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The Story's Journey

C.M. O'Slatara

Updated: Mar 2, 2023


Recently, I saw an Instagram post from lightwatkins interviewing Steven Pressfield about the writer's journey. You can find the post here, but in short, Mr. Pressfield states that there are two parts to any artist's journey-- first, to discover who you are and second, to pursue it with all you have.


There is a drive to do art. It can overshadow all else. More than a hobby, it is a need to create, to birth the stories inside of you. It doesn't matter if you work at a gas station or you manage to eek out a living with your chosen art, you are no less driven and no less an artist. You are blessed and cursed with the sometimes lonely gift of creativity, loosing yourself in the hours that pass like minutes as you sit with the world inside of you trying to bring it into the world you live in.


There are times when that birth is remarkably painless and writing is really as easy as it appears on TV. There are other times when that labor stretches on for years. When the thing just never wants to be finished. But I think it's not always that we are not done with the art, but that the art is not done with us.


There have been countless times in my life when I have weathered difficulties and reveled in joys and thought-- now I know how this character feels, now I can bring that to the page. It is almost as if the story and the writer are in a dance, working together to bring a work to life. The ancients called them muses, outside forces waiting to inspire us, to push our work into it's final form. Many writers I know will say "let the story guide you" as if we are just the holders of the pen and the story has chosen us to translate it to written word. The one thing that is certain is that we are not alone in this and we are not us without it.


Whatever your process, keep writing, painting, dancing, creating. It is who you are.


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