April 10, 2024Episode 006: Making the World Better One Stitch at a Time with Janet Avila, Owner of String Theory Yarn Company,,, Welcome back to Her Story So Far! I am so in awe of my guest this time. After a life-altering tragedy, Janey Avila listened to her heart,...
Where Did My Inspiration Go?
Where Did My Inspiration Go?
Where Did My Inspiration Go?
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Dear Beautiful Uninspired Woman, In the book I mentioned last week, Marry Your Muse Jan Phillips writes that a friend once told her “If you wait for inspiration, you’re not a writer, you’re a waiter.” It’s true while journaling and planning, reflecting and dreaming are all important in the creative process only the doing actually moves you forward. The beloved author Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time, said it best in her quote above “Inspiration comes during work, rather than before it.” It’s also true that you can lose your inspiration if your work is interrupted which happened with my 55 Women Project. I was on a roll in 2021 traveling and photographing planning to be done in 5 months however, the project turned out to be bigger than I imagined and I wasn’t giving myself enough time. I moved at the beginning of 2022 so plans for my project stalled. I traveled to Kansas City, Missouri in March and captured another beauty. In June, I traveled to Denver and was re-inspired after photographing 4 more amazing women. However, once I returned to Illinois I lost my momentum. In July, while in Taos, coach Natalie Miller suggested I might be kinder to myself since moving across country 2x in less than a year was a huge undertaking of itself not to mention all the adjustments of moving in with someone so I gave myself a break…the words of a wise woman. After my return, I was inspired once and photographed 3 more beautiful women here in Chicago. Home projects and family obligations sidelined me in the fall and the holidays…well that’s a whole other distraction isn’t it. It is now the 2nd week into 2023 and I am 5 women away from completing my project. Once again I am stalled on inspiration so I must take action to move forward. Here I sit committing to you that I will capture the remaining 5 this month yes January it will be done. Well the photography anyway there are many more decisions to be made ahead about what I do with all this amazing Truth + Beauty. All this to say inspiration is not only difficult to come by it’s really hard to stay inspired over a long period of time even if you’re doing something you love. I’m sure that’s why of all the resolutions made only 9% are successfully completed by the end of the year. Here’s my advice…take action, don’t wait for inspiration. She’ll roll in once you’re creating, writing, painting, photographing, collaborating in the zone. Please don’t forget when you get sidelined, and you will, be kind to yourself take a nice deep breath and begin again. If no one has told you today…You Are Beautiful! Love + Light Lesley |
I actually found her quote but had no idea who Madeleine was until I googled her. She is a total badass before her time…a trailblazer, my favorite kind of woman. Did you know A Wrinkle in Time holds the distinction of being one of the most frequently banned novels in American literature?
As the only child of two artists, her father a writer, playwright her mother a pianist, Madeleine wrote from an early age and spent much time alone as a young child.
Her belief that science and God are not at odds — a radical and, to some, even blasphemous assertion was a theme in several of her novels.
When she was in boarding school she developed a skill: an impenetrable “force field of silence” that she could inhabit like a magical cloak. “Within that force field, I could go on writing my stories and my poems and dreaming my dreams,” she said in an interview decades later. It was an effective tool, and one that would always serve her creatively.
Her manuscripts, letters, and other archival materials are housed at Smith College in Massachusetts and Wheaton College in Illinois.
The above is an exerpt from A Biographical Sketch by Abigail Santamaria
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