This year has been a bit of a messy and frustrating writing year. It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve started a new project, then abandoned two different versions after the 11,000 words mark. The idea was there, but the characters weren’t coming alive enough (even with experimenting with two different main protagonists), so I’ve put that on the back burner for another time. I’m back to writing what I feel most familiar with now; a new Young Adult mystery, but this time it’s got a bit more of a supernatural slant. The words are flowing slow, but the plot and characters are now taking enough shape that I know I will see this first draft through to the end. Now that I’ve committed that goal to words on here, it has to happen!

Summertime never feels like a productive time to write. I don’t know if this is a Scottish guilt thing, but when it’s sunny and light outside an internal nagging voice tells me, ‘I should be outdoors enjoying myself, doing something active’, not hiding away indoors, staring at a screen, whiling away the hours with imaginary friends. Add on hay fever (with even the non-drowsy antihistamines making me drowsy!), sleepless hot nights during the mini-heatwave, a day job which at the moment is mentally exhausting me, and you can see the challenges I’m facing trying to keep the creative energy burning bright.

I decided to stop beating myself up about my slow progress, and instead turned my focus to ‘filling the well’ ~ a metaphor author Julia Cameron uses in her book ‘The Artist’s Way’ when talking about the importance of replenishing our creative energy. Funnily enough Julia Cameron wrote the foreward in the book I just finished working my way through, which is called ‘The Creative Cure’ by Jacob Nordby. This was gifted to me by my Mum, and I really enjoyed the exercises peppered throughout, designed to ‘heal the vital connection to your creative self.’ Every once in a while I like to read books like this, to remind myself being creative is a really important part of who I am, and I need to give more priority to this part of my life (in order to stay sane, and stay content!).

In the book Nordby talks about adopting ‘A Creative Practice’. The focus here is on the word Practice which equals Improving (not completing or reaching an end goal). (pg 122) A reminder to ‘Go on adventures, take risks, try new things… broaden your scope and connect with your hidden joy.’ He suggests little tasks to start, as well as posing questions such as what creative things and creative habits could bring more joy into your life?

I used to be really good at setting myself fun creative tasks, like blog themes, photography challenges, writing challenges, and so on. It made me realise how important it is to keep my creative brain active and equating writing and creating to joy, not pressure. One of the tasks in the book was to choose a photograph and write a poem about it. It’s been a long time since I’ve written poetry and I was nervous about producing garbage. This feeling was revealing in itself – that putting pressure on myself to create something perfect, is often stopping me from creating anything.

After the task he asked us to write how it made us feel. And for me it was a feeling of exhilaration of being able to express myself (I ended up writing quite a personal, poignant poem), and I felt relief and happiness; that I had actually managed to form words, and words that I actually quite liked. It was a small step towards making sure I give time to my creativity, even if just for a small portion each day, or week. And to also embrace the idea of producing not perfect art, but messy art. This also feels like a rebellion during times where AI is dominating creative conversations. I don’t want to create stilted, perfect sentences that have no soul. I want to create works that are rough around the edges, with human error.

When the new August issue of Writing Magazine arrived on my doorstop yesterday, (see in the photo at the top), I thought it was very timely that a theme running through this issue was to ‘Find the Joy in Writing’. I started reading it over a cup of tea this morning and loved Holly Ringland’s article, ‘Writing for Joy in five faces of fear’, with key reminders of how to re-kindle the joy of writing she had as a child, when free from the ‘fears’ that can block our progression. Her article ended with the motivation to keep going, ‘Our work as writers…(is)….to take the next tiny step on the page’.

Then a few pages later, Lynne Hackles ‘Novel Ideas’ column had the theme of not putting things off until tomorrow. ‘If you find yourself saying, ‘I’ll start that tomorrow’ you are simply putting off something you should start right now….’

A book I had looked out of my bookshelf this morning was ‘The Pocket Muse’ by Monica Wood, thinking this could be a good way of setting myself some new creative challenges. The first page I opened to, tied to both of the statements I pulled out above, so I’m going to end on this phrase, in the hope that if you are reading this post feeling a bit stuck, and unable to move on, that you can take this as a sign to at least start something today, no matter how small. For me, it was getting back on this blog, to write a much overdue post!

‘What are you waiting for? If not now, when?’ ~ (Monica Wood)