Chaos and Creativity
The process of writing a book, regardless of genre, is hard. Very. My words are my creativity and, as a result, feel personal. Criticism in any form requires a digging into my inner strength and an emotional bracing. Feeling judged can come from a publisher’s rejection, a poor review, or even a luke-warm response from a friend. At times the fear of having to put myself out there has made me not do so. So writing is hard, but sharing writing is even harder.
The easiest part of the process is the meandering of my mind into fantasy worlds where everything happens as I want it to. Reality is quite different. Reality has sent me spiraling down into my awful place. It is not where I ever want to go but it’s my default place. It is the place I got to know when I was thirteen, and one I could never forget. But as I came to realize, it is a place I shouldn’t forget as it is this place that has birthed the best parts of me. My resilience. My strength. Characteristics like these are the ones that have kept my bum in the chair to write and re-write. They have pushed me to continue in the face of rejection and adversity, when it would have been far easier to have simply let my creativity settle comfortably into the back seat. But I never settled for that, at least not for long. Many years ago, I realized I had to try harder than others to stay positive and motivated and I consciously decided to never stop trying. When it comes to my writing, I have learned to allow creative thought to come to me and not the other way around. It often means sitting quietly, simply observing, and waiting.
At times my words swirl in a jumbled mess, and I do my best to focus on believing that this is part of the creative process. But then suddenly, these words will form themselves, seemingly beyond my control, into ideas. They billow from me like dandelion’s seeds exploding into the air with the first winds. Like the dandelion’s seeds, my words have no idea they are ready to release into beautiful creativity until the moment that they are. I feel a sense of separateness and joy as I watch in awe and marvel at my clarity. Maybe the time I spend fantasizing about this scenario, is grabbed by my unconscious, which works hard to fulfill my dreams. I like to believe that.
My single challenge during these times is to be an efficient recorder. If an idea comes to me as I am about to sleep, and they often do, I will force myself to sit up and write them down. A notebook is an essential tool for me and many other writers. I think chaos may be a part of every writer’s process, an essential part. I know, for me my best ideas have come from this agitated, directionless state.
As I examine my creative process and notice how much time is spent in uncertainty, I feel reassured that maybe this applies to sharing my ideas too. Everything will be okay.
