Posted on March 24, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized |
Creative Drought
For many, writing is a process that is quite magical, and there is a feeling of disillusionment when the magical becomes mundane. Creating for a living is not the same as creating out of passion.
Whether for work or study, intensive writing can suck the passion out of our soul. I much prefer the enchantment, fluidity and surprise that creativity brings when there is no pre-determined outcome or product in mind. Free from desired outcome the mind becomes a clear channel, a pure vessel for creative flow.
Creative non-fiction is a favourite genre, but it’s easy to reach a point where you feel like you’ve sucked the memory well dry of experience - both past and present. Sometimes I can feel as though I have reflected upon everything that can possibly be reflected upon!
During these times of creative drought, there are two things that help me - the first requires play. It is important for creative people to take time out to have fun, walk, wander, go see things that inspire like art exhibitions, a human circus, 3D documentaries, mountains, beach, bush, botanic gardens.
I love collecting shells at a secluded beach, and taking my camera out for photographic dates with nature. Both photograph and shell collections sit close to where I work and act like a portal to imagination, inspiration and creative energy.
The second thing I do, is remind myself that, like the cycle of seasons, creative passion comes back! Passion for creating, regardless of the medium we work with or in, always returns and, often after drought, the creative energy has doubled.
The creative forces of nature, like tidal patterns of the ocean and cycles of the moon, remind me of this ebb and flow. Resisting the ebb impedes the flow of new beginning.
I find that silence is valuable during drought - periods of meditation create a great space for the muses of new beginning, they are drawn to a quite and open mind. Zen masters remind us that life should always be approached with a “beginner’s mind”, for a beginner is open to discovering all possibilities.
Meditation, contemplation, reflection - perhaps three of the greatest tools for an artist. Contemplating what I would like to leave behind if I was soon to depart from this planet also inspires me to think beyond the limits I tend to subconsciously set for myself.
If this were your last week of life what would you notice about your world?
A year leading up to his death, 80 year old poet, William Stafford, started getting up at 4, and in the quiet, dark hours of the morning, in long hand, he penned his observations of the simple and small things in life. He wrote in a voice that carried a sense of morning meditation.
It is unsure as to whether Stafford knew of his approaching death but, wrote author of Tell It Slant, Brenda Miller, “the poems written during those final days have the quality of “last words”: stripped of artifice, speaking from a self that wants us to pay attention - not to abstract ideas and philosophies, not to idle worries or regrets, but to the world as it unfolds before us, every minute, every day. And as I read these poems, I’m thinking that all of our writing, perhaps, could be written with this kind of disposition: with the tenor of last words, the essays we would leave behind if no further writing were possible.”
Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?William Stafford - You Reading This, Be Ready
Stafford lead an interesting life. One of the most striking features of his career is that he began publishing his poetry only later in life. His first major collection Traveling Through the Dark was published when he was 48 years old. It won the National Book Award the following year in 1963.
Stafford kept a journal for 50 years, and during this time composed 22,000 poems of which approximately 3000 were published. He had a quiet daily ritual of writing, that focused on the ordinary.
“I keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly. And I don’t have any sense of its coming to a kind of crescendo, or of its petering out either. It is just going steadily along.”
I have found that keeping a journal - not now and then, but daily, has become my preventative medicine against creative drought. Through the meditative art of contemplation and reflection that journalling evokes, it appeared that Stafford maintained a connection with the ‘hidden river’ of his life and avoided creative drought - 22,000 remarkable poems is a major accomplishment!
Related articles
You want me to do what?
Are you leading me on?
… cut the fat!
Writers take cake for money making websites
Captive: design that impacts an audience
How to cultivate write habits
Common freelance career killers and how to get past them
Creative drought
Creative twist: journal for unparalleled discovery
Write from within
_________________________________________________________________
Comments
Leave a Reply
