“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
I think about this line on my way to every rehearsal for Sing After Storms. A piece of my past is embedded in every character, every line. I wrote the play to make sense of things on the page that never made sense in my life. I suppose that’s why anyone ever writes anything—to be helpful, to be free, to be heard. We move forward though we can’t help but be informed by where we’ve been and what we’ve survived. It can dicey territory. We can be sucked into the past or use it to buoy us up and over it. I choose to let it help me rise, and intend to lift others in the process.
I’m humbled and amazed by Mary on so many levels and the best part is that I met her through my blog. It’s relationships like this that make me realize just how blessed I am to have this forum, to write every day, and to know people like Mary. The world needs more people like her.
I am honored to have an article I wrote about yoga and meditation for caregivers appear in this quarter’s issue of care ADvantage magazine, a publication of the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America (AFA). To dovetail with the article, I was also the invited guest host for AFA’s monthly Twitter chat on this same topic.
Late at night after a long day and in the wee, still-dark hours of the morning, I’m often at my computer – reading, writing, and researching for one of my personal projects. They are labors of love – every bit as much labor as love. Every once in a while, the doubts creep in. I hear the hurtful comments of people who doubted, and probably still strongly doubt, that I’ll ever be able to do anything significant as a writer. That little voice of self-doubt pipes up in agreement.
When this happens, I think of the remarkable Maya Angelou who has long been one of my idols. When I was 31, first moved back to New York, and decided to work on becoming a writer, I learned that she also decided to focus on her writing in New York City when she was 31. Prior to that, she worked in the performing arts though with only limited success. The same was true for me. Her strength, determination, and work ethic kept her going, reaching, and striving. She has been a wonderful role model for me, in my writing and my life.
And with her example, I close the door on the doubts – my own and those of others – and just keep working, as hard as I can, with as much authenticity and passion as I can muster. She’s right. Nothing works unless we do, and I’m not afraid of work. I like it. I revel in it. I believe in its power. It raises me up and becomes its own reward. In those times, I realize that the only way to make my writing work is to keep going.
Here’s what’s amazing about art – we begin to create it for ourselves and it ends up being for others. One of the production designers on my play, Sing After Storms recently told me, “I feel like this play was meant to be. It’s exactly what I need in my life at exactly the right time.” These words met me like a brick wall. They made me look up and take notice. I thought I was writing and producing this play because it means something to me when actually I wrote it for so many others, some of whom I’m just meeting now and others I have yet to meet. And that feels damn good. It’s a gift that keeps on giving to everyone it touches.
Arthur Miller gave up the theater after his play, The Man Who Had All the Luck, flopped horribly on Broadway. It ran for only 4 performances in 1944. He attempted to write novels after that, and they flopped too. So he went back to the theater and several years later finished the Tony Award-winning play All My Sons, one of the most beloved, heart-wrenching, and successful in theater history. It took him 5 years to write it and was his first successful production. At the time of its debut, it was panned critically save for Brooks Atkinson’s review in the New York Times. Mr. Atkinson is often credited with rescuing the piece from failure. 2 years later, Miller wrote Death of a Salesman in 6 weeks and it won the Pulitzer.
Miller said this about watching All My Sons for the first time with an audience:
“The success of a play, especially one’s first success, is somewhat like pushing against a door which is suddenly opened from the other side. One may fall on one’s face or not, but certainly a new room is opened that was always securely shut until then. For myself, the experience was invigorating. It made it possible to dream of daring more and risking more. The audience sat in silence before the unwinding of All My Sons and gasped when they should have, and I tasted that power which is reserved, I imagine, for playwrights, which is to know that by one’s invention a mass of strangers has been publicly transfixed.”
It would have been very easy for Mr. Miller to give up writing after his early string of failures. At that point, there was no reason to believe he would ever be successful. And yet, he kept going. He kept trying as he worked menial jobs to make ends meet while remaining passionate about his craft. All he had was raw determination.
Maybe you’ve tried to do something and it wasn’t as successful as you wanted it to be even though you gave it everything you had. Maybe you’re thinking about throwing in the towel and getting a new dream. You’re in good company. At many points, Miller considered giving up. How could he not? But he didn’t. He started again. He took the second step, and it’s that step that made all the difference, for him, for us, and for the American theater. Follow that lead.
To sign up for updates on my new book, Your Second Step: What to Do After Your Leap, by clicking here.
Wise Bread is a site that celebrates living well on a budget and I’m overjoyed to announce that I’m officially a staff writer for this site that I have long loved and admired. I’ll be posting a few times a week on a wide range of topics including food, travel, technology, personal finance, design, and career. My first post “How to Spend Less on Everything in 2014” is now live. I hope you’ll check it out.
Frugal living is how I make my freelance life work. Its principles pervade how I eat, where I travel, what I do, and how I think about money. It’s about saving, spending on things that matter, and smartly using the fuel of money to fund a life we love. It’s about eliminating wasteful habits and expenditures that are draining our bank accounts and limiting our freedom. I’m excited to share the journey with you!
