Writing - The Practice, Structuring Creativity
I’ve been reflecting on writing lately - feeling the ebbs and sinks of the process - of the activity. I get into this habit where I think one tiny $6 notebook is enough - then I realize I’m writing on printer paper again - placed on random surfaces. I decluttered two weekends ago and kept finding these pages stashed in my shelves and drawers from months ago, even years ago. To do lists, songs, stream of consciousness, research notes. Maybe that’s why Marie Kondo says to leave papers for the last stretch of the decluttering journey - because it’s almost impossible not to delve into these notations of time passing.
When I’ve been asked where I get inspiration to write, I generally admit to being inspired by text - by what I read. I find that when I find a compelling book or author, I almost merge with the work, with the context, the lyricism of it. My favorite activity is to get fully immersed into someone’s creativity and to connect a word with a feeling I had previously never been able to voice. And they found the words for it.
Loving the musical endeavor sometimes come second, in the sense that I sometimes take time away from my instrument(s) to get my words right. Because sometimes, I find buckets of melodies with nowhere to truly put them. I could go free-form with random syllables and create another language … however, I hunger for the right words to fit the melodic arc. There is a completion in the two.
Someone told me to write a book about what I’ve been swimming in, regarding gender dynamics, relational wounds, the inherentness of womanhood and what that means for their/our human rights. I have no idea where my research is taking me. I generally keep my “special interest” research in little books around my home - I seldom share outside of maybe conversation… there are topics that stay in the back of my head like post-it notes. These topics are ones that I don’t know quite enough about, yet. Gradually, I’m getting to them. I am still coming up with my thesis about what I’m learning about right now. I’m finding sources in unlikely spaces. I don’t censor what I read - I purse through and find what applies, what sparks something.
I’ve been feeling lately like I’m standing in between two worlds. I am still working a more or less common job in the world - making my money, doing what I need to do to pay my bills and rent, etc. The creative and intellectual endeavors exist outside of my everyday working job life. Yet my creative life informs my more structural life, and my structural life gives some parameters and even excitement to when I create, make and research.
I recently started learning to sew. This will probably be another post, yet I am becoming so rooted in these more ancestral, physical tasks. Sewing garments is something I didn’t learn growing up. My neighbor is teaching me - and it’s been a humbling, yet truly enlightening process. I have sewn one skirt and one apron. Wearing these two things becomes this fun embodiment practice - then I start to think about who stitched my other clothes. Where they are sewing from, what the conditions are like. Who designed the clothes…
The more I find outlets to be more and more rooted in the everyday - growing and gardening some of my food and herbs, sewing garments, writing music, organizing little events with friends - the less alienated I feel. Perhaps this embodiment that creativity gives us is a cure of sorts to isolation - even if creativity sometimes takes us through solitude. Are we really ever truly alone?