Attorney by Day, Novelist by Night

Bring Your Book to Light While Still Practicing Law

Kim Benjamin

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781683503200
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Creativity

An inspiring guide for lawyers—or any busy professionals—who want to pursue their literary dreams. Are you an attorney working hard, sixty-plus-hour weeks to right the wrongdoings of the world? Are you enjoying a successful legal career, but still not wholly satisfied? Have you dreamed of exploring your creative side and following in the footsteps of John Grisham, Scott Turow, Marcia Clark, Robert Dugoni, and the countless other lawyers who have channeled their talent and unique experience into literary success? It's no surprise that many in the legal profession feel the desire to write, as they deal every day with the subtleties of language in their work—and encounter plenty of conflict and drama to provide creative inspiration. This helpful, supportive guide shows how they can indulge their dreams, pursue their passion, and find greater fulfillment—without abandoning their career.

Chapter 1

Creativity: A Primer

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who only dream at night.”

—Edgar Allan Poe

That novel you long to write is what is left of you before you squeezed your spirit into a world filled with suits, courtrooms, and the progression of steps required to be successful in the legal profession. That yearning is who you truly are. Make no mistake – your dreams are calling to you. They are not some random, arbitrary, hocus-pocus sent out by fate to humiliate you. It is no accident that you harbor these desires.

At least a tiny part of you longs to share your voice with the world. You have slugged it out with opponents, judges, even the law itself; gone head to head with them, so to speak. It probably got bloody at times, on both sides. And yet, with all of the courage that takes, with all of the intelligence, with all of the skill and training, you haven’t even stuck your toe into the water for the artist that lives inside you. Did it ever even occur to you to fight for that voice, the voice of your artist that still lives within you? If it hasn’t, you aren’t alone.

Take a Lesson from Children

Have you ever spent any time observing children? Apart from the ones screaming in the grocery store or crying in the movie, I mean. Children are fabulously creative because they haven’t yet forgotten how to be. For them, purple polka-dot pants and an orange animal-print top seem just fine as a combination. Shoes that light up when they walk are necessary, not superfluous. Piles of mud and stone constitute a castle. And if their drawings don’t take center stage on the refrigerator they question our taste and sanity, not theirs. I find those qualities fabulous. Even if you aren’t a fan of small children, you cannot deny their sheer brilliance, fearlessness, and determination to be creative and true to themselves.

I remember all too well when my son was four. He climbed up on the kitchen counters and announced he was about to fly. He had just watched Peter Pan. I proceeded to explain to him that it wouldn’t work. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “How do you know?” You got me there, buddy. How did I know?

I knew because I had learned about gravity, sometimes the hard way. I knew because I had learned about fear. I knew because the laws of nature had supplanted my imagination; and the weeds of doubt and disbelief had choked out my dreams and desires.

Fast-forward four years. My son took the shiny, blue spandex book cover I’d procured to preserve the resale value of his science book and re-appropriated it to something far more useful for his world. He placed it on his head as a do-rag because, after all, every good rapper needs one, oui?

The point is, he didn’t care what my opinion was or what others might think. He believed he could fly. And what seemed embarrassing and ridiculous to me, such as wearing a book cover on his head, produced not a blip on the radar of his confidence back then.

Why?

My son was oblivious to gravity and the pressure to fit in because he still dreamed. He still allowed himself to be an artist. He believed in magic and music and laughter and the momentary bliss of living in the present. He was fully alive in the moment.

What happens to that magic when we grow up and become concerned with future events and “real world” requirements? It never leaves us, but – far too often – we pack it in a trunk and store it in the attic for another day, for a “someday.” But is someday just what we tell ourselves because we feel we need to? Someday could be now.

Picasso was quoted as saying, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”

We are all born artists. Many would disagree with me, some vehemently. Far too often art is thought of as a lofty, otherworldly gift bestowed upon a lucky, chosen few. But we make our own magic. You weren’t just born an artist, you are an artist.

Why should all of this matter to you?

Every morning, grace withstanding, you wake up and are embraced by a new day, a clean slate to draw upon. I don’t know what your morning routine is, nor does it matter. You will move through a series of well-practiced activities until you get in your car to drive to work.

Most likely, you simply do all of that without self-observation. But have you ever thought to consider that for each move, every practiced habit, every item you use, what you drive, where you live – a decision was required? At some point in our lives we chose those things. We probably never thought of those decisions as a form of creativity, but they were. Of all the millions of choices you could make, something inside you, that very unique make up that is you, chose what you chose.

Take a moment to let this information sink in completely. And then ask yourself what motivated you into your current state of life? Getting down to the core, why did all of those dreams of long ago suddenly take cover? What keeps them safely locked away from view?

One of my favorite books on recovering the lost artist within is Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. In it, she explains, in depth, what art is and what it isn’t. Ironically (or is it), her findings coincide with that of Picasso’s: we are all born creative beings. When we were young and unencumbered by the confines of societal typecasting, we created freely and with abandon. Everything was our canvas, our typewriter, our architectural design, our story, our stage, and our music. Nothing was off limits; nothing was too hard or impossible. If we couldn’t get to what we wanted one way, we would try another. If our goal became too frustrating, we would simply change the color or the direction or the cadence – but we never stopped until we reached some form of satisfaction, or fell asleep (which we fought at every turn because we feared we would miss something wonderful).

What happened to us? Why couldn’t we remain the artist of our birth?

I believe that somewhere along the way, the voices of wisdom told us to “grow up”? I italicize wisdom in deference to the adults who loved us and only wanted what they thought was best for us.

Were we told our dreams were silly or impossible? Were we told we couldn’t or shouldn’t pursue them? Or did we simply absorb doubt, fear, and brokenness through osmosis? What did we make being a grown-up mean?

