Dispatches tagged as "how to keep doing it" on Dispatch from the Razor's Edge

how to keep doing it (6)

2021.02.14 : The Artist's Recovery
Excerpts from The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

This is, perhaps, the final entry in my series of dispatches about "How to Keep Doing It" as an artist.... (read more)

2019.05.01 : How to Keep Doing It
Excerpts from Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad, by Austin Kleon

And so in my ongoing (and increasingly coherent, and maybe even successful) attempts to figure out HOW TO KEEP DOING IT (i.e. be a working artist, over time, without utterly destroying myself in the process), I came across another book seemingly written personally for me, at the exact moment I needed it.... (read more)

2019.03.19 : Calm Down and Get Back to Work
Excerpts from Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert

And so in my continuing efforts to try to rebuild and find my way back, I had a strong sense I should next turn to this book, again. I was first turned onto it by my friend Marianne, who had just heard Gilbert speak; and while I would probably sooner eat my own face than actually read Eat, Pray, Love, I dug this book enormously, finding it a wonderful and genuine chronicle of the journey of a committed artist. She's the real deal.... (read more)

2019.03.10 : Never Resolved, Only Endured
Excerpts from Composed: A Memoir, by Rosanne Cash

This is a book that has been on my radar for a while, mainly because Pressfield swears by it - mostly, he loves the bit where, after multiple #1 singles and Grammys, Cash had a dream where Art calls her a dilettante, and so she sends herself back to school, getting a new voice coach, reading books on songwriting, going deeper, paying attention, changing the way she sang, worked, and lived, all in humility, getting out of comfort zones, "awakened into the life of an artist."... (read more)

2019.03.05 : Where To Put the Tired

After spending two weeks just taking longer and longer walks out the Thames Path, watching the light fade and trying to remember how to breathe, I've been going back to all the foundational texts (Pressfield, Holiday, McKee) trying to find some way back, some way to rebuild. Unfortunately, while there's tons of great stuff in there about how to get yourself going, there's precious little about what to do when you've been battling for many years, had some artistic and commercial success, and then blow up spectacularly and don't think you can get back in the fight anymore. Here's some.... (read more)

2019.02.21 : Despair

"There's two kinds of despair that a writer can feel, one of which is: I will never make something good... But the second is: nobody could ever make something good. And that's a real despair. And every writer and artist I know has experienced both kinds." - Jonathan Safran Foer... (read more)

Dispatch from the Razor's Edge is owned and operated by novelist, technologist, vegan, exercise junkie, classical liberal, rambler, and Londoner Michael Stephen Fuchs.

Fuchs is the author of the novels The Manuscript and Pandora's Sisters, both published worldwide by Macmillan in hardback, paperback and all e-book formats (and in translation); the D-Boys series of high-tech, high-concept, spec-ops military adventure novels – D-Boys, Counter-Assault, and Close Quarters Battle (coming in 2016); and is co-author, with Glynn James, of the bestselling Arisen series of special-operations military ZA novels. The second nicest thing anyone has ever said about his work was: "Fuchs seems to operate on the narrative principle of 'when in doubt put in a firefight'." (Kirkus Reviews, more here.)

Fuchs was born in New York; schooled in Virginia (UVa); and later emigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he lived through the dot-com boom. Subsequently he decamped for an extended period of tramping before finally rocking up in London, where he now makes his home. He does a lot of travel blogging, most recently of some very long walks around the British Isles. He's been writing and developing for the web since 1994 and shows no particularly hopeful signs of stopping.

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Dispatch from the Razor's Edge is owned and operated by novelist, technologist, vegan, exercise junkie, classical liberal, rambler, and Londoner Michael Stephen Fuchs.


	Dispatches tagged as: how to keep doing it (6) 2021.02.14 : The Artist's Recovery Excerpts from The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron This is, perhaps, the final entry in my series of dispatches about "How to Keep Doing It" as an artist.... (read more) 2019.05.01 : How to Keep Doing It Excerpts from Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad, by Austin Kleon And so in my ongoing (and increasingly coherent, and maybe even successful) attempts to figure out HOW TO KEEP DOING IT (i.e. be a working artist, over time, without utterly destroying myself in the process), I came across another book seemingly written personally for me, at the exact moment I needed it.... (read more) 2019.03.19 : Calm Down and Get Back to Work Excerpts from Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert And so in my continuing efforts to try to rebuild and find my way back, I had a strong sense I should next turn to this book, again. I was first turned onto it by my friend Marianne, who had just heard Gilbert speak; and while I would probably sooner eat my own face than actually read Eat, Pray, Love, I dug this book enormously, finding it a wonderful and genuine chronicle of the journey of a committed artist. She's the real deal.... (read more) 2019.03.10 : Never Resolved, Only Endured Excerpts from Composed: A Memoir, by Rosanne Cash This is a book that has been on my radar for a while, mainly because Pressfield swears by it - mostly, he loves the bit where, after multiple #1 singles and Grammys, Cash had a dream where Art calls her a dilettante, and so she sends herself back to school, getting a new voice coach, reading books on songwriting, going deeper, paying attention, changing the way she sang, worked, and lived, all in humility, getting out of comfort zones, "awakened into the life of an artist."... (read more) 2019.03.05 : Where To Put the Tired After spending two weeks just taking longer and longer walks out the Thames Path, watching the light fade and trying to remember how to breathe, I've been going back to all the foundational texts (Pressfield, Holiday, McKee) trying to find some way back, some way to rebuild. Unfortunately, while there's tons of great stuff in there about how to get yourself going, there's precious little about what to do when you've been battling for many years, had some artistic and commercial success, and then blow up spectacularly and don't think you can get back in the fight anymore. Here's some.... (read more) 2019.02.21 : Despair "There's two kinds of despair that a writer can feel, one of which is: I will never make something good... But the second is: nobody could ever make something good. And that's a real despair. And every writer and artist I know has experienced both kinds." - Jonathan Safran Foer... (read more)