To promote his song Heroes, David Bowie coined the following phrase…

“Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming.”

I can’t pretend to know what he meant.

But, for me, it’s a poetic reminder to keep my ear to the ground, to listen more than I talk and to create “purposefully” rather than just strictly “prolifically”.

Easier said than done considering that creating in this day of age feels akin to telling a story at a dinner party –– you have to wait out the gaps in conversation and then speedily shout something interesting to have any chance at being heard.

To combat this noisy environment, writers and creatives inevitably find themselves lowering the quality of their writing and creations whilst increasing the quantity, in hopes to get more eyes on their work.

While consistency has been hugely instrumental in my career as a writer and it has allowed me to produce a fairly large body of work at a young age, consistency frightens me in that it makes me feel tremendously guilty if I have nothing to say for that particular day; it makes me feel as if by not saying anything, I risk falling behind.

Guilt can be detrimental to the creative because I think pausing, staying quiet and refilling are just as much a part of the creative process as the actual creating is.

David Bowie was notorious for being a voracious reader and I believe he not only enjoyed reading but he used it as an excuse to not “produce” while he was refilling his creative well.

Something I’m trying to follow...

Writing when I have something to say.

Shutting the fuck up when I don’t.  

But, I digress.

By Cole Schafer.