lead anywhere. It can be loading yourself up with every project you saw in the latest magazine, instead of focusing on one project that supports your creativity but is challenging.

It can be buying a lot of new equipment that does just one thing per machine, requires lots of special, proprietary refills and takes up space.

It can be deciding to learn something new and make that the focus of your creative work, when it’s far away from your main interest. For example, deciding to buy a floor loom and take up weaving if you have done watercolors for years.

Going deep allows you to see new things and learn more.

None of these pursuits is dangerous on its own, but it is scattered behavior that is fueled by the Inner Critic’s insistent whisper: “What you are doing now is not as fun/ flashy/ popular/ money-making as your current creative work.

Focusing on your creative work requires discipline. It is incredibly easy to rationalize–to make what you want seem more important than your creative work that makes meaning but has hit a hard patch. There is nothing wrong with trying out new supplies. But if all you do is buy supplies and never use them, or play with them and then move on to the next new fad, if you never decide if the new thing is worthy of your precious time, energy and money, well, then, your creativity needs some behavior modification.

Running after every fad, trying every new device has the same effect on your creativity that eating a box of cookies has on your attention span. It feels great for a few moments, gives you a spurt of energy, and then your creativity crashes leaving you feeling empty and spent.

Creative behavior modification is a struggle, but after a few months, when your work improves and you move deeper into the work you love, you won’t miss the box of cookies new fad art supplies so much. You’ll value skill and depth of accomplishment. Life is good again.

—Quinn McDonald is learning that behavior modification has advantages from many sides. Some days are harder than others.