Elizabeth Gilbert On Creativity

Elizabeth Gilbert,
author of Eat, Pray, Love,
talked about creativity
on TED

My favorite part of her speech?
When she says
that her job is
to sit down
and write.
Genius and brilliance
may or may not show up.
If it doesn’t
“I’m going to keep writing anyway
because that’s my job.
And I would please
like the record to reflect
today
that I showed up
for my part of the job.”

For the past two weeks,
genius has not shown up
while I was writing.
I wrote anyway.
Yesterday, it appeared.
Suddenly my current story ‘works.’

Yes, there will be massive rewrites
but I doubt genius would have shown up
without all that hard work.

Whatever your job is,
show up for it,
body, mind, and soul.