John Cheever

"The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one's life and discover one's usefulness."

— John Cheever

American Novelist

1912 - 1982

We all have a need to understand our lives and the things that happen to us.  Some turn to religion.  Others turn to history or politics or science.  Creative leaders turn to their art.  The stories we tell help us to make sense of who we are and why we are here.  And often we change the facts of our lives to tell a better story.  What stories are you telling in your artistic works?  How have you altered the facts of your stories to tell a greater truth?  




John Cheever is a perfect example of a writer who rewrote his life in his short stories and novels.  Born on May 27, 1912, John Cheever was the unwanted second child.  His father tried to convince his mother to have an abortion.  A storyteller from a young age, Cheever read Proust's In Search of Lost Time at the age of fourteen.  He dropped out of high school and never went to college.  He sold his first story to The New Republic at age 18.  For more than twenty years he published only short stories.  His first novel was not published until he was in his mid-forties.  In 1979 three years before his death, he won a Pulitzer Prize for a collection of his short stories that I highly recommend all creative leaders read.

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Henry Ward Beecher

"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures."

— Henry Ward Beecher

American Clergy, Author, Speaker

1813 - 1887

If you have ever read the biographies of famous artists and writers, you may have discovered that some of these creative geniuses were not the best of human beings.  They may have been mean and cruel to those they loved.  They may have had affairs of the heart.  They may have been paranoid and psychotic.  They may have been insecure and boorish.  Their personal lives never seem to match the beauty found in their art.

So where does the great creative work come from?  Every person has some good and bad within himself.    The best creative work comes from being in touch with the good within one's souls.  By doing so, creative leaders create great work that connects with what is best in all humans.  But the cost of such greatness is often the chaos of their personal lives.

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Winston S. Churchill

Churchill, Age 26

"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."

— Winston S. Churchill

British Artist, Historian, Writer and Statesman

1874 - 1965

Churchill painting (1946)

Churchill was a man who faced both failure and success multiple times throughout his life.  He did poorly in school, had a speech impediment, grieved the death of a child, smoked Havana cigars, and was captured and spent time as a prisoner of war in South Africa.  He wrote a novel, two biographies, three volumes of memoirs and several books of history.  He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953.  He painted hundreds of paintings and several now hang in museums.  He served as the Prime Minister of Great Britain twice.  So when Churchill speaks of failure and success we all should listen.

We all face both failure and success in our lives.  How we respond to what life hands us will tell others a lot about our character.  When you suffer the humiliation of defeat and rejection, how do you respond?  Do you become angry?  Do you seek revenge?  Do you withdrawal into depression?  When you receive some honor and are applauded by everyone, how do you respond?  Does the recognition go to your head and you become arrogant?  Do you act like a diva and expect everyone to do your bidding?  How we deal with the successes and failures of life tells us a lot about ourselves.

Daybreak at Cassis, near Marseilles
(1920)

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Walt Whitman

"To have great poets there must be great audiences too."

— Walt Whitman

American Poet

1819 - 1892

I have been listening to a biography of the singer, Marvin Gaye, and one of the emotional struggles he faced was whether to write and produce the kind of songs that he wanted to and his muse demanded or to write songs for his audience.  Gaye apparently vacilated back and forth.  He felt guilty when he pandered to his audience and the money they gave him.  He felt he was betraying his musical vision.  Every artist, writer, actor and singer has experienced similar frustrations.  We want our work to be accepted by the public, but we don't want them to dictate what we create.  It is a fine balancing act.

Every artistic work requires an audience whether it is an audience of one or a thousand.  The great artists, writers, poets are fortunate to find great audiences, even though it may be after they die.  And sometimes great audiences will push the artists to create even greater works.  Actors and musicians will tell you that live audiences impact their performances positively and negatively.

Who do you create for?  Yourself?  Or your audience?  Are you frustrated by having to create what people want to buy?  How do you balance the demands of your muse and the expectations of your audience?

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Rudyard Kipling

"If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten."

— Rudyard Kiplng

English Novelist and Poet

1865 - 1936

Do you love history?  Do you read history?  Or could you care less about history?  Do you incorporate history into your writing and paintings?  I believe creative leaders need to study history?  Artists should study art history and many do.  Writers should study the lives of writers.  English degrees tend to focus on the literature and studying the literature.  Writing degrees tend to focus on the writing.  But few writers study the history of writing, the history of writers, the history of words or the history of publishing.  I have met many wanna-be poets who haven't even read other poets. They would never consider studying the history of poetry.

But understanding literature, art and theater requires more than studying the history of the arts.  We need to study literature, art and theater in the context of the times they were created.  We need to study the social, political and economic histories.  We need to read biographies and memoirs. 

Writers, artists and actors are people of their times.  They creative works contain the same beliefs, hopes and biases that can be found in the rest of their society.  Novels written in other times and places will teach you one perspective of that society.  Their paintings are minature history books.



So I encourage you to read a biography of a favorite writer, actor or artist.  Immerse yourself in the history of another time and place.  What was Paris like during the time of the Impressionists?  What was New York like during the 1950's and the beats?



One of my favorite movies is The Man Who Would Be King, starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine, directed by John Huston and based on the novel by Rudyard Kliping.  The movie takes us to another place and time and gives us a glimpse of a world not our own.  Here are some scenes from the movie.

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