Guest Blogging at ScottKelby.com

The terrific folks over at Scott Kelby's site invited me to write a guest post for their blog. In the first place, how flattered am I! In the second, I appreciate the opportunity to organize and share my thoughts on a topic that felt like a long-term personal struggle finally mellowing into a positive and valuable life perspective. That is, what it really looks like to create art consistently in the face of challenging real-life circumstances. The post is called “Building a Creative Practice”, and it took me a couple-few decades to write, sort of.

If you don’t know me personally, I have a somewhat unusual background. I had a rather hardscrabble childhood, but achieved independence early, and happily supported myself from a young age. Being curious and opportunistic, I’ve worked a lot, and in a lot of different fields, from balloon aviation to blacksmithing to software engineering.

Making art on the side has always been both something I can’t help, and something I’ve given up other important things to make time for. And still it has never felt like enough to only be creative after hours or on ‘breaks’ between major jobs. A big vision of a full-time creative life coupled with a history of staccato efforts has sometimes felt like repeated failures to launch.

But a long history of small efforts accumulates a respectable body of work. Each new start builds on the last step; even if it feels like you’re back at square one, I assure you, each time, you’re further along than you think.

Almost all of us have to manage competing demands on our time and resources. You’re not less of an artist for taking responsibility, and you should shrug off any nagging romantic and/or cynical stereotypes that require you to be feckless or embrace poverty as a term of artistic legitimacy. If it’s in you, you’ve got to create. Full stop. And slow and steady, or small and manageable, are perfectly fine ways to do it. Over time, it does add up. I promise you, it will look different down the line.

Check out the full blog post, with lots of snazzy images and more encouraging words, over on scottkelby.com.