The pull away

I'm typing this on a camping chair on a campsite overlooking the Tatras mountains in southern Poland.

I'm listening to Max Richter's 'To the Stars' and thinking about how little I've progressed today on my novel.

It rained for an hour, and I was hiding out in my rooftop tent waiting it out, eating sandwiches.

Now the sun's out, and I figured I wanted to write something out in the open.

There are tents on either side of me, and I can't fully concentrate because there are these scary things called 'people' who might try to talk to me.

But conditions for creating things are never ideal.

Particularly in this uber-distracting AI-world we find ourselves in.

I've spoken about it a lot, but it bears repeating, because most of you reading this have things you want to create.

Whether it's an article, a painting, a cooking YouTube channel, or a wooden castle made of matchsticks.

Much of true creative mastery isn't anything to do with creative skill.

It's to do with those awkward moments, when you're dealing with 'the pull.'

There's the pull to create, but there's also the tantalising pull away from it.

Allow too many of these pulls towards distraction to win you over, and you create nothing.

And that's a shame, because you clearly have a lot of cool things to share with the world that the world needs.

So focus not only on creative skill.

Get better, piece-by-piece, at developing the most important skill that most overlook:

The skill of creating in small steps when conditions are NOT ideal.

Much of this has to do with sitting with that unpleasant feeling, letting it pass, and creating anyway.

What can you do today to defy that pull away from creation?

The world is waiting.

If you'd like to put your creative mind towards writing, and you like the idea of not only writing, but building something that creates lifelong freedom for you...

Never-Retired Writer book is here.

Peace out,

Alex 'Trying to write every day but not always succeeding' Mathers