I took yesterday off from writing and I was rather miserable. I could not make art. I felt fat and bloated and
didn’t even go to yoga! I didn’t want to read, I didn’t want to garden, I did not want to eat green eggs and ham, Sam I am. I was a dry, scratchy husk.
Could it be time to practice what I preach?
At the Writer’s Spa and other retreats I teach I blather on about how important it is to know your own work process, so of course, I thought I knew mine- but perhaps I have, gasp, a blind spot.
I think the best way for me to work is terrifically, terribly hard and then take a vacation in which I do all the things I have been wanting to do while I was working so hard- read novels, take naps, make tons of art, take yoga classes, hang out with friends. I like my story that being intense and working around the clock proves I am diligent and good and serious and smart… and then, I will enjoy slow days of relaxing in a hammock, so entirely pleased with myself, romantically recouping my creative energy…
News flash, Jen- This is not what happens! I rarely work long hours because it is not how I work best, and in fact, I find it impossible to sustain! Yet I was not realizing how I subtly believed my story that that is the best way so I’ve been subtly feeling like less than a good, creative, intense, real artist because I don’t work this way. And when I do, like I have been lately? I collapse and feel like shit afterward and the “vacation” sucks because…
I LOVE TO CREATE. I love to flow back and forth between writing and gluing and reading… the flow and mix makes me happy. I don’t like extremes. DUH!
By George, I have discovered a romantic bullshit artist story lurking, like you have to be a drunk and poor and suffer to be a really good artist. Seem I believe(d) I have to work really hard and then collapse in a very comforting and self-nurturing way, while looking wan but beautiful.
The truth has knocked on my head, direct from my heart: I work best in a steady healthy way, days where writing and art and a sit-down lunch and time with my family and exercise is all wound together. And you know what, I mostly do that!
How ironic that the gal who writes about comfort has been harboring a hidden story that comfort and creative work should not work and twine together or she isn’t a “REAL CREATOR!”
I love being a silly imperfectly perfect human being. How often our undiscovered stories are all that stands between us and happiness, ease, acceptance.
P.S.
Of course, sometimes I have to work hard to get a project done within a given time period. In the case of the book, it’s because the book I’m writing a) expanded (like it always does!) and b) took longer to come into focus (which it also does). So to get the book out by the end of the year, long hours were needed. Yet my story made me suffer, as those pesky stories masquerading as the TRUTH always do!
5 responses so far ↓
1 Alexandra Mar 17, 2006
“I love being a silly imperfectly perfect human being. How often our undiscovered stories are all that stands between us and happiness, ease, acceptance.”
I just cherish these two sentences, so much so that I copied them onto a sheet of paper above my desk! In trying to answer that question for myself-What is the best way for me to work?-its usually at home, in a cozy nook, surrounded by reminders of all I love-that might include certain photos, the art of my very best friend(www.lainitaylor.com) which adorn my home on as many free spaces as can fit-AND I really need an enormous handful of solitude and quiet to strum my imagination and get some words brewing. I just discovered your blog today and am enjoying so much reading your previous posts-challenging, endearing, and inspiring. Thank you!
2 cindy Mar 18, 2006
jen your musings got me to thinking what “stories” am i telling myself that are untrue? i wonder what stories we all are telling ourselves?
a couple blogs back you wrote “why is ease so dismissed by me?”
i wrote that down on a postie and stuck it to my computer.
it seems to me these two questions are connected. do i believe it has to be hard work to be authentic and real?
do i believe it HAS to be blood sweat and tears?
anyway just some of my musings off of yours! cindy
3 Marilyn Mar 18, 2006
Thanks for the reminder that just because it’s the story we’ve been telling for years…doesn’t make it true…
4 liz elayne Mar 19, 2006
Oh I love this line - “the truth has knocked on my head, direct from my heart.” Yes, yes. This means your soul is whispering to you.
This is such a good reminder to embrace the imperfections that are sometimes hidden deep inside.
5 adela Mar 21, 2006
Have you ever looked for a corrolary between dry, scratchy husk time and the phase of the moon?