When we're living as amateurs, we're running away from our calling - meaning our work, our destiny, the obligation to become our truest and highest selves.

The opposite of fear," Dienekes said, "is love.

Tomorrow morning the critic will be gone, but the writer will still be there facing the blank page. Nothing matters but that he keep working.

We show up. We do our best. Good things happen.

The artist cannot look to others to validate his efforts or his calling. If you don't believe me, ask Van Gogh, who produced masterpiece after masterpiece and never found a buyer in his whole life.

Don't prepare, do. Don't let Resistance sucker you into wasting months on background, foundation, planning. All that can come later.

To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution.