Artists are Brave Thinkers, Not Negative Thinkers!

     Maybe you already know this about people in the arts: we're not qualified judges of our own work. I think I could say that for most of us, if we considered our judgement of our creations to be credible, we'd never release anything to the outside world. 
     The truth is that we're brave. We work hard to perfect our creations, and when we've done the best we can, we take a deep breath and turn them out to be judged by others. We risk humiliation, loss of respect as artists from others, the inevitable criticism, and worse, being ignored, passed over completely. As a singer, songwriter, and published author of magazine stories and articles, and now a book, I've experienced all of those devastating consequences.
     If you've watched American Idol in their initial tryouts, the ones who don't know they can't sing in tune, or who haven't put in the time and hard work to hone the craft of a pop song singer--they're the ones who brag that they're amazing. When the judges advise them to stick to their day jobs, or worse, laugh at them, the unskilled performers react with surprise, outrage and tears. The singers who aren't bragging about themselves are the good ones.
     I believe artists in all disciplines who have put in their 10,000+ hours of hard work are not able to judge their own creations because they know too much about their craft, and they've refined their taste to a standard so high, they're certain their abilities will never reach it. This isn't negative thinking. It's being brave, knowing that their highest expectations for achievement are unrealistic, yet they persevere and then make the choice of whether to hide it away or send it out to the world. 
     We can't help it: each one of us is an original, unlike anyone else in our field. We know it's wrong to imitate someone else's work, yet it takes guts to express our own voice, be who we are. We're working from the inside out, like gophers, blind to the outside world, and we know it. We try to mitigate unwanted consequences by working in teams or in concert with others who can help us get outside perspective on our work.
     I could write a book about the inner life of an artist. My sister, my editor Terry, and a few friends pushed me along in the final year of writing my first book, Life with a Buckskinner. Without them, I would never have finished that book. They encouraged me to keep writing, listened patiently while I read aloud, and gave me valuable feedback. My sister and friend Darcy pushed me to keep asking the publisher of one of the books that contained one of my stories for his permission to reprint that story. When he ignored my requests in emails and phone calls for months, I became more afraid and unsure of the worthiness of the whole effort. I was especially aware of my fears growing more intense at the time I turned out that book. It was a memoir, and very revealing about my own shortcomings. I was terrified and I published it anyway.
     As a singer with my top-40 showband, I figured out in the first few months on the bandstand, that if I could please myself with my voice I heard coming back to me through the speakers, I had half a chance of pleasing the audience. And that was my only chance. If I stood there worrying about what they thought of me, focused on the outside of myself, I would never be able to overcome that paralyzing stage fright I was living in.
     I tried my best to please myself, but my standard, based on the music from that era of the 1970's, was very high. There were nights I wished I could drop down through the stage floor and disappear. I never felt like I reached my standard, but that didn't keep me from allowing my band leader husband Whitey to record and critique my performances so I could improve. It didn't keep me from showing up on the bandstand every night. Once, after four or five years of performing on the road, I told Whitey that if I'd known learning to be a pop and jazz singer would be so difficult, I would never have auditioned for his band.
     Every night when I sang a song in a nightclub--and I worked six nights/week for more than 12 years--I always tried to sing that song better-better-better than the night before. 
     A few months ago, I received in the mail a set of three remastered CDs that had been recorded on reel-to-reel tape in a live performance of our showband in 1974, after our band had been together for only a year. Now in my late 60's, I listened to myself singing as if that were someone else, and couldn't believe I'd been such a dynamic vocalist in those years, singing perfectly in tune, with such a wide, flexible range of clear notes and the talent to turn a song into original phrasing and nuance of musical interpretation. 
     Then I found the entry I'd written in my journal on July 7, 1974, recounting the night of July 6th when that recording was made, and the night of July 7th when the band members gathered in the recording studio to choose and mix the songs. At the very end of that entry, I wrote this: "I'm sick to death of hearing tapes. I definitely do not like the quality of my singing voice."
     Obviously, I've proven I stink when it comes to judging my own work. So it isn't my job to judge. It isn't even my job to believe in myself or in what I can create. It's my job to do my best to let my characters come to life and create that story. I write because I love the process of creating.
     So for this novel I'm writing, I'll do the best I can to put out a coherent, cohesive story. I'll send the chapters out to my editor and readers willing to take this journey with me. I'll read the chapters aloud to my friends who will listen. And then, based on their comments and my intentions for this story, I'll edit-edit-edit. And then I'll let it go. I'll pass it on for others to do what they do best: decide for themselves whether to read the story or not, and if they do read it, decide whether the story was worth the time it took to read it.
     And as for me, I'll be bravely writing the sequel, because somewhere locked in my brain, it's waiting to be let out. Isn't that what creative expression is all about anyway: letting out what's inside us, and then letting it go and moving on?