Creative
Juices
“There
is, I believe, a longing in many of us, often unrequited, to give ourselves
utterly to our lives, whatever that may mean to us individually. It’s simple,
perhaps, but not easy. I have known that heat, that falling in; but I know too,
those gray, restless days when life seems just to limp along. For all the beauty
and love I have known, and still know, I sometimes wake up ‘empty and
frightened.’(Rumi)”
Roger
Housden (Risking Everything: 110 Poems of Love and Revelation, p. xi; Harmony
Books, 2003)
I
recently attended the Southern Voices writers conference. This year, one of the
presenters was Kevin Wilson, who wrote Nothing to See Here, a satire
about twins who spontaneously combust, which has been named best book of the
year by the New York Times Book Review and several other respected reviewers. All
the presenters at the conference spoke about their writing process, which for
most involves a great deal of research. But Kevin, who teaches at the
University of the South, is married to another writer and they have young
children. So, his process is different from most. He composes the book in his head
over months, then he goes to an isolated cabin, and writes the entire book—in ten
days. His wife does the same thing because they are parents as well as writers
and they have day jobs. Then he turns his manuscript over to editors and gets
out of the way while they do “what they do best.”
All the
writers agreed that their craft requires a great deal of time alone. In fact,
living with a writer must be incredibly boring, as they are immersed in another
reality for however long it takes to finish a book. They must “give
themselves to their lives,” to the exclusion of everything else. Jennifer
Egan, author of The Candy House and Manhattan Beach, is a fiction
writer. She talked about starting a book with nothing more than a particular
time and place, and then allowing the story to come to her, to unfold as it
wants, and she functions as the recorder. As you can imagine, when one is in
that kind of flow, interruptions are not welcome.
Many of
us do not have the luxury of giving ourselves over completely to our creative
life. Of necessity, we go into the world every day and work. Most of us are not
the owners or the managers of our workplace, and therefore do not get to say
what work we will do, and for how long. We just go, and we do what we are asked
to do—the romantic notion of being creative is not part of it. Hopefully, we
find our creative outlet other places because we need to create just as we need
to eat and sleep. As Jungian analyst, Marie Louise von Franz pointed out,
creative people (which is all of us) who, for one reason or another cannot
create, are “the most disagreeable people.” That’s when we enter the
darkness and irritability; when we wake up, as Rumi said, “empty and
frightened.”
The
pandemic has put a damper on many of us, especially on our creative life. We
require stimulation to spark ideas, to get our juices flowing, and this has
been a stagnant two years for many. But now, as the world opens, our
imaginations can wake up too. Like Kevin Wilson’s kids who burst into flames when
they are upset—our silly notions can begin to ferment and bubble to the surface.
We can allow ourselves to daydream, and to ponder in new ways. We can employ
those magical words from childhood, “let’s pretend,” and “what if…” We can give
ourselves over to springtime, and new life. Just listen to the birds—this is a
joyful time of the year. There is so much sadness in the world, why not, just
for today, create some joy.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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