To Create by Lawrence Patrick O’Brien

To be a creator, don’t think about it—do it.

• Diary entries can become a memoir.
• Doodles and drawings might sketch out base images as a launch point in a scene that demands a larger canvas, which might lead to something more serious more industrious retelling.
• Fragmented rants on jogs might stream into a riff or a melody if you take the time to experiment with musical phrasing.

Fleshing out stories in a writer’s group helps to force writing to deadlines. Exchanging literary criticism nurtures patience and alternate ways of seeing. After learning the fundamentals of music or art, work with artists better than yourself and so you can be better and free.

Create on the move, like on a bus, a subway, or a coffee shop. Bring your ideas to an active marketplace.

1. The doodling, writing, humming or tapping might discover something that really must be told, so make the effort to give the thought strings presence.

2. Rework the idea until there’s a solid plot line. Music, pottery, paintings or story have crafted form outlines that you need to be commiserate.

3. The most significant part of making something real, is please, don’t tell anyone you are doing it or you are going to do it, because then it will never get finished.

Definitely don’t tell a soul! And if it’s really important to you it will happen.

If someone promises that they are going to quit smoking, learn kayaking, or ride an elephant, telling someone won’t make it happen. For some, saying they want it, is just enough and like fluffy clouds the thought just blows away.

Talking about starting something is bragging, and if you focus on how difficult it is to do something hard, nothing meaningful gets started.

In my opinion, that nurtured idea should remain locked up inside and should only be set free when you’re riding that elephant, touching the hard copy of the published book or that taste of fresh sweet air from that marathon run that you could only have done because the smoking is no more. In any of these cases, maybe you have done the impossible. Why consider anything less.

Lawrence Patrick O’Brien

http://www.lawrenceobrien.ca

Author of Clochán