New beginnings and starting over don’t mean the same thing. But they work together and they need each other.
New beginnings is doing something for the first time, something you’ve never done before. It’s about
letting it flow. There is an element of surprise and excitement as you make new inroads to places where you’ve never been.
Starting over is going back to Square one to make it better. It’s about being patient as you keep adding and subtracting until your work feels right.
This is an example of new beginnings:
When I was in the ballet and we worked with new choreographers who were creating new ballets on
the spot, they showed us combinations of steps that we hadn’t done before. We practiced new material that we were seeing for the first time. We never said “I can’t do this” We just did it and we became parts of the choreographer’s moving painting, making formations that were innovative and complicated.
This is an example of starting over:
Once we knew what to do, we went back to the beginning and rehearsed all day long, practicing
something again and again until we got it right. I can still hear the drone of the choreographer saying, “Take it from the top” for hours on end.
When I write, it starts out as “new beginnings.” I get a thought in my head and my job is to figure out
how to let it flow through my fingers and land on the page. It’s brand new and sometimes it’s so different from what I expected, I’m delighted or I’m disappointed. Either way, it feels like a mining expedition as I poke and prod, pulling things from my psyche, trying things out and finally seeing what I imagined show up on the page. If it eludes me, I give it more time. A minute. An hour. A week. It eventually emerges in one form or another.
When I start over, on the other hand, I reshape a first draft. The ideas are set, the words are on the page, but there are awkward patches and I keep going back to to the beginning. This stage is about zeroing in, smoothing out the expression and finding a better way to describe things. A word or a phrase may need to be deleted because they sound awkward and take away from the rhythm. Extra material may need to be added to fill in a gap or explain something that sounds confusing.
I was working on a memoir for a famous diva some years ago, and I made the writing really sing, as
the expression goes. I worked hard at the rhythm of the sentences and I submitted a chapter to my client. When I got it back, she had added words to the ends of several sentences that ruined the flow. I was surprised because she was a legendary chanteuse and I figured that her rhythm was impeccable. I edited it and made the sentences right again and she never noticed.
New beginnings and starting over work together.. One is filled with wonder and the other takes discipline and concentration. One is the excitement of newness and the other is about reaching satisfaction through repetition. Since they are both integral parts of the creative expression, it’s helpful to recognize the difference. If you begin something and start over before the thought is complete, if] you try to do these thing simultaneously, you can find yourself in a quagmire. It’s like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. I’ve seen my students start editing before they finish writing a paragraph and they become paralyzed. One at a time works best.
I have a friend who is an extraordinary cook. She told me that when she’s preparing food, she
imagines a particular taste. Then she figures out how to create it. She does a trial run in her test kitchen. It’s a new beginning as it cooks and bubbles. She finds the correct herbs and spices that give her the precise taste that she was going after. This is a new beginning.
When she’s satisfied that she has all the elements, she begins to switch out a few things. She keeps tasting. More lemon. Less dill. More salt. Less cilantro until she’s satisfied. This is starting over.
Musician Prince once said, “Every day is a blessing. I consider it a new beginning.
Spiritual teacher, Guy Finley said, “Nothing in the Universe can stop you from letting go
and starting over.”
New beginnings are exciting but I don’t see starting over as dull or arduous. They are fundamentals
along the road to excellence. I have a sculptor friend who begins his creation with a lump of clay that has no shape. He sees in his mind what he wants to create, and he begins to mold the clay. That’s about new beginnings.
He leaves it for a while and when he returns, he begins to work every part of the clay with his hands, fashioning it into the form he sees in his head. A stroke here. A caress there. Some of it changes and some of it remains the same. Then one day, in his own words, he breathes life into it. His stationery sculpture look like it’s in motion. That’s the result of starting over.
Don’t be afraid to innovate. Maya Angelou said, “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use,
the more you have.”
Don’t be afraid to start over. It’s never too late to adjust your point of view. Ernest Hemingway said, “Writing is rewriting.”
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