Month: July 2022

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Scatter your creative story seeds…

Photo L. Meyer

Let your story surprise you. Lay a place at the table for an unexpected guest. Embrace the unforecasted storm. Allow kind characters to do something cruel. Let the selfish ones sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Be surprised. Be amazed.

Sophie Anderson

When the writing process becomes routine or even worse, when you get stuck in a bottomless rut, it may be helpful to simply turn your work on its head. Shake everything you are doing up, down, even sideways. At the very least, you may have some fun or discover a few diamonds in the rough worthy of using in some form of prose.

A recent foray while editing a piece of micro fiction left me stymied and ready to permanently hit the delete button. But a stray piece of creative advice from a writing retreat last month about cutting up writing that doesn’t seem to work, must have planted a small seed in my brain. And sprang forth when I least expected it.

I took the piece that I had been wrestling with, enlarged the font, then printed it out. With what felt like a whim, I proceeded to just cut it into pieces. The pieces dropping onto my desk reminded me of ephemera for collage or words cut for found poetry. So it seemed natural to paste them on a sheet of paper. Randomly. Without really looking at the actual text on each piece of paper.

Convinced that this would simply be a transformed word jumble, I left the mess to dry and went to make a cup of coffee.

When I returned to look at what I had done, I was surprised by what I found. Sure, the order of some of the pieces of paper stretched the grammar aspect a wee bit, but overall, I read in those words, the glimmer of a new story. A better story.

It was legible enough that I was able to return to my computer and resurrect a new piece of prose. I was slightly amazed that from that jumble of words pasted haphazardly on a piece of paper, a transformed piece of fiction began to emerge.

This time round this tiny micro fiction story resonated somewhere deep inside of me bringing forth new energy for the editing process. Who knows what this piece may look like when something clicks and lets me know that it is finished. But the reawakening of this prospective prose piece inspires hope and optimism.

Stories living inside of us are at times, weird and wild things. But finding ways to keep working to guide them into the world, brings a sense of satisfaction like none other.

Happy writing!

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Release the pause button on play…

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com

We do not stop playing because we get old; we grow old because we stop playing

George Bernard Shaw

Have you ever found yourself slugging through your day to day life and realized that playfulness is not part of it? Watching two neighbourhood children today, chasing each other while blowing soap bubbles and giggling so hard one of them began to hiccup, I felt like I had an epiphany. Play. That is what seems to be missing from my present “taking everything far too seriously” adult life.

It’s typically something fairly innocuous that alerts you to that dawning sense of something being amiss. But once you figure it out, you can’t unsee it.

Probably the state of mind most helpful during times of stress and strain, is a playful mind. But it is also the hardest state to transition to when everything in your immediate focus is through an intensely serious lens. And when it seems any spare moment should be dedicated to some task or type of work that needs to be completed, or at the very least, doing something “worthwhile”, play seems frivolous and far removed.

Knowing that there are adverse consequences to play deprivation, I have been trying to create a “play” list. (Pun intentional, ha – maybe I will get there after all!). Photography has always been my favourite way to play and I haven’t had my camera out for quite some time. Point of fact, the battery was almost dead. So as I write this, I can glance over at my camera on the charger and see that it still has a ways to go. Just like I do.

There are a multitude of ways to tap into this desired state of mind. A quick web search reveals a plethora of articles, blog posts, research studies on the importance of play to our overall well being and stock ideas about how to incorporate it into our busy adult lives. But it seems trite to assume that by playing video games, doing crossword puzzles, dancing in your kitchen as though no one is watching, could magically counter the impact of stress and burnout.

So where to begin. Reflection on this challenge seems to point to a sort of mind over matter type of thing. So it seems like if I can wrestle with the biggest barrier, attitude, I feel like I might just be on my way. And it also seems important to set goals to play, to do things with absolutely no purpose, to simply seek out moments for mindless enjoyment and fun.

How weird that part of responsible adulting becomes losing touch with that most important aspect of childhood. To be playful. Seems so simple when I write it like that. But I have a sense that I am going to have to work hard at my play goals. Wish me luck!

