No Expectations
The joy and agony of creativity
Here’s a little secret…I am working on a fiction story.
It is hard to admit such a thing because…well, there is no real reason to think that writing a novel will amount to anything. I have written a book before, but one that has nothing to do with this one. Which means that I understand the slog ahead of me, but there’s no reason to think that the story will be “good,” or marketable or “liked.”
It’s true—the number of books published was 15 times greater in 2025 than the number published in 2005, and so it would seem that we all have a great chance of getting our work published.
But now because of the huge explosion of books to choose from, there is also about a 1 in 2000 chance of any given book being carried on a small book store’s shelf. 3.5 million of the 4.2 million titles published in 2025 were self published, meaning that it is not only the writing but the publishing and marketing one needs to also do to get it on the aforementioned shelf.
In other words, writing, like all other creative endeavors, is truly a labor of love. It is something I feel compelled to do, albeit with an oscillating drive ranging from the not at all to the “don’t talk to me, I’m in the flow!” It can’t be about the final product but in the getting the idea out on the computer or paper; creativity, my friends, is another life lesson about enjoying the ride.
What makes it all possible is a leap of faith. For some reason—one I do not claim to understand—I write, while at the same time solemnly swearing not think too much about the “why am I doing this,” and “is this just a waste of time,” and “who will like this?” We all need to put blinders on and keep heading down the trail.
I prescribe to the Elizabeth Gilbert philosophy of creativity—that my job is the showing up. It is the Muses who are in charge of making the magic happen.
In order to assist myself in getting focused (something I very easily can NOT do), the time for creative endeavors has to be distinguished from everything else. It is not email. It is not cleaning the house. For me, it is not even writing in this blog.
It’s got to be time that is firmly, squarely—with no smooth corners I can slip out of—CREATIVE time. Time I get my skinny ass in the chair and focus on only fiction. It is a career path in which I have to convince myself, against all odds, that sitting and waiting is beneficial use of my time.
And so…next weekend—June 6th—I will be engaging in such a day again at the farm. “Creativity at the Farm” I call it, because you can bring an easel and paints, your knitting, a scrapbook. The only requirement is that you be ready to spend the entire day only on that—with the exception of eating the great food John will serve us.
That’s it. An entire day to ONLY be creative. To give yourself the gift of siting and seeing what happens.
Hope you can join me.
Creativity on the Farm
AND if you can’t make it, on September 12, we will do it again, but with a focus on song writing!!!
I was so hoping to come to this one! I'm only an hour away (in even more rural southern Iowa)...but I have to travel for the day job instead.
Good luck with the fiction piece! I hope you all make some fun art next weekend.
I share your plight. Have written four novels in the previous 15 years and sought agents/publishers for all. Eventually I self-published each of the novels on the basis of “when this one sells enough copies to pay for its publishing cost, I will write another. Print-on-demand books may take two years to reach that mark. People ask: “Why do you keep writing?” I tell them: “To preserve my sanity in this age of political and social madness.”
Good luck with your novel, Beth.