“I find that the very things that I get criticized for, which is usually being different and just doing my own thing and just being original, is the very thing that makes me successful.”   Shania Twain

“When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically fine line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.”   Cynthia Heimel, writer and humorist

Bold advice, but well worth taking: Be different. Be original. Do what works for you. Leap the line between creativity and looking crazy. Don’t be afraid to make a fool of yourself.

If we embraced all this, where would it take us?

When a crazy idea for a story or a wacky plot point that could catapult us out of a rough patch bubbles up, we might grab it and run with it.

When a character of ours suddenly wants to do something that’s, well, out of character, we might applaud instead of sticking him or her back in the little box we’ve created for them.

When someone else told us that an idea we had wouldn’t really work and we should forget it, we might nod our head politely and choose to forget their advice instead and go with our instincts and our idea.

When we get out of our comfort zone, when we consider jumping out of our genre or write poetry or try our hand at a film script, instead of telling ourselves, “No, you can’t possibly do that,” we’d say to ourselves,”Go for it!” and get going.

What is there about being a creative that often makes us doubt the very thing that makes us who we are: our creativity? Why are we willing to push it just so far and then feel we have to pull back? Could it be that even we suffer from the twin diseases of our time: WWOPT and WWOPS: What will other people think? and What will other people say? If so, then there’s a simple cure: Just do it!

So, whatever off-the-wall, out-of-the-box ideas we come up with, let’s leap! Write on!