What are the stories that limit you?
Stories? I could fill a book with them:
– Doing What You Love is all very well, but one can’t expect to make a living that way.
– Doing anything other than What You Love is a betrayal of your artistic integrity
– expecting to make a living from any form of art is irresponsible and your family will starve
– of course it’s impossible to write without drinking/smoking/coffee
– we are the weird ones and nobody understands us
– it doesn’t matter how brilliant I am, nobody actually likes me
– if it doesn’t get eaten, it’s wasted
– it’s my responsibility to compensate for other people’s shortcomings and omissions
Some of these aren’t even mine. I’ve never smoked, for example. In fact, most of these are now neutralised. Naming them allows me to analyse them, take them to pieces, see how far they are true and where they are not. I’ve got into the habit now of picking up any such sweeping statements I hear myself making, stopping myself, and thinking: what? why?
So much for the verbalised stories. What stories are lurking in my head that I don’t even know are stories, that’s another question. What convictions do I have that I haven’t even thought to question? What could I do without those stories I don’t even know about? Now, that could be fun.
Kathleen Jowitt 