The GOLD on courage and confidence

Welcome to our 'between seasons' offering. We're re-listening to episodes past and digging out the GOLD.

#areyoustillworking 

Transcript

Courtney: 0:03

Hello, gorgeous listeners. As we're tipping so quickly into this new year, I just wanted to say, Ah, that's just me falling off the cliff of overwhelm. So, how do we move into this new year with all of our high hopes and creative ambitions, but not quite recovered from the year that just was? I think I need a little help. So I'm listening again back through our episodes. I'm not a very chronological person, but I started at the beginning from episode one, season one, and I got to episode four. Season one, and I just have to stop and, and share with you some of what is there because it's just gold. Let's hear from bestselling author Holly Ringland on finding the courage to confront the inner critic.

Holly: 1:12

What would happen if for 10 minutes, you just don't listen to all the reasons why you're not good enough to do this thing that has been asking you, has been making your body sick, has been clawing at your throat and knocking at the inner walls of your heart. Has been asking you to exist. What if the 10 minutes you don't listen to why you're not good enough? And what if you just try? What if you just try?

Courtney: 1:43

Holly also speaks about borrowing courage from other creators through physical objects.

Holly: 1:49

I'm wearing other women's work, other women's courage. And that gives me that sense of. Connectedness and company when I am alone in my work,

Courtney: 2:03

Holly reminds me that we can cultivate courage. We can take heart from other people's great work. Writing my second novel, I carried a postcard of Georgia O'Keeffe's painting Evening Star around with me because it reminded me that a layered and multi strand narrative could work, and it could be beautiful, and it could be done. So maybe you've made an action recently and you've received a big no on something or had an unexpected setback. Let's hear from award winning author Charlotte Wood on setbacks.

Charlotte: 2:46

I had a book, I had all the events in place. I knew., everything was sort of there, ready to be revised. I had a whole sort of shape, I guess, and I remember, you know, it was like, I don't know, 10 30 in the morning where I kind of wrote this last bit and thought, yeah, that's it. I think that's it. Oh my God, I finally got this draft. Hallelujah. Then I left there to go and do some shopping, grocery shopping. While I was at the grocery store, I got the call from the breast screening people saying, just wondering if you could come back in for another thing. After that my brain went dead A few years ago. As Charlotte shared in her episode, she had a tremendous setback in terms of her health, but she found a way through it and thankfully recovered. And if you've been following the literary news lately, you'll know that Charlotte was recently shortlisted for the Booker Prize for her most recent novel, Stoneyard Devotional. We just don't know what's around the corner. And while it could be shit, it could also be something wonderful. The point is. To continue. Last year was a really big year for me. I had my second novel come out, and I wrote a feature film that was directed by Jasmine Tarrison called Life Could Be a Dream. And at the end of it all, I felt utterly emptied out. And strangely, after all of this productivity and seeming success, just a dire lack of confidence. And I realized that my confidence is not actually an enduring quality, you know, I, I wasn't born confident and I don't get confidence from other people's praise or opinion. And this has just been an absolute revelation for me that my confidence is actually based on the very unremarkable thing of doing the work. I get pleasure out of sentences, I'll admit. And. Word by word, seeing something through. And if I'm not doing that every day, or at least five days a week, the confidence just evaporates. Someone clever once said everything in moderation, including moderation. And it can be so good and instructive to break patterns and rhythms that we've created for ourselves. And if I hadn't broken. My own writing rhythm, I, I wouldn't have known, it wouldn't have occurred to me where my confidence actually comes from. I love what musician Laura Jean says about commitment and staying in love with the work.

Laura Jean: 5:28

So what I tend to do is live with the uncomfortable feeling of it not being finished, and I decide to give up for a few days and it usually just takes like a few days of giving up before I wanna start working on it again. Kind of like having space from someone you love,

Courtney: 5:43

Someone

Laura Jean: 5:44

live with that you're in love with. You know, sometimes you just need to be like, I'm having two days on my own, or whatever. And then you do that and you just wanna see them after two days. And all you need is just this conscious walking away and then you can walk back to Love is, is walking back to them and not walking away, walking somewhere else, deciding that you're going to walk back to the work with all its flaws.

Courtney: 6:10

How about that? Walk back to the work with all of its flaws., Laura Jean: I stay in love with the Oh my God, what could this be? Instead of just going what it is, I go, oh my God. Like, imagine the bass doing this here. Imagine the strings coming in here. Imagine what it could make people feel. Imagine the thrill of this, of this song. To be in a creative process is to be in an intimate relationship with the work. It comes from you, and it comes from you attending to yourself and attending to the work. As Laura says,

Laura Jean: 6:56

To make that, that person had to cry and be and sit in a like dark room and ask themselves some hard questions and, miss work and offend someone and it's all pain. We all wanna avoid pain. So being an artist is actually putting. consciously in the way of some pain, so you can transmit that pain into something beautiful. Wow. I mean, there's gold and then there's gold, isn't there? And hopefully the, the luminous things that you make do turn into money so you can keep going and you can feed yourself delicious things and live in a lovely, safe home.

Courtney: 7:43

So this, this work, it has to be sustainable. Filmmaker Naina Sen speaks so powerfully about this.

Naina: 7:51

This idea of working on beautiful things in under resourced ways. I've tried very consciously as I've gotten older to learn how to walk away from that. And on taking care of yourself. I try and go for a bike ride, most sunsets. And again, this is a new thing. I used to compromise lots of that kind of stuff for work, for deadlines. As I get older, my body's kind of like, No, no. You want me to help you, you have to help me, you know. So I take that a bit more seriously.

Courtney: 8:24

I told you there was gold here and we're only four episodes in. So there'll be more. Lisa and I will listen back and bring you again the wisdom of other artists who have committed to the task. But before I go, one last absolute shining jewel from Charlotte Wood again,

Charlotte: 8:44

All those things that you worry about as an artist, as a writer, wanting love, wanting money, wanting acceptance, all the things you want. you know, they're natural and normal. But what you need is self-reliance and, and, to be self-respecting. So I just turn to any artist, I can find who, gives me that. Who reminds me of that,

Courtney: 9:07

as we tip into 2025, may you feel courage, grow your confidence in the doing, find boundaries. and love for your work. May you receive a strength of vision so sure and so clear it helps you navigate all of the challenges of this unfolding year Are you still working is an independently produced podcast by me, Courtney Collins and producer Lisa Madden. We'd love to hear from you if any episode has inspired your own creative project. Thanks for listening. Till next time.