We want to start with resistances, those facts that stand in the way of the will. Resistances themselves come in two forms: found and made.*
(Richard Sennett)

The imagination loses vitality as it ceases to adhere to what is real. When it adheres to the unreal and intensifies what is unreal, while its first effect is extraordinary, that effect is the maximum effect it will ever have.**
(Wallace Stevens)

Resistance can turn a fairy tale idea into a story idea.

My experience has been that pushing back on the resistances has brought me to life and work that is more satisfying and open than I could have imagined.

Marcus Aurelius reflected:

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

Most important things come to us as we enter the resistance.

Like the first strike of the chisel against stone, we notice the dislodging of a tiny piece of rock, more importantly we have learned to hold the chisel and hammer differently.

We adjust our hold and strike again.

That’s better.

Each time, we continue to improve our grip and strike.

Now we’re building muscle memory, we’re finding our rhythm.

The stone, resisting at first, finds that it cannot hold out any longer because of what we have learnt and developed through pushing back.

Perhaps our first thought had been to reduce the resistance to hardcore, but, as we have continued to press, the idea of a sculpture emerges, a shape hiding within the stone is noticed.

M. C. Richards is correct when she writes:

Ideas live in the world as we do. We discover certain ideas at certain times.^

The obstacle becomes the way.

*From Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman;
**From Wallace Stevens’ The Necessary Angel;
^From M. C. Richards’ Centering.