Are you Called to Create?

One of my favorite authors, Don Miller (Blue Like Jazz, Searching for God Knows What) wrote recently on his website about the characteristics of a creator. He suggested that the following were true:

 1. A Creator loves what they do.
 2. A Creator knows how to do what they do.
 3. A Creator does what they do.

These facts seemed pretty obvious but when I compared them to how I was living my life as a "creator," I realized that I fell a bit short. I felt the need to examine these three facts in the context of my day to day life.

1. Do I love what I do?
   - I do love writing as a process of self discovery, which is why I enjoy writing narrative non-fiction, the most. Yes, the simple answer is: I do love writing, but I think that so much of the time, I sit down to the computer seeking the instant gratification of reaching the end, perhaps because I am seeking closure in the story that is actively happening in my own life. It is a complicated, dependent kind of affair.

2. Do I know how to do what I do?
  - Sometimes I really feel like the answer to that question is: NO WAY! I wonder, really struggle to understand how a person can ever finish a book. Taking a look at the NewYorkTimes BestSeller List, I ask myself, how is it that Paris Hilton can complete a book , but I haven't the foggiest idea how to even begin Chapter One?
   I am easily overwhelmed by the enormity of completing a project, but the question asks: Do I know how to do what I do? Not: Do I know how to make money doing what I do? So, I must remind myself, that - Yes, I do know how to write. I did spend $40,000 and four years of my misguided youth earning a degree to prove that fact. And I got A's.

3. Do I do what I ....do?
  -Well I certainly don't get paid to do what I do. Not yet, anyway. But that is not the question, I suppose. I get a little caught up in this question because I feel like if you are passionate about something, it shouldn't feel like work. I am learning that this is the very wrong attitude to have, especially when it comes to writing a book.
  On occasion, I feel inspired to "do what I do." It will hit me suddenly, often when I am driving in my car, and something poetic will just come to me - sense from nothing at all. I sit and write for maybe thirty minutes, maybe three hours, and usually end up deleting eighty percent of what I came up with or editing it down to five or six sentences.  Slow but it's something.
  Other times, I will feel obligated to put something down on the page. I will think about Paris Hilton sitting in front of her laptop with a thesaurus and a cappuccino, typing paragraph after paragraph of best selling bubble gum, and I will feel the need to contribute another few paragraphs to my "portfolio." So, I drive to the library and sit amongst the other daytime dreamers and sometimes I strike gold, but a lot of the time I start a new open ended vignette that I will very likely never return to.


Why is this important?
I think it's important to analyze the motivations behind our creative urges because at the heart of them, I think that they can be inspired by a desire to worship and praise a greater beauty or they can be inspired by a desire to pursue our own, selfish glory. So often it's the latter, at least in my case, and this is where I get caught up in insecurity, anxiety and doubt. As someone who feels called to create, I must keep in mind my ultimate motivations. What do I seek to achieve and why?

Are you called to create? How would you answer these three questions for your life's calling?