Regarding Henri: This is from the Sleeping Beauty DVD special features, from an excellent short entitled "Four Artists Paint One Tree."

"The best advice I have ever given to students who have studied under me has been just this: Educate yourself. Do not let me educate you."

I'm reading from Robert Henri in response to a question often asked in letters from Art students. However they put it, it always boils down to this:

Students become confused by honest admiration for one school of painting, mixed with recognition of the success and popularity of another style, along with advice to follow a still different approach. Frequently a student will ask which one he should imitate.

Robert Henri would advise, don't imitate anyone. He says, "One of the great difficulties of an art student is to decide between his own natural impressions and what he thinks should be his impressions." And on another page, "Go forward with what you have to say, expressing things as you see them."

Time after time, in his Art spirit, Henri says, "Be yourself." --Walt Disney

I admit to being terribly guilty of this. Rather than write stories or essays from the heart, I sometimes feel I'm attempting to create something that fits what I think a short story or essay is supposed to be.

Too often, I attempt to impress rather than make an impression.

The result is stilted and awkward. It's too derivative to touch anyone else, and it's too withdrawn from who I really am to be cathartic for me.

In fact, since my goal was solely too impress, I inevitably end up feeling like a failure, whereas when I write something that pleases me, I get to enjoy it for myself, opinions of others notwithstanding.

But usually those turn out to be the peices others enjoy. My first bit of published fiction was cranked out in an hour, the result of an idea I was passionate about, of my having something to say.

(For further reading, check out Ray Bradbury's Essay "Zen in the Art of Writing," in the book by the same name.)