Balance Is Another Name For Mediocrity

March 29, 2010

You might have read some of my stuff here at Void  but I don’t think you really know me.

It’s not your fault, it’s mine. Since I started this blog I’ve kept out of view a lot more than I used to at my old blog.

Creating this space has been partly a reaction to what I used to write before. I let it get too open, too personal, and I lost site of the original intention I had for that place.

That’s ok because it needed to happen.

In the end, the process of writing became the purpose, and things I had not foreseen when I began it came to the forefront. Like the joy of connecting with other lovely people, and becoming part of a community of creative, intelligent women. It was so much more than just spinning out words on a screen.

But. Still. Something needed to change. And though I can slip into living my life quite publicly for a while, then I will swing back and claw back my privacy and isolation with fury.

The challenge for me here has been to find a way to write with authenticity, without opening up the deepest parts of my life and my soul for all to see. I’m not sure I’ve found a way to do that yet.

Often I’ll sit down to write for this place, with a head full of clever ideas and words, with references to this and that, and a whole debate taking shape in my mind, but when I start to type it out, it sounds hollow. Showy but empty. And totally flat.

At best I’ll feel just a little disappointed with my work, like it’s missed the key note I was trying to strike. But at worst, I’ll feel completely disgusted by it. Ego! Ego! Ego! Why am I even bothering to write?

I think all writers and artists have times like that. You can’t live without doing your thing, but the doing of it can often make you miserable, if you feel out of alignment within yourself.

For me, it always requires the litmus test of authenticity. Why am I doing this? Is this the real me speaking now? Am I still aligned with my True North?

But when your life and the landscape around you is changing, it’s not always easy to get a true reading from yourself. Besides, I’m not a balanced person. I’m like water; pushed and pulled with the tides, the cycle of the moon, or some such ephemeral force. I expand, I contract.

I think I’ve found my level and then the ground shifts again. You can’t contain me.

Don’t ask me for a simple answer to a straight question. Most of the time you won’t get one. I don’t work that way. I live in another language of feelings and impressions that have to sift and filter through my senses and perceptions before I know anything for sure.

If you push me or rush me, I’ll snap. I need time to arrive at my own conclusions, unfiltered by others’ opinions.

So, I’ve needed my space and my privacy back in order to go deeper into the void. It’s like a retreat. You find yourself withdrawing from the old places and groups, in order to nurture the birth of something new within yourself. It’s a chrysalis phase.

And every time I’ve thought that the transformation is done, I’ve found that I’m not quite finished yet. Even still, I think I’m not quite finished yet, and I don’t know when it will be through.

Maybe the journey will never be done, because this is my journey into my Inner Artist’s world. And the Artist’s Way is an endless path of learning and transformation.

If I rush it, I feel I will come out half undone, with my stitches gaping and my wings hanging off. Not quite the butterfly I should have become. A little bit crippled, unable to fly.

I’ve told you before that I’m an impatient sort, but this time it’s different. I draw deeper into my cocoon, knowing I have to hold back on the urge to leap and surge forth.

Maybe that’s why I’ve been so very very tired? My body’s way of putting on the brakes? There really hasn’t been any other choice. And through it all, my interest in blogging, and following, and commenting, has waned. So much so that if I’m to continue I shall need to come back with a different outlook, I think.

And so I take a break.

I reflect on everything I’ve learned since I started to write publicly. Too much to sum up in short words now.

But this remains, one perfect quote, and the acknowledgement that being ordinary, or trying to be like everyone else, will never be enough for me, because it means settling for being mediocre, when we should always be striving to embrace our authentic, sparkling, crazy selves. Like Jack said,

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
(Jack Kerouac)

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Doing Nothing, or Taking A Meaningful Break

March 16, 2010

Since I started writing at Void I’ve discovered the value of doing nothing. There are days, even whole weeks, when I hit a brick wall and I just have to stop.

Once upon a time, the panic would set in… “I can’t just do nothing! I’m not writing, so I’m not doing what I should be doing… and I won’t get to where I want to be going… and the world might fall apart,” sort of thing.

This kind of inertia feels alien to me but now I’ve discovered that doing nothing is often the best step I can take to keep going in the right direction.

I get time to let all my thoughts and ideas flow around me, and I stop chasing productivity (which seems to lead to burnout pretty quickly for me anyway).

Saying, “I’m doing nothing for a while,” can sound quite negative. So I prefer to say, “I’m taking a meaningful break.”

Don’t let stuckness ride you into a sweat. See the signs telling you to slow right down, and listen to the quiet voice within that will tell you which way to go next.

You might be surprised by the outcome.

The Lonely Road And The Artist’s Need For Creative Solitude

March 6, 2010

It can be a lonely road, pursuing your art. Most artists and writers that I know work alone. For my best work, I need the peace and quiet of no distractions to help me drop into that inner space where the ideas start to flow.

That’s why I chose this little house in Throop, down near the river. No one’s ever passing through or stopping by on their way to somewhere else. It’s a secluded spot, away from the bustle of town.

My desk faces the window, and I look out across my small back garden to the little village green, with a line of stately oaks across the road, behind the old white house where they have the noisy parties on saturday nights in summer. It’s a pretty good spot for a writer, if you don’t mind being kept awake a little now and then, and I don’t.

At times, I have to fiercely defend my need for this creative solitude. At times, I feel a little ludicrous to expect to enjoy the luxury of it. If I was a published writer, if I was earning a respectable income already from these hours of writing that I do, the time spent painting and drawing too, then perhaps I would feel justified to stand my ground and demand my space. But I don’t. I feel like a whiny, selfish brat: “I neeed my space, man, I neeed my space.”

