Today’s post is the conclusion of my creative autobiography, based on Twyla Tharp’s 33 Questions. I hope you enjoyed this series, because answering these questions has been a true miracle for me. It has opened my eyes to the real sources and themes of my creative life, and that knowledge will have lasting impact on my work. If you followed along, please let me know! I’d love to connect over creativity work.

23. When confronted with superior intelligence or talent, how do you respond?

I admire the person… with a twinge of jealousy and an ounce of competitiveness. But mostly I’m in awe.

24. When faced with stupidity, hostility, intransigence, laziness, or indifference in others, how do you respond?

Stupidity: A desire to connect with the person’s passion so that I can figure out how to open them up to learning.

Hostility: Burning inner frustration; outer coldness.

Intransigence: Same as stupidity.

Laziness: Same as stupidity, but harder to deal with. I love teaching slow learners who are eager to grow. Kids who refuse to work, no matter their ability level, are far more frustrating.

Indifference: Most of these answers are the same for me. I’m a teacher at heart. I seek to find the person’s passion and see if I can connect to it so I can spark passion to learn and grow.

25. When faced with impending success or the threat of failure, how do you respond?

The answer is the same: fear.

Ideally, I’m able to face the fear and diffuse its power.

26. When you work, do you love the process or the result?

I’m a marathoner and a finisher, so I love both. I love all the potential at the start of a project: ideas flowing, creative energy peaking. I love the process of shaping that idea into something concrete. The middle is probably the part I love least. The end is a burst of flow. My projects tend to be long-term, so finishing them is always a huge deal… for about a day, and then I’m already thinking, “What’s next?”

27. At what moments do you feel your reach exceeds your grasp?

Usually when I have an urgency to finish a project but have to chip away at it every day instead of taking a full day or weekend to whip through it. My impatience with the creative process and with the other demands of my life often discourages me. What if, by the time I have full days to devote to writing again, I’m out of ideas? Or the great ideas I have right now have faded away?

28. What is your ideal creative activity?

Researching, cultivating and writing extensively about a big idea that leads to several creative projects: a book, blogs and articles, public speaking, a podcast.

29. What is your greatest fear?

That pursuing several avenues of creativity will ultimately block me out of creative success. I’m in the prime of my health, intelligence and creativity, but I’m not spending them all in one place. I’m spending them on my teaching job, on my children, and the least amount on my writing. I’m very aware of the seasons of my life and that my children won’t need me the same way when they’re older– also, that I want to drink up every moment with them now. And I’ll have plenty of life left in me after I retire from teaching. But me at 55 isn’t me at 37. I want my current thoughts out in the world in the form of writing and speaking. I don’t want to wait.

I’m afraid I’ll never be able to reach my full creative potential because of the practicalities of being a middle-class mom, and of having a “day job” that I also have great passion for and can’t imagine leaving.

30. What is the likelihood of either the answers to the previous two questions happening?

If I knew the answer to that, I’d have the keys to my creative life.

31. Which of your answers would you most like to change?

The answer to question 22, “Define Muse.” I wrote, “Some people call it God.” I’d like to know my own version of God, and the Muse, better.

32. What is your idea of mastery?

Mastery is looking back at the end of your life with the deep satisfaction of having touched lives in powerful, meaningful ways. It is looking back on your creations and feeling that you said what you meant to say.

33. What is your greatest dream?

Dedicating my life– that is to say, my days– to the full immersion of creativity. Taking the time to get inspired and to inspire others. Nurturing ideas. Juggling several projects at once. And, at the end of the day, having enough left to give my best self to my loved ones.

Dear Reader, thank you for following me through the end of my creative autobiography. I feel full to the brim with creative ambition, with splashes of fear and frustration mixed in. I’m going to go have a good cleansing cry now, because that was one of the most cathartic things I’ve ever written.