“This above all: To thine own self be true.” ~ Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Maybe your creative projects have taken a backseat to other parts of your life. Maybe you aren’t making the progress you want to make in the time you’d like to make it. Don’t beat yourself. And please don’t give up. People whom you will never meet and never know could gain so much benefit from your creativity. If you love the work, then keep at it. Bit by glorious bit. Here’s why:
When I say Shakespeare, what do you say? Theater. Hamlet. Romeo and Juliet. Playwright. Old Globe. All of these are probable, wonderful answers. Shakespeare made a life in the theater and he made a living in real estate. He wrote plays because he loved to write them. I was shocked to recently learn this and I want to share it with you for a very specific reason: your career does not have to define your legacy. What you do to make money and pay the bills doesn’t need to consume you. You can choose, independent of your paycheck, how the world will remember you. Your title does not determine your passion, nor does it dictate where you place your heart, loyalty, and energy. Those are choices, and only you can make them.
Shakespeare could have easily thrown himself into his real estate work and abandoned his writing altogether. He could have relegated himself to be a laborer who didn’t have time for creative pursuits. And we would all be worse off for that choice. It took a long time for him to stabilize his finances so that he could spend the majority of his time writing in his later years. Creative pursuits are like that – we do as much as we can when we can out of our sheer desire to make something that matters. If that sounds like you, don’t despair. You’re in good company; the Bard felt your pain. He kept going. So should you.
Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them? ~ Rose Kennedy
The most exciting (and terrifying) project I have planned for 2014 is the production of my first play, Sing After Storms. It will be staged as part of the Thespis Theater Festival in New York City on June 18th at 8:45pm, June 21st at 9:00pm, and June 22nd at 9:30pm at the Cabrini Repertory Theater, 701 Fort Washington Avenue in Washington Heights. What led me to write the play and ultimately submit it for production can be summed up in one word: priorities. On the surface, it’s not such a sexy word, but it made all the difference for me.
I wrote the play while I was in California this summer on a creative sabbatical from my work. I went there with about a dozen personal projects I wanted to complete and quickly realized that even if I worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the entire 8 weeks I couldn’t get them all done. They were so massive I couldn’t even get 2 of them done. (I live by the philosophy of “make no small plans.”) I quickly realized I had to choose. I tried to wiggle out of choosing and tried to select a few. It didn’t work. I had to sit down and decide what mattered most. And though it was the least lucrative and least likely to generate anything other than happiness, I spent my last 4 weeks writing my play. With much coaching and encouragement from my dear friend, Trevin, I finished the first draft. It felt amazing to do what I loved simply because I wanted to. That experience also helped me make up my mind to focus on writing and content development full-time.
When I returned to New York, I completed the second draft and submitted it to Thespis. That was the first time I ever submitted the full play to anyone for review and I expected to be rejected about 100 times before anyone even gave it a second look. I’m proud of the work, though I worked in professional theater management for a number of years. After managing Broadway shows and national tours, I know how difficult the industry is. I know how much work doesn’t make it, how many artists never get any shot. I wanted to be passionate and realistic. I wrote that play simply because I loved the story. I never expected anything else to come of it even though I knew I would keep trying to get it produced.
When I got the acceptance from Thespis five days later, I was shocked. And nervous. And excited. And overwhelmed. I spoke with Trevin immediately, and then with my dear theater friend, Amy, who also read the script and encouraged me to give it a shot. Should I do this? Both emphatically said, “Yes!” So I reviewed the contract and accepted the next day.
Now there are many months of hard work and long hours ahead. Trevin is going to direct the piece and I’ve started to look for other people who want to play a part in this new project – actors, a stage manager, designers, technicians, stage crew members, marketing and publicity, investors. (If any of these opportunities sound interesting to you, please email me at christa.avampato@gmail.com.) While I will now be consumed by this next phase of the process, I remind myself that this all happened because I put the wheels in motion by following my gut this summer, by doing what made me happiest. I made a choice. One single choice. And that was enough to get started.
Last week Aimee Johnson, one of my blog readers, wrote me an email to thank me for helping to inspire her on her path to healing. She started her own blog as a result: http://aimees-apothecary.blogspot.co.uk. I’ve never met Aimee in-person though she wanted to make sure I knew how important my writing was to her, that my daily posts give her the motivation to keep going. I am humbled by her sentiments and her thoughtfulness to send me this note.
Just that morning I had been wondering how to structure this blog in 2014. I try to stick with a theme every year and 2013 was a year dedicated to making something beautiful, in my case a life and a career. Until I got Aimee’s email I was struggling with what to do for 2014. Aimee helped me solve that problem – 2014 will be about inspiring others and shining a spotlight on people who inspire me. I want to help people let go of things that don’t serve them and take more chances. Stories give us the courage we need to make that happen.
I’ve got a good feeling about 2014. Something tells me it’s going to be one of those landmark years with twists and turns and wild rides. I’m ready for it. I’m ready for all of it. Happy New Year!
Christa Avampato 