Stay safe, have fun!

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Growing creativity

Photo L. Meyer

Push yourself to try new things whenever you can. It keeps you growing creatively. Remember that there is no right or wrong way to be creative; there is only the way that allows you to express who you are.

Catherine Anderson

Last year in the midst of a prolonged heat wave and subsequent drought, I decided that if gardening stopped being a source of joy, that I would either give it up or do things differently. Well not digging in the dirt and growing things simply wasn’t an option this year when spring finally rolled around. So instead, I chose to shake up some of my “go to” plants that I have grown for years, like castor beans, which no longer possess the same magic they used to.

So trying to grow a Kangaroo Apple Tree seemed like a good idea at the time I bought a small, strange looking green plant with spiky little leaves. The garden centre clerk warned me it could grow as tall as 6-8 feet and produce both flowers and fruit which sounded intriguing. This bushy plant is now blooming with delicate purple flowers, which sadly our harsh prairie wind at times, blows to smithereens.

But this adventure has provided a surprising element of daily excitement as I come to understand what this new plant requires in order to flourish. And the fascination of watching this aspect of nature adapt and transform to whatever conditions it grows in, doesn’t get old either.

Thriving, not just surviving, this plant now three feet tall, is a daily reminder that we can be creative in all aspects of our lives. Growing this unique plant native to New Zealand, provides me with an ongoing lesson about the importance of taking risks, being playful in any situation, and allowing the process of discovery to unfold as it should.

All of these serve as reminders that creation in any form, is one of the most amazing activities we can undertake. Our creative paths are unique to who we are and require open hearts and open minds. Being present to experimentation, brings a multitude of benefits. Not the least of which is an opportunity to start thinking and seeing in new ways.

There are many unexpected teachers available to us to share the process of creative discovery. We just need to take advantage of them when they appear in our lives.

Stay safe, be creative!!

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Focus for a restless creative spirit

Photo credit L. Meyer

Generally I’ve found this to be true: I have forced myself to begin writing when I’ve been utterly exhausted, when I’ve felt my soul as thin as a playing card, when nothing has seemed worth enduring for another five minutes…and somehow the activity of writing changes everything

Joyce Carol Oates

What do you do when those tried and true tricks to jolt your writing heart to begin ticking again, falter, and then fails to beat with any sort of rhythm. Those horrible times when it doesn’t seem likely you can resuscitate your writing practice. Maybe never again.

You try journaling – going with the admonition to never lift your pen off the page. Free write in longhand, not on the computer. Go for a walk. Take photographs of random things on said walk. You seek out graffiti art hoping the creative spirits of youth in your community will somehow be contagious. Perhaps flipping through your well worn copies of craft books could help. Not today.

So you give up and start listlessly wandering around the internet until your hips hurt from sitting and your eyes get so dry you have to squeeze drops into them. But you still are searching for that spark. Something to light that fire that normally burns throughout your days and some nights and has allowed you to create stories. And those random pieces of writing that you just know have potential to become something.

And just when you have given up, you read an email from a dear friend. A suggestion about a book of essays with a couple of stories thrown in for good measure. Written by Jo Ann Beard, titled, Festival of Days (2021). So you find it at the library on the e-book catalogue, download it and read the first essay. Her writing is wonderful.

It seems like a justifiable use of your time since you just read that part of the writing process is reading. But reading like a writer. Still thinking on that one so for now it will be reading like a reader.

Suddenly you have to run to the computer, and low and behold a story just spills out. There it is on the screen. A sh*tty first draft, as Anne Lamott would say. And you review and read it over again one hour later. Whoa – not bad for the first outing after a dry spell that had you worried you would never write again.

The craft of writing seems to be a process that is in part mysterious, even mystical. There is a spiritual side to the muse and when it takes you on a journey it isn’t necessarily a straight ride. You can be down, feel flat, and suddenly it lifts you up, and re-opens your heart.

Creativity may be a fickle friend but is a friend indeed.

Happy writing!