Every day in the physical realm in which we live there is new awakening. In nature every day something is forever being born, created, planted, cultured, renewed or removed. The brightness of the day is then followed by the night, full of its own gifts – stars, the moon, the sound of crickets, breezes off the waters lapping the sand of the beaches. With so many amazing things at hand to see, smell, touch, hear, and inspire us, what was it that so frightened us that we became convinced we are not artists?

Maybe a better question to ask would be: “How do you define art?” Seth Godin, in his book The Icarus Deception, defines it this way: “Art isn’t pretty…. Art isn’t something you hang on the wall. Art is what we do when we’re truly alive.”

The pretext is simple and supports what Picasso said, that we were born to create. The problem is keeping that desire, that wonder, that courage as we grow up.

I shared in the Introduction that my own path leading to this book began when I was five. Like you, I tried to fit my child artist into a form recognizable and acceptable by the presiding rules of society. I did that because I was, well, afraid. Afraid of what it might mean to truly go after my dreams.

“We have been taught to believe that negative equals realistic and positive equals unrealistic.”

—Susan Jeffers

I fought the voices of passion and “grew up.” I went through all the regular stations of life. But, despite my maneuvering toward being a grown-up, I never stopped longing to create. I married, had a child, and quit my interior design business to go to work for my ex-husband.

Time went by. Occasionally I would churn out a day’s worth of writing poetry, or make a trip to the library or bookstore. I would read things I thought I could write and then things that seemed so far out of my league I would congratulate myself for not staging a platform on which I was sure I would fail. But none of this truly squelched my desire to create.

This is what I discovered: our dreams will continue to re-visit us until we listen to them. We can do everything in our power to ignore and silence them. Or we can choose the alternative. We can choose to listen to what our dreams are trying to tell us about who we are.

Which option is truly less frightening – being haunted or opening to what is already inside of you?

There can be both amazement and frustration in this creative awakening. For me, the process has been rather circuitous. As I began to listen to the things that made me happy and made me smile, things that made me lose a sense of time, I grew less tolerant of the things that stole my joy and more aware of the awe of daily life. I found less satisfaction in things externally and grew more tolerant of the internal demands.

For a brief time, I had the opportunity to return to college just for the joy of it. I chose to study art. Then life, as it is sometimes does, threw me a curve ball that required I go back to work full-time in order to support myself. Moving away from art again was the collateral damage. I was back in the work place full-time again. Back to being “grown up.”

Interestingly, however, that brief foray into the academic study of art provided me with valuable insight. All along, I’d thought I was going back to college to study art simply because I wanted to. I believed it was the logical stepping-stone to transition toward being more creative. Yes, the sheer enjoyment of art was a part of it, but what I came to also realize was that I needed to “legitimize” my passions. I didn’t believe I could call myself an artist unless I had some sort of parchment that declared I had passed a test. Having art professors give me homework meant I was required to paint and draw and write. In essence, I treated my creativity as a job. I realized then that the dreams of the five-year-old me hadn’t disappeared, but the grown-up in me was still trying to keep her from jumping off the kitchen counter to see if she could fly.

After years and years of self-examination, a career, a child, marriage, I was still fighting the voice inside. I was still labeling and demonizing it. Why?

Maybe this isn’t what you’ve been doing and you don’t see yourself in much of my story – but I am betting some of it resonates. I could be wrong, but something made you pick up this book. Something called to you, the inner you, the wise you, the creator you. Maybe you’ve started a novel, but keep putting it aside, waiting for the times you ‘feel’ creative. Do you tell yourself it’s just a hobby, something to pass the time? Is that really true?

I don’t want to use the worn out adage “life is short,” but it is. You have most likely spent decades of your life getting to where you are. You’re proud of your accomplishments, as well you should be. You sacrificed a good bit to get here. But what do you want the rest of your life to look like? What calls to you? What creative passions do you only indulge in when you’re at home alone, keeping it secret from the rest of the world, lest they tell you, once again, to “grow up”?

Here’s what Julia Cameron has to say on this subject in The Artist’s Way: “We… pretend it is hard to follow our heart’s dreams….Turn aside your dream and it will come back… “

Listening to the things that bring life into your soul is the most grown-up thing you could do. Committing to what Julia Cameron refers to as our “Africas, those dark and romantic notions that call to our deepest selves” takes courage, belief and persistence. But you have already demonstrated you have those qualities as a lawyer. You face the dark, romantic notions of championing your clients’ causes every day. What if you took that same ability and belief and persistence and applied it to something besides your legal career?

What If You Indulged That Joy?

I believe as Julia Cameron (and Goethe and Louis Pasteur and W. H. Murray) – that if you decide and, even more importantly, commit, the universe will swing its magic doors wide open.

In order to do that, first, wrap your arms around yourself and truly embrace that wonderful, unique, fabulous part of you that you’ve tried to keep quiet for so long. It might prove challenging at times, frustrating, even hopeless. Just know that these stages you will go through are perfectly normal. They are part of the process of excavation. Much like with archaeology, years of debris – of being told or of believing that your dreams were unreachable or silly or far-fetched – will have to be gently but carefully swept away. It is not a journey for the faint-hearted, but then neither is life. To truly live your life, to find your purpose, is the beginning of hope.

“The cos...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Creativity: A Primer
• Chapter 2 Perception: The Stories We Tell Ourselves
• Chapter 3 Intuition: Revealing the Truth of What We Already Know
• Chapter 4 After the Thrill is Gone
• Chapter 5 The Merry-Go-Round of Fear
• Chapter 6 Courage: Holding out for a Hero
• Chapter 7 Taking Action
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Thank You