Are you hungry to unleash your creativity? You’ve got to learn how to start in the middle. What do I mean by starting in the middle? Let me tell you a story.
All my life I washed dishes a certain way: I would first remove all of the dishes from the sink and organize them according to their kind; plates in one stack, cups in another . . . Then I would wash the dishes one stack and a time and put them in the rack. As you can imagine, this took forever! And because my process took so long, I hated washing dishes, and I avoided the task for as long as possible.
But then when I got married, my whole paradigm shifted when I watched my wife wash dishes for the first time. She didn’t do any pre-organization or pre-rinsing of the dishes. She simply picked up the dish closest to her, washed it, rinsed it, and racked it. She finished washing all of the dishes in a fraction of the time that it took me.
Her secret was that she started in the middle and my problem was that I insisted upon starting at the beginning. And this is the problem faced by most creative people.
Do you want to write a book? Starting at the beginning means that you don’t write a word until you’ve mapped out the entire outline. If you feel the need to start at the beginning, the task probably feels so daunting to you that you keep thinking you’re not ready to start.
But you are ready to start; just start in the middle! Write about whatever is on your mind right now. Your mind is as full of ideas as your sink is full of dishes. Just write and trust that you’ll get to all of the dishes in their proper time. You’ve just got to pick up the one in front of you and deal with it. Then move on to the next and the next . . . If you do it this way, you’ll find that you’ve made it to the end much quicker than otherwise!
If you are a writer, starting a blog will help you with this process. Blogging is essential for any would-be author for a number of reasons.
First, blogging gives you the opportunity to articulate your ideas in bite-sized pieces. Rather than writing a 50,000-word book, start with a 500-word article. Since this task is less daunting, you’ll have less trouble fulfilling it on a regular basis.
Second, blogging gives you the opportunity to expound upon a broad spectrum of topics. Honing in on your particular niche will not happen all at once. You need the time and space to explore ideas and to experiment with different forms. Blogging will help you discover that your particular topic has sub-topics. After blogging on your subject for a year or two, you’ll have much more clarity about exactly how to write your book and what it should be about.
Third, blogging gives you the opportunity to develop your writing style. In order to grow as a writer, you’ll need to write consistently over a long period of time. This will build your confidence in your ability to write, and build a sense of joy and expectancy into the task of writing.
Fourth, blogging gives you an opportunity to test the impact of your ideas and writing style upon a group of people. You’ll find that the articles that you think will make a huge splash will sometimes leave barely a ripple, and the articles that you think no one will care about will connect deeply. In the process you’ll develop a greater sense of what connects with people and what doesn’t. You don’t want to write a 50,000-word book and then find out that your writing style doesn’t connect with people!
Finally, blogging gives you the opportunity to build an audience. When you write your book, who will read it? If you have no audience now, what makes you think you’ll suddenly have one on the day that your book get’s published? And don’t think that some big time publishing company is going to market your book for you; they only pour money into people who are already so famous that they don’t need their marketing money. Regardless of whether a big company publishes your book or not, you’re going to have to market it yourself.
And starting your blog is much easier than you think. In fact, I’ve created a free tutorial that walks you through the process step by step if you’re interested.
I’ve used writing as the central example in this entry, but this concept applies to any type of creative impulse. Whatever form your creativity takes, you can begin to move forward today if you would just decide to start in the middle.