However, years of ignoring my artist soul have taught me that I just don’t have a choice. If I don’t have this time, this space, then everything else in my life starts to suffer. I’m somehow less of a functioning human being. I start to feel cornered, or caged; at any moment I might lash out or break down. “I did warn you,” I will say. But it will do no good. You didn’t see it coming and now you’re rather shocked. Reeling at the sight of me unleashed, teeth bared and growling.

When I get time and space alone to write, or paint, or just read and think, I’m a better woman, a better mum. And generally a nicer person all round. I have more enthusiasm for life–so it seems like an easy no-brainer to me. Carve out the time and do the work, then spread more joy and live in peace.

Yet there are people in my life who continue to misunderstand my artist’s need for space to create. They find my need for withdrawal disconcerting, even hurtful. They take it personally, when it is not a slight towards them at all. They may even go so far as to suggest that my art is ‘trivial’ because I don’t earn real money from it. “Yet,” I always add. I’m still putting in the time. The 10,000 hours I need to pursue towards mastery of my craft.

This kind of experience can be incredibly discouraging to the artist soul. Our inner artist is like a child: impatient and irrational in it’s demands, and in real need of attention and nurturing, if it is ever to do great things with it’s dreams.

If you have grown up in an environment that placed great demands on you to be sensible or responsible, then you have probably been ignoring your inner artist’s voice for years. Your artist soul could be so repressed and ignored that you do not even think yourself to be ‘creative’.

Of course, this is rubbish. We are all creative. It is the natural expression of our force for life, and when it is dammed up or diverted, we start to lose our joie de vivre and our childlike enthusiasm for all things new, for wild adventures and simple unimpeded fun.

Worse than that, it’s my belief that without an outlet, the force it takes to hold this natural energy in can cause depression and serious ill health within the body. But I’m not a doctor or psychotherapist, so don’t listen to me–you only need listen to yourself, and the little voice within you, calling you out to play. Is it there? What does it say to you now?

Defending our right to our artist’s time and space takes courage and conviction, especially if we are serious about pursuing our craft and making our dreams a reality. On the road to mastery, we must be able to stand up and say that we are committed to the journey that we have embarked upon, and allow no diversions or material distractions to get in our way.

In the face of lukewarm approval from those around us, this can take the kind of strength and resilience that our inner artist, in it’s childlike condition, probably lacks.

That’s why the metaphor of the Hero’s Journey is so compelling to many of us. It touches the artistic and creative souls most deeply, as they recognize an aspect of themselves in the protagonist: they know they are on a journey that may seem impossibly difficult at times, and they know they may be faced with great adversity along the way.

Now, I’m not talking about encounters with dragons and goblins and such, for juggling the combined demands of housework, paying the bills and raising small children is far more challenging than those kinds of battles with mythical beasts, as any modern parent will grimly contest.

In the face of discouragement from others about our art, we must find a source of inner strength and find a way to ‘take heart’ (literally, ‘encouragement’) about our creative work. We must become our own best champions:

If no one else is cheering us on, we must cheer ourselves on with tokens of esteem for work well done.

(Julia Cameron, Walking In This World)

And most importantly, we must carry on doing the work. We must keep turning up at the page. Keep filling the well. Keep defending our right to the creative solitude that we need. With time and discipline and practice, it gets easier to do. Take courage, and the investment will become the reward once the work is done. It’s a lonely road at times, but one that’s well worth travelling.

Fear of commas, and the dying semi-colon

February 24, 2010

“I have an irrational fear of commas,” he said, and I smiled.

It doesn’t seem so strange to me, the poor old little comma. I have used it and abused it much over the years. And as a former English teacher, I have a better idea than most ordinary folk about when to stick it in or leave it out.

Besides, fear of making a few mistakes here and there is not going to get in the way of pursuing my goal of mastery as a writer. There really is no choice but to embrace fear of failure, and plod on. Or plot on (joke)… (groan, I know).

Yet I’m one of those peculiar people that takes great delight in playing with the rules of grammar and punctuation a little bit. That’s because I knew them once, the rules.

A great education instilled me with the confidence to write at length, in complex clauses and elaborate prose; to throw colons and semi-colons around at will, with shameless disregard for the reader’s concern.

It seems I’m not the only one with a deeper interest in the subject of grammar and punctuation. In 2004, a little book on the rules of punctuation in English became a surprise New York Times bestseller. I read it and enjoyed it too. Though it hardly ranks as a classic on my shelf.

By the end of the year, I’d seen a thousand unloved copies in secondhand stores. Lynne Truss’s sudden rise to popularity shrank without trace–a cautionary tale for aspiring authors in their choice of topic, perhaps.

Before you get me wrong, I have to say that one thing troubles me about the premise of Truss’s book: linguistic purism.

There are people who seem to think that our language should be defended and protected from all change. It seems strange to me because our language has been changing and evolving for thousands of years. There are no rules, only a bunch of mutually-upheld conventions.

Great writers have been challenging these conventions for years. Making language fresh; making us, as users, think about our words, our sentences. A subtle revolution–but what can be more dangerous and subversive than our words?

When Cummings abandoned capital letters in his work, did the world fall apart? I think not. And yet we’re still asking these questions of ourselves today. I agree that total abandon would not be desired but it’s good to challenge our assumptions and the received wisdom at times.

Though I’m with GrammarBlog on the assertion that people who don’t know the difference between “your” and “you’re” should be strung up by the gonads.

So whilst I’m playing around with my developing thoughts on the merits of capital letters over sentence case in my post titles, and considering whether to use full-stops too, please bear with me and accept that I’m a little apples-and-pears in my approach.

I call artistic license in this case. What’s your excuse?

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