I got rejected, and I got accepted. It’s only a detail in my story!

From first intuition to ultimate crystallization, the creative process mirrors the larger processes of life itself. I think it’s useful to ponder their parallels, because it makes it easier to navigate their respective processes (with their inevitable bouts of rejection and acceptance, among many other joys and sorrows)!

I recently finished writing a new book: sixty thousand words, two hundred photos, 36 video clips; anecdotes, concepts, exercises. Hands, Wrists, Fingers: Creative Health for Musicians will be published by Anthem Press in a few months. This is acceptance, made visible and tangible!

Rejection came earlier, from another publisher who had doubts about the validity of the book and the philosophy it represented. Whaaaaaat, don’t you love me???

I’m teasing myself about being rejected, or about my feelings regarding rejection: it was the book proposal that got rejected, not my person. If you don’t put your neck out, the Big Taylor in the Sky won’t be able to Measure your Neck and Decide What Fits You Best. Old publisher, no fit; new publisher, yes fit! Thank you, Anthem Press! Thank you, Big Taylor in the Sky!

Rejection and acceptance don’t determine the primary direction of your projects (or your life). The projects want to go somewhere, and they take you there; life wants to go somewhere, and you follow the lead without paying too much attention to the hundred no’s and the hundred yeses. Listen to Life, not to the threshold guardians or the threshold pompom girls!

Early steps: you don’t know what you’re doing or why, and you really don’t know where you’ll end. Unsteady baby learning to walk: do you think she knows already what she’ll be doing in five days, five months, five years, or five decades? She doesn’t know, but she’ll find out. As Aristotle famously didn’t say, “Knowledge Prevents Exploration.” My book learned to crawl, then to toddle. Soon my book will learn to Dance the Liminal Tango with the Potential Reader (You)!

Investigation, discovery, joy, disappointment, recovery, acceptance, celebration. Then it starts again: investigation, discovery . . . I had an incredibly good time working on this project, but I’ve had to revise, change, revisit, delete, chuck, chuck, and chuck a lot of materials. And chucking didn’t always feel good. So with life! Oh, how hard it is to let go! Oh, how hard it is to embrace! Oh, how hard it is to choose what to embrace and what to let go! Have you already claimed your free membership in the Club for People who Find it Hard to Embrace and to Let Go? It’s free, I’m telling you! And it has many benefits!

Rhythm, pacing, timing. These concepts are related, maybe synonymous, maybe not. As regards a project, do you count the amount of time that you “think about it” or only the time that you “work on it”? The actual writing of my book took something like seven months. The thinking-about-it has taken decades; perhaps it had no beginning and will have no end. Like life, creative projects resist the boundaries of chronology. I recommend a playful embrace of the notion of rebirth. An hour, sixty minutes: that’s sixty rebirths. Life is Renewal, happening quick and slow at the same time; life is eternal rebirth. If you’re not reborn in the next 59 seconds, you need to see a doctor immediately!

Hey, have you noticed it? Every paragraph in this blog post ends with an exclamation mark! Including this one here!

To publish means “to make it public.” If you reveal the name of your neighbor’s cousin’s married lover, you’re publishing it. We’re all informal publishers, sharing insights, questions, and confidences. My wife has known me for thirty years, and I often tell her little things that she’s never suspected about me; to her I “publish” my tics, my frustrations, my regrets, my bad jokes, plus some strange hankerings and goals. My wife is my “public.” Once you realize that life is made of “publications,” then you can cope with a project coming to fruition and escaping your control, just like a bad joke escaping your mouth. Hands, Wrists, Fingers and I are eloping in August or September. It’s a secret! Please don’t publish it!