Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit.
Russian playwright and short story writer, Anton Chekhov, was born on this day in 1860 (died 1904).
I’ve never acted in a Chekhov play. But, I was house manager for a college production of The Seagull…not long after it was written.
It has one of my favorite quotes, spoken by Trigorin
Mug Shots (click the pic)
You have heard of obsessions, when a man is haunted day and night, say, by the idea of the moon or something? Well, I’ve got my moon. Day and night I am obsessed by the same persistent thought; I must write, I must write, I must write. . . . No sooner have I finished one story than I am somehow compelled to write another, then a third, after a third a fourth. I write without stopping, except to change horses like a post chaise. I have no choice.
I have to keep writing.
Even when I’m told a content mill doesn’t think my work measures up to their standards.
You’re a content mill for crying out loud, don’t talk to me about standards.
It’s a challenge though to find those paying opportunities. I’m working on them. I won’t work for cheap, and I won’t work for free.
Well, except when I’m working for myself.
Even then, I have standards.
So, like Chekhov says, we have to appreciate the times when the trees are bare. I have to appreciate winter, even though I can’t stand much more of this cold. At the very least, it should do a number on the bugs and the cold.
I have to appreciate the times when my writing is rejected because that allows me to step back and see where I can improve.
I do that by continuing to write. I can’t let rejection stop me.
Just like I won’t let rejection in an acting audition stop me.
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So, like Chekhov says, we have to appreciate the times when the trees are bare. I have to appreciate winter, even though I can’t stand much more of this cold. At the very least, it should do a number on the bugs and the cold.
