Do the Work

the “You suck” voice in our heads. It also means liberating ourselves from conventional expectations—from what we think our work “ought” to be or “should” look like.
     
    Stay stupid. Follow your unconventional, crazy heart.
     
    If your notion violates every precept I’ve set forth in these pages, tell me to go to hell. Do what that voice says.
     
    Ideas Do Not Come Linearly
     
    Remember when we broke our concept down into beginning, middle, and end? Rational thought would tempt us to do our work in that order.
     
    Wrong.
     
    Ideas come according to their own logic. That logic is not rational. It’s not linear. We may get the middle before we get the end. We may get the end before we get the beginning. Be ready for this. Don’t resist it.
     
    Do you have a pocket tape recorder? I do. I keep it with me everywhere. (A notepad works, too.) Why do I record ideas the minute they come to me? Because if I don’t, I’ll forget them. You will, too.
     
    Nothing is more fun than turning on the recorder and hearing your own voice telling you a fantastic idea that you had completely forgotten you had.
     
    The Process
     
    Let’s talk about the actual process—the writing/composing/ idea generation process.
     
    It progresses in two stages: action and reflection.
     
    Act, reflect. Act, reflect.
     
    NEVER act and reflect at the same time.
     
    The Definition of Action and Reflection
     
    In writing, “action” means putting words on paper.
     
    “Reflection” means evaluating what we have on paper.
     
    For this first draft, we’ll go light on reflection and heavy on action.
     
    Spew. Let ’er rip. Launch into the void and soar wherever the wind takes you.
     
    When we say “Trust the soup,” we mean the Muse, the unconscious, the Quantum Soup. The sailor hoists his canvas, trusting that the wind (which is invisible and which he can neither see nor control) will appear and power him upon his voyage.
     
    You and I hoist our canvas to catch ideas.
     
    When we say “Stay Stupid,” we mean don’t self-censor, don’t indulge in self-doubt, don’t permit self-judgment.
     
    Forget rational thought. Play. Play like a child.
     
    Why does this purely instinctive, intuitive method work? Because our idea (our song, our ballet, our new Tex-Mex restaurant) is smarter than we are.
     
    Our job is not to control our idea; our job is to figure out what our idea is (and wants to be)—and then bring it into being.
     
    The song we’re composing already exists in potential. Our work is to find it. Can we hear it in our head? It exists, like a signal coming from a faraway radio tower.
     
    Our job is to tune to that frequency.
     
    Did you read Bob Dylan’s Chronicles ? The lengths he goes to to find a song (or an arrangement or a producing partner) are beyond insanity.
     
    He does it all by instinct. Fearless, child-like, primitive instinct.
     
    The Answer Is Always Yes
     
    When an idea pops into our head and we think, “No, this is too crazy,”
     
    … that’s the idea we want.
     
    When we think, “This notion is completely off the wall … should I even take the time to work on this?”
     
    … the answer is yes.
     
    Never doubt the soup. Never say no.
     
    The answer is always yes.
     
    The Opposite of Resistance
     
    I said a few chapters ago that the universe is not indifferent; it is actively hostile. This is true.
     
    But behind every law of nature stands an equal and opposite law.
     
    The universe is also actively benevolent. You should be feeling this now. You should be feeling a tailwind.
     
    The opposite of Resistance is Assistance.
     
    A work-in-progress generates its own energy field. You, the artist or entrepreneur, are pouring love into the work; you are suffusing it with passion and intention and hope. This is serious juju. The universe responds to this. It has no choice.
     
    Your work-in-progress produces its own gravitational field, created by your will and your attention. This field attracts like-spirited entities into its orbit.
     
    What entities?
     
    Ideas.
     
    You started with a few scraps of a song; now you’ve got half an opera. You began with the crazy notion to restore a neglected park; now the lot is cleared and you’ve got volunteers tweeting and phoning at all hours. Your will and vision initiated the process, but now the process has acquired a life and momentum of its own.
     
    The un-indifferent universe has stepped in to counter Resistance. It has