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Apparently, I’m the Christopher Columbus of Music

An ill-fated voyage on the seas of creation

Allison Gauss
5 min readNov 22, 2018
Composite image: the author, created with Canva. ‘Landing of Columbus’ by the Architect of the Capitol via Wikimedia Commons.

A n important part of building a creative career is feeling like you’re going nowhere. In the last two months, I’ve been focused on finishing a novel I started more than a year ago. In my spare time, I blog, make music, and do improv comedy.

Having finished the latest draft of my novel and moved onto revisions, though, has left me feeling slightly adrift. It’s much less satisfying to reread and rewrite work you’ve already done than it is to crank out words as you watch your manuscript get longer and longer.

This past weekend, I tried to escape my funk by reading a book called You Are a Badass, in which writer Jen Sincero promises to tell you how to stop doubting your awesomeness and be a total badass.

This is not my first cattle run at the Self Help Corral, so I wasn’t surprised to find that the text contains many inspirational quotes. That’s what self-help books are — a collection of sugary sweet, vaguely deep, occasionally meaningful quotes. Like Instagram but on paper. And fewer pictures of sunsets. And no DMs.

But one quote struck a chord with me:

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

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Allison Gauss
Allison Gauss

Written by Allison Gauss

Writer, musician, improvisor, recovering pessimist.

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