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Writer, Heal Thyself
amywink February 24th, 2008
In the sodden days of this past summer, my creative well ran dry. What started as a productive month of cool, drought-ending rains dwindled as the burgeoning clouds sank lower. As rains increased, I began to bring up sludge. My focus on text production instead of creative process often makes these slow-down more painful. Doubts about the number of pieces I’ve produced in the last week overshadowed the work I created in the last month or year. I forget that working requires resting, a notion not uncommon in our culture. I forget that I must feed my creativity well in order to get the best performance. My melodramatic self bemoans the End of all Creation, like the chorus from a Greek tragedy announcing the gods’ disfavor.
Luckily, I employ several strategies to help me refill and refresh, so I do not get stuck in the La Brea Tar Pits of inner doubt. When I tap into that sticky mental muck, I try to practice something other than self-flagellation. I turn to books. I love books, the smell, the feel, the weight of paper, and, of course, I love that this physical object contains something as ephemeral and intimate as an idea. Books return me to that primitive writer state: the reading child. While bookstores offer plentitude, the library more vibrantly captures those earliest connections with books, offering pure mental decadence. Choices must be made at the bookstore regarding cost; but at the library, I can have everything and anything!
So, what do I want or need to read? I reliably find mental refreshment in books about writing, particularly those focusing on the inner life of the writer. My copy of Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird is so battered I’ve had to purchase another to re-read. This spring, I stumbled across Bonni Goldberg’s Beyond the Words, the first book I’ve read that recommends not writing as a writing practice. Books on creativity, like Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s books Finding Flow and Creativity, can be recharging. Martha Beck’s Finding Your Own North Star, The Joy Diet, and Expecting Adam offer humorous insights into creative choices for living. Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson’s study The Cultural Creatives reveals just how many people are choosing to live creatively. The Dalai Lama’s How to Practice teaches compassion for others as well as one’s self.
My curiosity leads me into new knowledge. As I learn, I make new connections; I add to the metaphor base I use in my work. A book on the equine biology reminded my poetic mind of the powerful creativity of time and the curiously beautiful results of happy accidents. I find new words, like “misprize”, to fail to realize or appreciate the true worth of something or somebody, or “numinous”, the sense of the spirit within objects (the dictionary is a good read too). As I read, I submerge in flood of words and ideas. I forget my drought and doubt, and soon reading moves me forward into writing, just like waves lap at the shore.