“Your enthusiasm is the fuel for your creative journey and if there’s one thing you’re going to need to finish wring a novel, it’s fuel.”
Author Nicola Jackson and life coach Teresa Wilson reveal how to develop confidence and ignore the lure of the Too-Cool-For-School Gremlin.
So far in this series, we’ve looked at the Control Freak Gremlin who tells you you’re not ready to start, and the Hyper Critical Gremlin who, once you have started, on this journey, tells you you’re terrible and might as well give up!
One you’ve managed these Gremlins, this usually leads to a pleasant period where you get into the rhythm of your writing, find you are enjoying yourself, and maybe even get a little taste of that ‘flow state’ artists are always banging on about.
And then, as though it can sense your burgeoning happiness, who should appear on your creative journey? The Too-Cool-For-School Gremlin.
Once Too-Cool has got itself settled in to your passenger seat, that’s when it’ll start name dropping. It’ll mention magazines and journals and publishing deals. Broadsheet culture sections and highbrow fiction prizes. It’ll point out all the other, more exciting journeys it has hitched a ride on. Then this Gremlin will peer down the end of its nose at the road ahead of you, and say disdainfully, “Honey, are you sure this is the way you want to go?” Too-Cool-For-School Gremlin is a snobby, judgemental creature whose only aim in life is to divert you away from your own path and onto someone else’s.
“Writing chick-lit? Oh, darling that’s beneath you.”
“Poetry that rhymes? That’s not going to win the Pulitzer is it?”
“A crime series? Don’t you want to be taken seriously?”
“Fantasy? Oh, dear me; no, no, no.”
And so on. Ad nauseum.
Sometimes this Gremlin will hitch a ride with someone else, whose writing we deem to be ‘worthy’ – an exciting new poet maybe or an experimental fiction writer. Is our Gremlin silent then? Oh no. In this case, it’ll just switch up its game, telling the poor beleaguered soul that it’s all very well pursuing those noble creative goals, but what the hell is the point if it’s never going to make them any money?
You see, with a Creative Gremlin you really can’t win.
SOMEONE ELSE’S DREAM
You’ll know you’ve fallen foul of the Too-Cool-For-School Gremlin if you have taken a turn in your creative road trip and begun to write a story that you think is ‘proper writing’. Writing that other people will approve of, that you believe has ‘worth’ or is the kind of writing that you think the market wants, but which doesn’t make your heart sing.
This would be all well and good if it actually worked. But often, it makes what used to be hard but enjoyable in a relentless slog. The magic disappears. The tedium kicks in. In the end, you’ll begin to wonder why creating feels so much like dull work rather than play. You wonder whether it’s even worth doing at all. You might even give up.
WHY THE TOO-COOL-FOR-SCHOOL GREMLIN IS SO PERSUASIVE
Many of us have grown accustomed to always trying to present an idealised version of our self in order to please or impress everyone else. And let’s face it, it’s not getting any easier. Thanks to our immersion in technology, we’re living in a world in which appearing to be happy and successful can often seem like a bigger priority than actually being happy and successful.
Alas, the opinions of others – whoever the hell these ‘others’ even are – mean absolutely nothing to your creative flow. Zero. It’s distraction, noise, bullshit, just getting in the way of the art that you are destined to make. The only thing that your creativity cares about is your genuine enthusiasm.
PASSION IS POWER
Your enthusiasm is the fuel for your creative journey and if there’s one thing you’re going to need to finish wring a novel, it’s fuel. Because yes, writing is joyful, but writing is also graft. Especially if you are embarking on a big project such as a novel. And it’s your authentic passion, your odd little preoccupations, your heartfelt love of the themes and the subject matter of the thing that you’re writing about that will afford you the power and momentum to see your project through to the end. You cannot use someone else’s passions to power your journey. It just doesn’t work that way.
GETTING PAST THE TOO-COOL-FOR-SCHOOL GREMLIN
As usual, though it may not intend to be, the Too-Cool-For-School Gremlin is actually pretty helpful. It helps to reveal all of the many preconceptions that we carry inside us about what we should be and do. Whenever our minds present us with a ‘should’, say – for instance: “I should be writing literary short stories” (when really your heart lies in detective fiction) – it can be helpful to stop and think: says who?
WHAT DO YOU LOVE?
We believe that love and creativity are almost indistinguishable. Which means, if you pursue the things you love, your creativity will follow.
Take a moment to think about your top ten favourite novels and ten favourite films. Maybe jot them down.
These are the ones that you would curl up with at home if you were feeling in need of a jolt of inspiration or a happy-boost. That you watch or read over and over again. That stay in your memory long after you finished them. Or those with a plot that you find yourself still detailing to people whose eyes glazed over a good ten minutes ago.
Notice if, even as you think about them, you find yourself trying to ‘improve’ your list with titles that sound more impressive, cool, clever or arty.
Is that you talking, or is it Too-Cool-For-School?
YOU DO YOU
Do you want to have an edge as a writer? Then investigate and learn to respect what you love. Because, whilst paying attention to awards and trends might help you to write a book that many others could write, if you focus instead on the things that you love most, then you’ll create something utterly unique that could only ever have come from you.
Yes, publishing is a business and you need to understand the market. But spend the time learning everything you can about the market for the kind of books you love already, not the market that you think is going to bring you plaudits/money/respect even though it doesn’t really set you alight. You have to enjoy what you do.
(And if you don’t enjoy what you write, but you write it anyway for money, that’s totally fine. If you’re happy doing that, have at it. That’s You doing You, too.)
And next time Too-Cool-For-School Gremlin tells you that it thinks you’ve chosen the wrong route, you can tell it to sit back and relax. You’re doing this your way, which this experience a very special one indeed.
This is an abridged excerpt from Seven Creative Gremlins: Write your way through doubt and fear to claim your creative life by Nicola Jackson and Teresa Wilson. Find it here for £1.99 ebook/£6.99 paperback.
How to have confidence in the writer you are