Turn off Your Lights

The Rule: You Always Need Ample Light to See Where you Are Going

Last night, riding Santiago Truck Trail, I experiences something rather thrilling and interesting. When I reached the end of the trail, 7 miles deep, darkness was quickly approaching and my light didn't have enough battery power to last me the entire ride back to the safety of my car. So I did what any reckless, yet sensible (I know sounds like a oxymoron) mountain biker would do: ride as long as you can without light.

Eventually it became so dark all I could see was a faint white line on the trail made from the tread of hundreds of mountain bikers before me. My tire would leap off of hidden bumps and drop into dark ruts without any warning. Off the side of the trail down far below, I saw the entire Orange County aglow waking up from its diurnal slumber. A gorgeous view. This all led to a fun and exhilarating adventure that I survived, minus a few scratched. If I played it safe than it wouldn't have been as exciting.

As I was racing through the darkness last night I asked myself how this could be just like my writing, or anything else in life. Than I thought to myself, we don't always need to see where we are going in life. We don't need to have the path fully illuminated with plans, strategies and outlines are orchestrated. Art, particularly writing, is extremely messy work that requires a lot of blind faith, and most importantly it requires a sense of taking it one step at a time. To expect your art to come together like an Ikea instruction manual, than it's not art, it's safe, and art is not safe.

If you are willing to be unadventurous and play it safe, than that is what your art will look like. For a writer, if there isn't an element of discovery, of fresh insights and gutsy literary moves, than you are writing something mass produced. How are you to lead your reader into a journey that they have already been down. You eat one In and Out Burger you have eaten them all. A way to avoid that is to turn off the lights, or creative crutches that helps you play it safe.

What are your creative lights? Mine would be to follow someone's example of plot development, especially found in books. Or maybe its the idea of trying to outline every detail of a story before even writing the story, and sticking to it like God etched it in stone with his pinky. In music, it could be playing very similar chord changes with the same vocal pitch and tempo. A huge creative crutch most artists have is the denying of others to speak into their art. You may feel what you have created is wonderful, so you don't show anyone. Whatever it is that you feel safe in, try pushing it to another level. Your art and audience will thank you for it.

Turn off your lights, feel the art underneath you, take a chance and explore senses you know you didn't have. See your music dance off the guitar and swirl about in the air until it lands on an ear, feel your words swirl in your mouth, drip on the page and smeared on someone's chest, hear your painting lament with dark sadness, rejoice with bright pomp or even hear the colors of your kitchen sizzle with bacon and baking cinnamon rolls from days long lost in memory.

When you do this, something original and wonderful will come through and your audience with follow you along the way through the darkest parts.