“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people. Not you.” – Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture.
Dan Brown is a talented and well-known author of thriller fiction books. He is the author of numerous number-one bestselling novels, including The Da Vinci Code, which has become one of the bestselling novels of all time. It’s sold over eighty-million copies. Brown’s novels are published in fifty-six languages around the world, with over 220 million copies in print. Brown has also been named one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World” by TIME Magazine.
Brown was kind enough to share his thoughts, experiences and guidance to teach a “Masterclass” on the art, science, and business of fiction writing. He fully described his writing process, how he approaches his craft each day, and the life lessons he has learned along the way. Brown specifically focuses in on the creative process, the constant grind of doing what he loves to do, and the trial and error that gets him to the ending of writing a bestselling novel. An interesting passage includes an interaction he had with a highly successful rock star:
“Strangely, I learned a lot about creativity from someone who is very different than I am. A man named Steven Tyler, who happens to be the lead singer of Aerosmith. I had the experience of sitting next to him and talking about the creative process. And he told me that Aerosmith has this ritual of once a week having a band meeting called Dare to Suck. Dare to suck, I thought? What could this possibly be? And Tyler said, ‘Each one of us brings an idea that we think is probably terrible, and that we are embarrassed that we even have the idea. But we present it. And nine times out of ten, the idea is actually terrible. But one time out of ten you get Dude Looks Like a Lady or Love in an Elevator.’ And I thought to myself, ‘That is an amazing way to approach the creative process. It is fearless.’ So, when you are writing, or doing anything creative, dare to suck. Dare to be terrible first. Trust me, every single writer is bad sometimes. Those are all the parts of the book that they delete so that you don’t have to read them. When you buy a book, you are not paying for the words on the page, you are paying for all the things that the author deleted that made the final copy great. You can always identify a serious writer by looking at the delete key on their keyboard. It is demolished. You can barely see the letters. It is just faded from hitting it so many times.”
Creating anything of value in life takes struggle and perseverance and many bouts of trial and error. With all great works, we only see the final, perfect product. But there are always far more many versions that were thrown in the trash.
When you reach the point in any creative endeavor that you just want to stop and throw in the towel, you should consider that to be a truly exhilarating and transformative point. Because if you are at the point where you want to quit, it means that you are the point where everyone else that has gone before you also hit a wall and they chose to quit and turn back. This means that beyond this difficult obstacle there is very little competition; the air is thin and the path has now cleared for you. Keep pushing. The top of the mountain lies just out of sight.
