Update on the creative spark
I've started writing fiction again. It feels exciting, hopeful, and powerful. I guess there's nothing else I want to do more in this life than write stories. Elsewhere previously, I've described the change in conditions that seem to have made this possible, so I won't go into them here.
It has occurred to me that fibre craft has provided an essential outlet for me during the past 10-12 years when I found creative writing difficult. Handcrafting was less cognitive and allowed me to play in real life with colour and texture. I'm a very visual person, and that has always been a vital part of how and what I write. This year I haven't done any spinning, knitting or weaving. I guess it's because I can write again, the way I like to. I'm making up for a lost decade of creative writing. For now I feel that if it would take up most of my spare time for the rest of my life, I would let it. I'm grateful for what fibre crafting has given me. Playing with fibre is meditative, relaxing, and (in a good way) meaningless. Writing isn't relaxing for me, and when it's meaningless it isn't even fun. I'm sure wool and alpaca will start calling me sooner or later.
For several months I've been happy to simply stretch the writing muscle. I've written snippets, ideas, journal entries. I've given myself time to think about what I plan to do without starting any big projects. Because life has changed, I've changed, my ideas have changed. I also find that a series on creativity on the mindfulness meditation app Headspace has helped. It's developing a new cognitive tool. That's still in process.
Recently I've written several short stories. I wrote each of them in one sitting. I could not compose anything this smoothly and quickly when I was younger. When I wrote short stories for performance on 1001 Nights Cast ca. 2005, they were necessarily completed in one day, but I lacked the confidence to keep my hands moving without revision. I would struggle over details. I would give myself a big glass of red wine and some good cheese to get through it. I enjoyed the process and would be happy with the result, but those stories would take me 5, 6 hours or even more.
One evening last week at the cottage, with Danny knitting nearby then working on a jigsaw puzzle, I wrote a 1,500-word short story in about 90 minutes. I only stopped to change a word 4 or 5 times. The result was so complete, consistent in tone, and satisfying to me that I asked Danny to let me read it to him the following evening. I've never done that before. It needs revision, of course. Everything does. But mostly I would only subtract and clarify. There's not much call for further development.
In my journal I have a record of the day when I realized this quality of creativity was coming back. It was April 10. For several days I was afraid to say anything to anyone. The following Saturday when I started to tell Danny, I began weeping. Noticing it didn't jinx me. Neither did welcoming it, speaking about it, or accepting what has passed. I experienced this difference practically every time I wrote during the past 19 weeks.
Earlier this month I realized it can also benefit my professional writing, if I'm open and allow it to do so. Noticing that took a while because I've been regularly freelance writing for five years despite an absence of this mental facility, so I have a different process. Change requires a degree of letting go that's harder to do when I handle facts and write for pay.
So what next? Depression forced me to focus on self-care. Without it, I actually need more self-discipline. So I've started revising some old time management skills to accomplish things I want to do. Time management tools irritate me and make me vaguely resentful. Sometimes I have to give up doing things I feel like doing, in favour of tasks that serve my goals or simply need to be done. In the past I took this tension to mean I was doing something wrong. Practicing mindfulness, I've learned that this quality of impatience--the resistance that occurs when I choose against self-indulgence or laziness--is part of being me. There's nothing wrong with anything I think or feel, with wanting to do something or choosing to do something else, no implication that I'm sick or lazy or stupid or misguided or repressing some part of myself, no call for self-judgment, no call even to judge the self-judgment when it happens. Every day is a panoply of choices.
The only thing worth judging is the outcome--the actions. We better take responsibility for them, find satisfaction in the good things, and then move on.
So that's what I'm working on nowadays. Along with getting other things done I've also written some things that give me excitement.
It has occurred to me that fibre craft has provided an essential outlet for me during the past 10-12 years when I found creative writing difficult. Handcrafting was less cognitive and allowed me to play in real life with colour and texture. I'm a very visual person, and that has always been a vital part of how and what I write. This year I haven't done any spinning, knitting or weaving. I guess it's because I can write again, the way I like to. I'm making up for a lost decade of creative writing. For now I feel that if it would take up most of my spare time for the rest of my life, I would let it. I'm grateful for what fibre crafting has given me. Playing with fibre is meditative, relaxing, and (in a good way) meaningless. Writing isn't relaxing for me, and when it's meaningless it isn't even fun. I'm sure wool and alpaca will start calling me sooner or later.
For several months I've been happy to simply stretch the writing muscle. I've written snippets, ideas, journal entries. I've given myself time to think about what I plan to do without starting any big projects. Because life has changed, I've changed, my ideas have changed. I also find that a series on creativity on the mindfulness meditation app Headspace has helped. It's developing a new cognitive tool. That's still in process.
Recently I've written several short stories. I wrote each of them in one sitting. I could not compose anything this smoothly and quickly when I was younger. When I wrote short stories for performance on 1001 Nights Cast ca. 2005, they were necessarily completed in one day, but I lacked the confidence to keep my hands moving without revision. I would struggle over details. I would give myself a big glass of red wine and some good cheese to get through it. I enjoyed the process and would be happy with the result, but those stories would take me 5, 6 hours or even more.
One evening last week at the cottage, with Danny knitting nearby then working on a jigsaw puzzle, I wrote a 1,500-word short story in about 90 minutes. I only stopped to change a word 4 or 5 times. The result was so complete, consistent in tone, and satisfying to me that I asked Danny to let me read it to him the following evening. I've never done that before. It needs revision, of course. Everything does. But mostly I would only subtract and clarify. There's not much call for further development.
In my journal I have a record of the day when I realized this quality of creativity was coming back. It was April 10. For several days I was afraid to say anything to anyone. The following Saturday when I started to tell Danny, I began weeping. Noticing it didn't jinx me. Neither did welcoming it, speaking about it, or accepting what has passed. I experienced this difference practically every time I wrote during the past 19 weeks.
Earlier this month I realized it can also benefit my professional writing, if I'm open and allow it to do so. Noticing that took a while because I've been regularly freelance writing for five years despite an absence of this mental facility, so I have a different process. Change requires a degree of letting go that's harder to do when I handle facts and write for pay.
So what next? Depression forced me to focus on self-care. Without it, I actually need more self-discipline. So I've started revising some old time management skills to accomplish things I want to do. Time management tools irritate me and make me vaguely resentful. Sometimes I have to give up doing things I feel like doing, in favour of tasks that serve my goals or simply need to be done. In the past I took this tension to mean I was doing something wrong. Practicing mindfulness, I've learned that this quality of impatience--the resistance that occurs when I choose against self-indulgence or laziness--is part of being me. There's nothing wrong with anything I think or feel, with wanting to do something or choosing to do something else, no implication that I'm sick or lazy or stupid or misguided or repressing some part of myself, no call for self-judgment, no call even to judge the self-judgment when it happens. Every day is a panoply of choices.
The only thing worth judging is the outcome--the actions. We better take responsibility for them, find satisfaction in the good things, and then move on.
So that's what I'm working on nowadays. Along with getting other things done I've also written some things that give me excitement.