I’m stealing, er, borrowing the term “creative Kryptonite” from blogger Jonathan Fields and identifying my own set of things that weaken us as creative people. To get back our superpowers…OK, just our powers…we have to stay away from these. Today’s Kryptonite:
Comparing yourself to others.
You know the kind of thing: “I’ll never write anything as good as…” or “I can’t compete with somebody who has connections like…”
There will always be somebody better than you. There will always be somebody worse than you. Others will judge whether or not they like what you have done. Sometimes nobody likes something when it first comes out and later it becomes a cult thing or even hugely popular (Van Gogh, anybody?). Other times something is a big hit when it first comes out but is forgotten a few years later.
You have no control over these things. You just have to get on with your work. If you want to make comparisons, here are three that are useful:
1) Compared to what else I could be doing, is this the project for which I have the most passion?
2) Compared to what I've done in the past, am I applying to this project what I've learned?
3) Compared to my dreams, does this project reach high enough?
(You can also compare "Your Writing Coach" to other writing books...I think you'll like it better :-) You can find it at Amazon and other online and offline book stores.)
[Superman image copyright DC comics]
