Ten years ago I bought a book called The Creative License. As soon as I received it I opened the book, closed it, and never opened it again. It seemed appalling to me I would need a license, similar to a driver’s license, to be creative.
But the responsibilities built up.
A husband. A kid. A busy job, then burn out.
I told myself: I don’t have time to write, I need to focus on my basic needs. My health.
But writing makes me feel most alive.
To work on a project. To be in the trenches of a project, is everything to me.
Last January my son woke up each morning and picked up the iPad to write his story. It was like he was hungry to write. I recognized that hunger as my own. Then, the following Sunday, my partner left a lunch early so he could work on a legal matter. That stuff is his passion.
So, I saw my son—he was doing what he had to do. My partner—the same. Instinctively, they were giving themselves permission.
So why wasn’t I writing?
I opened up Jonah, a Ripley-esque literary fiction novel about a young guy who both admires and ultimately tries to destroy his wealthy uncle’s life. I think I was only in draft 2 or 3. The problems were immense. the story was all wrong. I’d rewritten the first draft twice. I didn’t even know really what the story was about.
But I dug in. I gave myself permission to focus on this story, these characters, this other world that I had built and had been working on for so long.
So, permission is not something to be taken for granted. We have to give it to ourselves over and over again.