I Need Your Discipline

There is a reason art–be it playing a musical instrument, sculpting, or writing–is called a Discipline. Creativity without discipline is just an idea floating out there in the ether. Ironically, most of us creative types abhor discipline even while the most talented and successful among us is so fucking good at it.

I used to think of myself as a disciplined writer. I woke up every day at five in the morning to write for two hours. I set schedules for book releases and blogs and kept to them while raising First Born and going to my day job five days a week… some days on little to no sleep because some idea was bouncing around my brain and sleep just wasn’t an option.

The truth was, however, I wasn’t disciplined, I was deeply unhappy and unfulfilled. Writing wasn’t a discipline at all. Writing was my life line, my tether, my reason for waking up in the morning. In just about every way one could imagine, the discipline of daily writing saved my life.

Sounds dramatic, huh? But stay with me here. It’s taken me a couple of years to figure all this out.

We’re taught that unless you’ve achieved some level of professional success with creativity, it’s an “outlet”, a sort of brain purge because our uncreative daily lives need some kind of release, as if creativity were some kind of mental masturbation or something; and in American culture, that makes it instantly shameful. And I used to believe that was true. I used to often describe the origin of Clementine Toledano as an outlet for my creativity because making loud industrial music was no longer an option while First Born was an infant.

I’m going to cut to the chase here. That’s utter bullshit.

Yes, I am a creative person, but more than that, I am a person that has built my life around discipline from childhood. I started studying piano at five years old. I practiced my scales and my Hanon every day just so I could get my dessert: the playing music part. Because I wanted to be a better pianist. I wanted to be a great pianist because I needed to be able to release the sounds that I heard in my head. That structure gave me a framework to grow from. A definition to my life. A determination. A confidence that I carried with me into adulthood.

When I discovered the wonderful ways in which digital music could allow me to create, I almost immediately began recording an album. Why? Because I needed a goal. A reason to get better. 

But somehow I convinced myself along the way that my creativity was what was broken inside of me. That my life would be easier if I just did what was expected of me. If I got married. If I became a mother. If I settled into a comfortable career. If I did all these things and stopped putting so much energy into my creative life, I’d be happier. 

But it was a lie.

The further I got away from my creative discipline, the more miserable I became until I no longer recognized my life or myself in it.

There is an endlessness to that kind of unhappiness. Writing was the ladder that helped me to climb out of the dark hole I’d built for myself. The day Clementine Toledano materialized in my brain is the day that I started climbing out of that hole. The discipline of writing every day is what transformed me back into a person I could recognize. It’s what helped me to realize the mistakes I’d made. It’s what ultimately gave me the strength to remedy them.

Ironically, once I fixed these problems, I lost my discipline again… for a minute. Not because I didn’t think I needed it, but because I was feasting on the world and the joy it once again offered. Don’t get me wrong, I wrote from time to time. Picked up my abandoned novel and wrote for a few hours here, a weekend away there. I wrote some really good words, actually. But it wasn’t my discipline any more. That part was gone… until this past summer.

It was joke to a friend. “Let’s record a Goth record for fun.”

My friend didn’t think it was a joke and before I knew it, we were five songs into a pretty decent record for two people who hadn’t made music for two decades. And I loved it. I’d come home from work eager to make some noise. I wasn’t writing words, but I was creating music and there was a goal attached to it. In other words, I had some discipline back in my life and I loved it.

Until life had other plans.

In the middle of this creative reawakening, a hurricane decided to pop up in the Gulf and knock out the power grid in Baton Rouge for a week. And also the Internet in Baton Rouge. And also the cell service in Baton Rouge. When I say I had to go dark, I had to go DARK. First Born was with his father and I was alone, without power and internet and cell service at my parents’ house. But I did have a fully charged laptop. And it was too hot to sleep.

So, I resurrected my last finished draft of Devil in Exile and rewrote the ending the way it needed to be rewrote. Post-hurricane, my friend wasn’t available to work on tunes, because he was working on WRITING with DEADLINES. Because unlike me, he is a DISCIPLINED Writer who actually outlines things (as someone who usually has to playact out her novels whilst pacing the floor and scaring my dog, I don’t quite get this whole “outlining” concept but damn do I admire people who can pull that off).

I don’t know why, but knowing he was doing the damn thing the way the damn thing should be done suddenly snapped me out of the stupor I’d been inhabiting for three years and realized the something that was missing from my life. I knew immediately what needed to be done and I sat down on a Saturday and wrote. Even though it was hard and even though I was unsure. I kept working because doing the work is the most important thing. And just like that, after years of stagnation, I finished not one, but two Clementine Toledano books in just two weeks. 

My old boss wrote a song called “Discipline” once and it’s been one of my favorites for years. 

“I need your discipline. I need your help.
You know once I start, I cannot help myself.

I see you left a mark up and down my skin
I don’t know where I end and where you begin.”

When I first heard this song decades ago, I thought he was talking about a savior. I don’t think that anymore. I think he was talking about art. The discipline is what helps and once you start you can’t help but to continue and when you’re deep in it? There is no separation between you and the discipline of creation.

I’m happy to report, I’m deep in it and have no desire to get out of it again.

Clementine Toledano Mysteries Book 6: Devil in Exile and Clementine Toledano Mysteries Book 7: Gods and Devils will be available in early 2022.

If there are any readers left after my long absence, I thank you for your patience. Here’s a remix I made years ago of that old boss’s song for you to enjoy while I finish editing these books. I hope they’ll be worth the long wait.