Tessa Souter
BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR
- Title: Anything I Can Do... You Can Do Better: How To Unlock Your Creative Dreams And Change Your Life
- Description:
Tessa Souter shows how she succeeded against the odds, how others have done it and how you can do it too. Part inspirational memoir, part secrets-divulging interviews with celebrities and others who have successfully pursued their dreams, this book will show how Tessa Souter took herself from teenage mother to successful sub-editor at a leading glossy magazine, to international journalist, and on to become a singer, performing in top jazz clubs, frequently to standing-room-only audiences in London, Los Angeles and New York. It will also explain exactly how other successful actors, film makers, photographers, painters, producers, writers, dancers and musicians achieved their goals. "Anything I Can Do, You Can Do Better" provides step-by-step strategies and advice, tackling such thorny problems as money and how to survive, negotiating intimate relationships, dealing with jealousy and competitiveness, taking care of the children, as well as practical suggestions and tips. From the Publisher A practical guide to finding success and transforming your life by turning a creative dream into reality About the Author A runaway at 16, and a single parent by 18, Tessa moved to San Francisco where she supported herself as a struggling writer in a new country by cleaning houses for two years. Driven by the need to communicate, she joined the Writer's Grotto in San Francisco and then became a successful journalist, working as a sub-editor at Elle and subsequently writing for the world's top publications. Part of her personal story has been featured in British Vogue. She moved to New York in 1996 and began her third successful career with a scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music. Jazz legend Mark Murphy said of her: 'She's my next star.' Excerpted from Anything I Can Do... You Can Do Better: How to Unlock Your Creative Dreams and Change Your Life by Tessa Souter. Copyright © 2006. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1: All You Have To Do Is Dream: Getting Started All glory comes from daring to begin.Eugene F. Ware Congratulations. You've bought this book, or are loved and believed in enough to have had it given to you by a friend or family member who's up to here with you wasting your talent and/or railing against (or comparing yourself unfavourably to) all those who are brave enough to be doing what you wish you dared to do. And now you're ready to get serious about pursuing your creative dream. This chapter is about how to do that - specifically, how to begin. Now, some of you reading this book may have had trouble making a start because you're afraid to commit yourself to the wrong path. 'What if I change my mind and realise I should have been a painter instead of a poet?' Or you aren't entirely sure you really want your creative dream. 'Who wants to deal with the paparazzi, right?' When a record label first expressed interest in me, at the same time as a radio station wanted to do a story on me, I called my best friend, Neil, in a complete panic about how to cope with the attention. He brought me back down to earth by saying drily: 'I dunno. Why don't you ask Madonna?' Or, maybe your dream is such a burning desire that you're afraid it will take over your life (it will, by the way). Maybe you fear success, or failure - or both. Perhaps you're afraid of being 'better' than your parents. Or, of making your friends jealous. Or, of looking foolish in front of people by falling flat on your face. Maybe your dream doesn't feel 'realistic'. 'It'll never happen,' you sigh. Well, no, it won't. Not if you're waiting for inspiration, blobbed out on your couch, eating chocs and watching Oprah re-runs. I've been there. And no-one knows more than I do that there's nothing more daunting than making a start - whether it's going to the gym, cleaning your house or writing a novel. Which is why the universe invented procrastination. Renee Knight, a BBC documentary film maker turned scriptwriter, got addicted to playing backgammon on her computer when she first switched to writing. But at least it got her in front of the computer. Former scriptwriter (The Archers, Boon, Heartbeat and Doctors) turned best-selling author (Honeycote, Making Hay, Wild Oats and An Eligible Bachelor), Veronica Henry claims to have 'the cleanest lav in the Midlands!' referring to her favourite procrastination tool (also one of mine) - cleaning. 'When it all slots into place, and the words start to spill, that is when writing is a pleasure,' she says. 'But there are times when anything would be more pleasurable than booting up the laptop to look at the turgid drivel you churned out the day before.' Sometimes I would use procrastinating about one thing (calling musicians for a particular gig) to stop procrastinating about another thing (writing). But, believe me, once you've actually made a start, you'll find it easier than you think. American author Anne Lamott wrote a wonderful book on how to be a writer, the title of which (Bird By Bird) came from a story she tells in the book about a bird project her brother had to write for school. He kept putting it off until finally, the day before he was due to hand it in, he still hadn't written a word and was tearing his hair out. Their father sat him down and said: 'Just take it bird by bird, son. Bird by bird.' Excellent advice. And it works. Because the short answer to how to get anywhere in anything, is you start and then you just don't stop. 'If writing is your dream, then write. Whatever. It drives me crazy when people say "I want to write." What's stopping them?' says novelist Veronica Henry. 'Just do it. Everyone in the world is entitled to be a writer - there's no entrance exam. Anyone who puts pen to paper can call themselves a writer, in my view. But you do have to write!' If that sounds harsh, it's only because she knows what she's talking about, having been through the doubts and fears herself. 'I didn't get round to writing what I wanted to write for years. I was a television script editor, then a script writer for fifteen years before it finally dawned on me that I really yearned to write commercial women's fiction. I did the classic, irritating, wannabe thing of picking up books and saying "I could write this". And after years of bleating about it, my husband and TV agent each turned round to me and said, out of sheer frustration, "Then do it!" Rather shocked by their vehemence, I eventually did.' [...] So start. And don't bash yourself up for not being able to play like Rachmaninoff right away - which is what happened to my own piano playing when I was eleven years old. 'Remember, your artist is a child,' writes Julia Cameron in her essential The Artist's Way. 'The artist child must begin by crawling. Baby steps will follow and there will be falls - yecchy first paintings, beginning films that look like unedited home movies, first poems that would shame a greeting card . . . In recovering from our creative blocks, it is necessary to go gently and slowly . . . No high jumping, please! Mistakes are necessary! Stumbles are normal. Progress, not perfection, is what we should be asking of ourselves.'
