Every single day I sit down to write. And every single day I tell myself I am writing. The truth is, I rarely write. I write notes. I write ideas. But I don’t write full sentences, paragraphs, chapters, stories. Every day I study. I watch videos. I read blogs. I research plotting charts and how to develop characters. I learn.

I am a student of writing and therefore I write notes.

And every day I ask myself: When will I  be ready?

When will I feel secure enough in my craft to begin writing a novel? When will I know enough to move forward with my art?

You have asked yourself that same question. I know it to be true because we care about our art.

We care so much that we study and learn and absorb any information that will let us be better at what we love. But to what end? To be the best? To create a masterpiece?

I know, rationally, that if we are curious souls our best art is yet to come. I know that we learn by doing.

So, how do I know? How do I know when I’m ready?

You don’t.

There is no way to know.

And in not knowing, we have two choices. We can delay action indefinitely, which is too likely to mean forever, or we can dive in and make bad art.

That is, until we make good art. We try and fail until suddenly we don’t fail. But that success does come with a price, and the price is failure.

Logically, we know this.

But internally, emotionally, it is so hard to accept.

I spend my time and energy every day learning how to write. This has been beyond belief – total immersion student.

At some point, though, knowing that there is more to learn, knowing that we don’t know everything – we surrender.

We surrender to being less than we know we could be, because our ability to raise the bar is unparalleled and we may never meet that kind of perfection.

But we can begin anyway.

To stop striving for perfection, to stop worrying about not knowing everything.

To simply create. And create again. And again. Again, again, again.

Until our work teaches us instead of web pages and workshops. Until our work tells us where to go instead of educators and mentors. Until our work stands concrete and resilient instead of suffering darkness in our imaginations, never freed.

We begin.

Because at the heart of everything we dream, there must be action. Without it, there is nothing.

But then I got older, and I thought a lot more about what it means to truly be a leader. It doesn’t mean that you have people following your every move, or that you speak in front of big groups of people, or that you make epic speeches like in the movies. It is a solidarity with oneself, a resolve to do what makes your heart sing, and the confidence to move forward without following someone’s footsteps.

We are all leaders and we are all followers. What matters most is not whether you are predominantly one or the other, but if you are leading yourself. The rest will follow.

How often, in your own life, do you choose the road less traveled? How often do you give yourself permission to go where no one has gone before, or to do something out of your comfort zone. It is easier to follow because it is safe. We find security in knowing that someone else has been through what we will go through. Yet someone had to be first. Everything starts with something. Don’t live your life with someone else’s decisions.

Take hold of what is dear to you. Lead yourself through the unknown and trust in your instincts. Know that you have the power to pull yourself up should you fall, the ingenuity to break new ground, and the love of self to know it is worth it. The greatest things in this world are achieved through personal exploration. Do what you love because you love it. Don’t search the internet for an instruction manual. If you should fall, you will get back up. Falling is not failing, it is a lesson learned on the way to success.

Move bravely on your journey, and you may soon find others following in your footsteps.

My life centers around believing that impossibilities are simply undiscovered possibilities, and I have the power to find them.

I photographed this snow scene on creativeLIVE, so if you are interested in seeing how it was photographed or more of the editing process in slower motion, you can check that out here. My goal was simple: create a fantasy world that has more meaning and beauty in it than what I saw in front of me. I was confronted with an abandoned room. It was beautiful in it’s own right – peeling paint and debris all over the floor. But for me, it was missing that magic spark.

We threw paper bits and fake snow all around. We covered the floor in flour. I dressed the model in my favorite cloak to finish her fairytale makeover, and then I shot a couple different setups until I felt like I had achieved the feeling in my imagination.

Wonder. Darkness. Beauty. Fantasy.

Everyone has the ability to create a unique reality through art. It may be that your perfect reality is the one you live in and so you capture life as you see it. Or perhaps you’re on the other end of that spectrum and create surrealistic scenes. Either way, we can create our own magic, and it is never further away than our imaginations.

How do you create your own magic?