There is a singular difference between the two—the act of bringing your idea into reality.
You don’t even need to do it commercially.
Your creative endeavor can simply be for the sake of creating. The act of creation has its own risks beyond the financial realm. Bringing your idea into the light of day and seeing society’s reaction or lack thereof can sting.
We can focus on writing to meet market demands and to make a living. This path elevates your writing to another level of difficulty and complexity.
My point is that most daydreams never become a reality. While they have the potential to do so, in most cases, dreams remain unrealized. There exists an infinite supply of the greatest books that were never written.
One great book on this subject is Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act. The book discusses the creative process as a way of being and the creative act as a form of devotion and creates habit.
A practice is the embodiment of an approach to a concept. This can support us in bringing about the desired state of mind. When we repeat the exercise of opening our senses to what is, we move closer to living in a continually open state. We build habits. One where expanded awareness is our default way of being in the world.
I’m a daydreamer by nature. It took learning and experience for me to become a creator.
I pursued a path to art school, and while receiving exemplary instruction and exposure to others with talent, I came to believe that my own skills were mediocre. I also wasn’t necessarily compelled to create in those mediums.
Later, when I went to Australia and had the chance to build a business, I felt the compulsion and vocation of creation. That’s why this Picasso quote resonates with me so deeply.
“One must have the courage of one’s vocation and the courage to make a living from one’s vocation.”
~ Picasso
Modern society suggests you should have it all. Love what you do and make tons of money doing it. In the case of Picasso, he chose to live his vocation, and in the beginning, it was an austere, sometimes dangerous life. Through his devotion to his vocation, he became one of the wealthiest painters ever.
Once I saw what could be done with the medium of business, I felt compelled to do it as much as possible. I live and breathe it. It’s what I do with my time because I enjoy the act.
However, the act of creation is not without its risks. In the medium I work, failures can cost me and others a lot of money. In such moments, I draw inspiration from Ray Dalio and reflect on the valuable lessons that failure provides—an opportunity to learn and grow.
Sometimes, those failures have resulted in significant financial setbacks for my family.
When you go through one of these, it sucks.
You see others doing things you can’t.
You are constantly reminded of the consequences of your choices.
Your natural inclination may be to hide within a narrative you write for yourself—a story that places the blame on others or external factors.
The courageous thing to do is recognize that my choices put me in those circumstances. My choices, therefore, I’m accountable.
The passage of time and working through a downturn becomes its own lesson. One takeaway could be I’ll never do that again. Another realization is that the outcome wasn’t as bad as I initially thought. I can be my best or at least try to live my best life during a setback.
Looking back on Picasso, it was during his lean years that he pioneered paradigm-shifting movements like cubism. He built lifelong relationships that fueled future collaborations and creativity. Always committed to the act of creation, he let the world and the work sort themselves out.
Another great quote that comes to mind is from Kurt Vonnegut.
“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of ‘getting to know you’ questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.
“And he went wow. That’s amazing! And I said, ‘Oh no, but I’m not any good at any of them.’
“And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: ‘I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.’
“And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could ‘win’ at them.”
~Kurt Vonnegut
This quote opened my eyes to how comparison is crippling. Gaining experience in multiple domains makes a person well-rounded. You don’t have to be the best. You have to be your best. All those experiences and additions to your network add to your inspiration and creativity.
Action defines…
So, returning to my original question: are you a daydreamer or a creator?
While your imagination is the source of both, it is only when imagination is combined with action that your ideas materialize in the real world. It’s like being a wizard, summoning something from one dimension to another.
Through the ritual of taking action, you can open a portal and bring forth something valuable.
The biggest killer of author careers isn’t Amazon, gatekeepers, or critics; it’s inaction.
When action is added to the recipe, daydreaming becomes creativity, and human creativity is the source of all value.
Even expensive commodities like gold or oil have no value without the creativity surrounding them.
Crude oil is just a hydrocarbon in the ground, but with creativity, it becomes plastic. That plastic in the hands of another creative becomes a part of your phone, a phone powered by someone turning a hydrocarbon into energy to charge its battery.
As a creator, your act of creation is what matters. What it becomes and how it serves the world can only be determined once it has arrived on this plane of existence. Why do so many ideas never make it into reality?
Fear.
Fear of what others will think.
Fear of failure.
Fear of success.
The list goes on…
Leave fear here on this page and dive into the joy of creation—headfirst, eyes closed.
If your vocation is to create, then you must create. Even if it is only something you do once or for personal enjoyment, free it from the constraints of others’ conventional ideas of success. Its sole purpose is to bring you joy in the process of creation.
When looking at Author Nation™, it is the act of bringing it into being. Once here, it will have its own life, and the community will have its opinions. For me, I get the experience of doing it with good people. That, in itself, is all the reason there needs to be.
There will be critics and drama, but the creator is the one in the arena. Craig Martelle ended the last 20Books Vegas with the famous quote:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
~ Teddy Roosevelt
As I heard him speak those words, I knew they served a twofold purpose. First, to inspire those to take their shot and be among those who know victory or defeat. Second, he was challenging all those who, over the years, had only created criticism and had never stepped into the arena themselves.
What is keeping you from stepping into that next creative arena? This isn’t just about getting published. For those of you who are published and comfortable with your success, what is the next challenge you must confront and solve with your creativity?
Read: Using the Atelic to Find Purpose in Your Creative Journey