I am writing again.
On a project. Two projects, actually.
This is a miracle to me.
But, you may say, you write all the time. I get your wonderful ezine twice a month (look to the right; see Find the Good Booster Pack? Sign up. That’s how you get my ezine and other goodies) and you post here at least once a week, often more, and then there are the amazing dollops the Comfort Cafe receives…
I do write daily and I have been stranded in very dry place for a very long time where the renewal of sustained creativity has eluded me.
Where the flow peters out on a dry river bed of self-doubt and too much outside noise.
It can be a bitch to have a brand. At least, if that brand becomes a cage.
But now, oh so slowly, the threads of my last years of learning and achy itchy heartbreak are coming together into something true.
Here is where I stop to cross myself and makes the sign to ward off the evil eye and throw salt over my shoulder. Because what if it doesn’t hold? What if the dry place comes back?
You know what? It doesn’t matter. I’ve remembered the secret.
If these projects doesn’t pan out, if nobody buys them, if my publisher says no thanks, if I get afraid again, it doesn’t matter.
What matters is the act of creating. It is the river that never dries up.
How could I, a writer for 27 year, forget this truth? The act of writing is what renews me. The act of being in and trusting that flow.
The drying up? An illusion created by my mind blathering, “But nobody will… it isn’t original… you already said that… nobody will care… it doesn’t solve a problem.”
Those are important questions — for later.
When they come too soon, like branding and platform building and all that vital stuff, then there is no there there.
There is no flow, no energy, no heat, no truth. No process that takes you home.
So, for now, I will go back to my red couch and curl up under my robin’s egg blue blanket and sip my Keemun tea with heavy cream and write.
I will recall, with my heart, again and again, that to stay in the river is all that matters.
Yeah, why don’t you come along with me?
8 responses so far ↓
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2 Hiro Boga Apr 7, 2010
Jen, hooray for being in the river flow of writing! The joy and sorrow of it, the depths and shallows.
I’m so glad you’re writing. And so grateful for the generosity with which you share your process.
Love, Hiro
3 Susan Gallacher-Turner Apr 7, 2010
Jen,
This couldn’t have come at a better time for me. I have been stranded from my studio, my writing and the river for far too long. It has been dark and scary cutting through the tangled weeds of busyness and self doubt that have grown up between me and the river. But clearing the space, even if it’s one plant at a time, has brought me closer and closer to my truth. What renews me is touching the cool clay, pushing the copper, painting the screening, and sharing the journey even if it’s only on my blog.
“What matters is the act of creating. It is the river that never dries up.”
You said it so well…thank you,
Susan
4 Gyllian Davies Apr 7, 2010
Jennifer – thank you SO MUCH for this crucial reminder. Think I need to print this one off and post it up for those days I forget that it’s the creative act that feeds my soul. And everything else flows from that. Whew!
Peace & Joy to you,
Gyllian Davies
5 chris zydel Apr 8, 2010
Dear Jen,
Oh yes, yes, yes, that flowing river of mama creativity is ALWAYS there to feed us and fill us with all her gorgeous juiciness.
And she doesn’t seem to much care for platforms and brandings and all those other tangly nets that our ego selves so love to get caught up in.
I’m so glad to hear that you are being bathed and washed in her never-ending generosity of creative renewal, with your blanket and your tea and your sweet souled writer self.
What a lovely, lovely post… and reminder about what is really important.
Love, hugs and glitter,
Chris
6 Kate Apr 8, 2010
I’m with you!
7 crescent Apr 9, 2010
These feelings are part of the process. You know this! I know this! But knowing it doesn;’t make one not feel it. The trick, as always, is to “have your feelings without letting them have you.”
I also think that brands are for cows, not human beings. (And not very fortunate cows, either. I mean, ouch, flaming iron pushed into the hide?) Everything in me resists, kicking and screaming , the idea of “branding” . How can it become other than a cage? I know, I know, I get it in one sense, I hear what my publishers’ marketing depts say to say nothing of every social media expert in the universe… But I just don’t like it and resist it heart and soul. xxxooo
8 Michelle Apr 19, 2010
Dear Jen,
Oh yes, yes, yes, that flowing river of mama creativity is ALWAYS there to feed us and fill us with all her gorgeous juiciness.
And she doesn’t seem to much care for platforms and brandings and all those other tangly nets that our ego selves so love to get caught up in.
I’m so glad to hear that you are being bathed and washed in her never-ending generosity of creative renewal, with your blanket and your tea and your sweet souled writer self.
What a lovely, lovely post… and reminder about what is really important.
Love, hugs and glitter,
Chris