Pragmatic Tortured Artist

Apparently I'm pragmatic.

This kind of struck me recently when I was thinking I wasn't tortured enough to be creative. Perhaps I didn't have clear enough concept of what it means to be a writer, specifically.

I'm a jump right in, make a plan do the work, give yourself the title, hang your shingle, and bada bing, there you are what you say you are.

In the past

Once I had someone tell me that she thought I was overstretching when I decided to create scrapbooks for people professionally. Her words, "Wow, I never would never begin to think I could scrap for other people." There was a huge inference where I was suppose to make the jump if she wasn't capable I surely wasn't as well. I actually said, "Nobody is asking you to do it."* And only hours later did the inference connect in my brain.

I'm slow like that.

I also don't know when people are flirting with me.

And there are benefits to being slow, aside from some missed opportunities to get phone numbers or email addresses, it usually means I miss passive aggressive hits made at me. Like, "Oh wait, you were trying to say I shouldn't do it because you don't believe in your own abilities." Which is probably good. It keeps me from saying things like, "You're an idiot" or "your lack of confidence is suppose to translate to my abilities how?"

Then it struck me. There are two things, well many more than two, but two that are meaningful now that I've always said about myself. One is, "I've got more confidence than a fat girl should have." Isn't that loaded? Because fat doesn't equal anything less than regular, but it made people laugh and agree with me. The other thing is, "I don't suffer foolish behavior well." Which is true and let me say foolish and silly are separate things. I do like silly.

So there's pragmatic me, not suffering fools and blissfully ignorant me confidently striding through this life.

Which brings me to writing

Writing a book

Writing a book that will get published

I was telling someone that maybe I'm missing something, not a plot or story line, or audience, but I'm missing the tortured thing. Maybe I should doubt that perhaps don't have the skills or the voice or the interested readers or whatever it is that people torture themselves over. It just never really crossed my mind that it won't happen.

I don't mean to say I don't see there is work involved. There is research to do and skills to hone and time to invest. I don't expect to click my heels together and poof have it done. I don't expect to write the great American novel. I don't even expect to write more than my own story but I think it's a pretty readable story.

So I started to doubt things. I started to think, I'm not creative. I'm not talented. All those personality assessments actually say I suffer in the creative department. I'm pretty linear in my thinking. But I come from creative people. Some of it must have fallen into my Cheerios, right? --Really what I want to write is about creating a life of joy through transformation in a pretty linear way--so it's not that far a stretch.

Shortly after those thoughts came into my head I put the words out there and someone who knows me very well said, "Just because you are not a tortured artist doesn't mean your stuff isn't any less valid. You've got some great insights and unique ways of looking at things. You are too pragmatic for the tortured artist business."

Whew.

It was mighty uncomfortable for those few hours thinking that something was out my reach.

*I've made hundreds of dollars scrapping for people. I quit doing it when I went back to school to get my business degree. I went back to college to get my degrees to better know how to run that business to make it grow.