I can’t believe it has been 16 days since I last wrote…it was going so well for a while. What happened?

About 2 weeks ago, I met a wonderful and inspiring woman as part of a work/networking line of experimentation. For whatever reason, I confessed to this woman my deepest dream of writing a book and quickly described the premise to her. I don’t know what I expected by confessing…but for sure I did not expect her response. She thought the idea was strong and that I should talk to her agent.

What?! An agent? You mean, I could get this book published one day? Yes? Wow. Wow…

And the weekend was taken up with the excitement of this new way of thinking. To date the premise of the book only lives in a short story I wrote ten years ago. But that weekend, I had an outline. But not a word on a page. And then I thought – well what if the agent doesn’t like it? What if the idea is great and the execution is crap? What if this book does not get published? Fear. Doubt. Hesitation.

I kept hearing the woices of the characters and their need to be committed to the page…and yet, I still didn’t write. Fear of judgment. Fear of backlash. Fear. And then the voices asked me, wouldn’t it be ok if the only thing that happened with this book was that it got written. Wouldn’t it be OK if the book wasn’t made into a movie. And I thought – yes!

The only reason I want to write this book is to create! Once it is out in the world, I can’t protect it…it will be what it is. This book is a “child” for me. WIth this sense, I re-examined my fear and saw it shrink. Saw that it did not matter.

And so, with the fear under management, I look forward to the long weekend and writing.

Lately I’ve taken to conducting experiments in my life (this being one of them). Another is cooking more regularly for myself and seeing if it changes how I feel. Yet another is hiring a personal dating coach.

These experiments come from the idea that creativity comes from experimenting and learning from “failures.” Not everything will succeed…but a few things may. I read an internal white paper that talked about the perils of poor execution, as opposed to inactivity, in a maturing industry. It took me back to all the crap dating advice I’ve heard over the years. It made me wonder, as I “mature,” is inactivity better than poor execution? I am happy enough cooking on Friday night and catching up with my Netflix, how does that rate against a bad date? Hmmm.

Not necessarily the most productive line of thought since life is not binary. Most behaviors fall across a spectrum. I’ve been telling a few friends here and there about the date coach and their response has been ridiculously enthusiastic. Inactivity is not an option for me. Nor is poor execution. The coach, hopefully, will help me develop some real options.

I was struck yesterday by how much the “good things” in life need discipline.

It started while I was walking in the afternoon thinking I had not written in my diary or on the blog for a couple of days and how writers really just need to write something every day, regardless of its quality or intent. There’s a discipline to showing up to the screen even when you are happy and deliriously busy.

This thought was echoed in the late afternoon on a firm-wide call. Many senior people talked about how they were being more disciplined in their work and in their networking conversations…and how much they really enjoyed it.  There seemed to be this unanswered question in the air – what happens once we are on firmer footing. Will the “bad” habits return?

It’s so funny, I often think of discipline to get me through a tough spot. It’s a stick. But what about discipline when things are really going well? Discipline is support, a structure. How much deeper would my enjoyment be? Could the highs be higher?

A friend commented on a previous post about a sense of longing that comes through in my writing. I think it’s always been there and I wonder if I can live my way out of it. I think that voice speaks to always feeling as if life was happening to other people. Other people got to play outside at recess, other people didn’t have to study as much as I did, other people fell in love. And if that is the story I have been unconsciously living…no wonder I am where I am.

I watched a very powerful documentary this weekend on Joseph Campbell and his thinking. What a wonderful human mind he had. It was so overpowering – the ideas of myth and story, of God, the need for creation, the symbolism of snakes and dragons, so much of it struck a cord.

I’ve been thinking for a long time that I need to change my story from the inside. The story of the diamond in the rough found by an explorer, Galatea waiting for her Pygmalion. My story is so much more active and dynamic than that. The experience so much richer. A long time ago, I did write a story about a woman who descended to the depths of the earth because God had cursed her. And as she grieved in the depths, she was able to strike a bargain, to come back to the earth and live many adventures. It’s funny to see how I have lived that arc in the last ten years. But back then, I didn’t know how to talk about love and finding the partner. That’s the story I need to write. This week.

A couple of random associations to share.

1. A few weeks ago, I had a strange dream. In the dream, I could feel how I feel right now in my every day life. I am generally happy, I enjoy my work, and I am getting out more and meeting people. And as I was experiencing my life as it is now, a disembodied voice whispered in my ear “You are not living your mission, yet.”

I woke up at this point and thought “Crud! I really like where I am. Does this mean I have to change my life or is it that my mission is yet to be revealed…? And as I thought about that question, my intuition responded that it is the latter. My mission is yet to revealed. It is still ahead of me.

So, I walked around with this knowledge and a couple of weeks ago, my company went through a round of layoffs. That is something it had never done in its history and I thought – maybe this is my mission? To be here now and be positive and be part of the solution.

And then a very strange and thrilling work work opportunity presented itself – maybe that is my mission?

2. So, Julia Cameron, in the Artist’s Way, talks about synchronicity as if it is a force of nature. As I am thinking about these new experiments in my life, tapping back into creativity, calling back my voice, I have a short meeting to “catch up” with the managing partner at my firm. I go in thinking about why he would want to talk to me…and surprise, all he wants to do, really, is catch up. Being my bad self, I go ahead and tell him about this creativity experiment and the blog and he responds by telling me about his own wish to write a blog. I tell him about Carol Gilligan and the red flower and he’s so thoughtful about it. We explore ways to learn more about creativity, interesting projects; and the meeting ends with his offering support for whatever budding creativity initiative I may want to bring back to the firm. Whoa. Synchronicity. So I’ve been saying that I want to get paid for using my creativity, and it feels like the door cracked.

Not saying that this is my mission. But the juxtaposition of recent events makes me think I am getting closer and closer to my authentic life – one filled with creativity, love, and abundance.

No major take away…other than “Hope lives.”

I’ve been wanting to write a blog for a long time and it’s funny to come to it now…after reading blogs for years. So, in this first post, I want to share a little of why now and why this medium. After that, who knows where this will go.

I’ve kept a diary since I was 13. That’s a good 17 years now. Back then, I was such a reader and a writer. Fiction. I dreamed about being published…about having a book out in the world that had my voice. But, over the last ten years, I’ve lost that will to write and maybe even the ability to. Then, a few weeks ago, a friend who my writing from back then asked me why I had stopped. What was keeping me from writing now? And I didn’t have an answer for other than…I think I had forgotten how.

This conversation reminded me of a poem or short story I had heard recited once and could never forget. About a little boy who loved to draw flowers. He would draw all sorts, with so many different colors. But then, the little boy went to school and his teachers taught him to draw flowers in only one way – with five red petals and a yellow center. He had been able to draw peonies,birds of paradise, and so many other types, petals upon petals…and over the years they became the 5 petal flowers. And then one day, a new teacher asked him draw whatever type of flower he wanted and he could no longer draw the peonies or birds of paradise.  Just that one type of red flower.

A few days after this conversation, I went to a talk held with Carol Gilligan and she spoke of the true voice a girl – the voice that comes out when she is 9 and 10…the voice that had been the writer.

So with all these coincidences coming together, I thought…I want to call back my creativity, call back my voice. So my goal with this blog is write a finite number of posts that allow me to explore what I want to write. Some of the posts may be fiction and others may be what happened that day. But the goal is to write again and share this writing with friends and acquaintances.  Maybe start some new conversations in my life, new energy. The red flower is an experiment. I still have my journal – I still show up to that page. And now, I show up to the screen.