If you’ve been around the arts for a while, you know that it’s a world managed by gatekeepers. Actors know this from trying to impress and agent to a casting director to a director or producer to get a small role – just to have a foot in the door, a chair at the table.
By denying yourself the opportunity to celebrate, you undermine the value of your own achievements, perpetuating a cycle of self-doubt and self-criticism. And ultimately you deprive yourself the validation and recognition you deserve. Even in small celebrations validate you.
Last week I entered a phase of my process I will call terra incognita, a strange place of indescribable wonders, such as: a sense of satisfaction, an inner joy, a feeling of completeness.
Why do so many artists cringe when they hear “self promotion?” I sit with all my words around me, writing what I want and even liking what I write and what those words create, but shy away from getting others to look at or read or perform my work.
Perils of Process Since I started writing I read voraciously about the “every day” writer. One who sits down at…
