Calling the cops at 4:30 a.m.

That's what I had to do this morning. There was a huge fight next door. I lost a lot of sleep and now I do not want to do much.

But artists make art, even (maybe especially) when we don't wanna.

This is often called DISCIPLINE. I hate that word. It's a trip to the principal's office. It means running laps, driving yourself hard, everything soul-sucking and miserable about working. Also I've never been able to maintain it for more than a few days.

Then I would feel like a failure.

Yet here I am, working on Queen Ruby when I don't feel like it. If this isn't discipline, what is it?

I'm calling it MOTIVATION. When I thought I needed discipline, the underlying feeling was, "I suck. I have to work harder and be better because I'm lazy."

Motivation is deciding I'm good, that I deserve to have the life I want, that I'm worth my own effort. It is one big decision followed by thousands of smaller ones, from "Do I bother entering this show?" to "Do I take the trash out before it gets rancid?" And since I deserve to have my work get seen, and to live in a place that smells nice, I do both those things. I'm no longer "lazy." Maybe I never was.