On Being Creative and Taking Risks

I love learning about the creative process behind successful movies and books. Where did the ideas come from? Did the writers know their creation would become a big hit?

Take Star Wars, for example.

Everyone thought George Lucas was crazy, and no one working on the movie thought it would amount to much, and yet George persisted and brought his idea to life. The rest is history.

I recently read The Disaster Artist and became inspired by the creation of the movie The Room.

It’s one of the worst movies ever made, and yet it’s a huge success. People love watching it and quoting from it. The movie’s creator, Tommy Wiseau, followed through on his vision even though everyone thought he was a joke. The result he got was not what he envisioned, but the important thing is that he accomplished his goal of making his own movie.

Stephenie Meyer got the idea for Twilight from a dream.

She wrote it down and didn’t stop until she had a finished novel. Yes, many people make fun of the novel for being badly written, but she completed the story she had in mind and millions of people love it. Who doesn’t want that type of success?

There are hundreds of stories like that, of writers with an idea, who keep writing and creating and take the risk to put it out there for the whole world to see.

These anecdotes always run through my head when I think about my own creative project, my first novel. Will it find an audience who love it as much as I do or will it fade into nothingness?

The truth is that I’ll never know the answer unless I take the risk and put my work out there. Without taking that leap, my novel will never be read, and then all that time and effort I spent on it will be for nothing.

And so I forge ahead, hoping I become one of those success stories. One can always dream, right?

How have real-life success stories inspired you (or hindered you) in continuing on with your creative project?

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