On, In, and Around Mondays: Opening the Creative Door

She chose to frame it as a question of doors. Used a story from childhood, about how she had been afraid to turn a handle. The book club post was about Risk.

This morning I'm marveling. The imagery throughout this week's chapter of The Artist's Way is doors. (Was she prescient? Or had she read ahead? ;-)

I like this quote, for instance. Wrote it down... "Rather than allow himself to be blocked, he looked for the other door."

Sometimes when I am going through a big questioning time in my life, when I am feeling blocked or wishing for more, I end up dreaming of a huge house. It never looks quite the same, but it is always rambling. And it has a lot of doors, of course. With a lot of handles just waiting to be turned.

Cameron says, "One of our favorite things to do—instead of our art—is to contemplate the odds [that we won't succeed]."

I think what I like about my recurring dream is that it invites me to forget about "success" and the odds. Every door is a promise. I can't go wrong. Every room seems to lead one to the other, and every room is intriguing.

"Small actions lead us," reminds Cameron. Why yes. One little handle, turned, opens up a whole house of dreams.

______

On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)



<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...

On, In, and Around Mondays: No Books, No Bread

Stop reading. (Just for a week.)

That's Julia Cameron's advice in chapter 4, for The Artist's Way journey.

I didn't do that, but I did something similar.

For the third week in a row, I stopped grocery shopping. This began accidentally. Things just didn't work out to go to the store.

Of course, we soon had no bread.

Then we had no milk.

Then no apples, no bananas, no broccoli, no lettuce or hummus or chips or cereal or... a lot of things that serve us as staple foods. I decided not to shop again, and again.

This sent me to the freezer, the basement cupboard, the back of the produce drawers. It sent me to the woods and the yard, to wild mustard and ramps, currants and dried figs. We baked bread. My youngest made homemade tortilla chips. Cashews suddenly seemed like an excellent breakfast when accompanied by frozen raspberries. Last night we had quesadillas with hot peppers.

My fridge is cleaner than it usually is, even spacious. My cooking creativity is heightened. What *do* you do when your staples are not available anymore?

I've done the "don't read" thing before with Julia. Reading is a staple in my house. She was right, of course. The absence of word-bread turned me towards play, hand-made things, even times of complete motionless silent daydreaming.

What's a staple you could veer around, just for a week? Going bookless or breadless, might you find yourself fig-happy and currant-creative?

______

On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)



<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...

On, In, and Around Mondays: The Smallest Wild Rose Will Do

I'm mixing it up, since I've already read The Artist's Way, twice. 

I'm reading it a third time now, yes, for the book club, but I also got Cameron's Finding Water from the library. It gets at some of the same material from a different angle, with the coolest little shifts in language. Like this...

"Even the tiniest of Artists Dates will yield results."

I test this language, on a day when I have no date planned. It's just a small diversion, this decision to walk behind the parking lot, on a path that goes nowhere but a woodland loop (so short l I can do it in a few minutes).

Along the path? Wild roses. Diminutive, compared to the fancy roses we can buy and plant in our gardens.

But I spend time with them. Wishing I could catch the way the light is held, as if in a white cup. Holding my breath (why do I hold my breath?) as I lean in to take a shot. And then I run my fingers across the iridescent whiteness, just to take home the scent of roses on my skin. A free perfume. An alteration of my chemistry, if only for today.

Cameron tells me I am wrong about this—the temporary change of chemistry. She says, give it time to sink in, to enter as if into the blood stream, through the skin, through the inhalation of the fragrance. She says it this way...

"Artist Dates fill us with exuberance. We see that we are not caught by the narrow confines of life as we know it."

I am inclined to believe it, after the roses. Even though the path seems, on its surface, the same.

_______

On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.

If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)



<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...

The Artist's Way: Collecting Quotes & Questions

Sometimes I simply like to collect quotes. Like these from today's first book club discussion of The Artist's Way.

For me, it's almost a form of poem-writing, to do this. I lift essential words from a text and they stand in a line, speaking powerfully...

***
How do you know if you are creatively blocked? Jealousy is an excellent clue.

[Question to self: who am I currently jealous of? why? ]

***
Many of us find that we have squandered our creative energies by investing disproportionately in the lives, hopes, dreams, and plans of others.

[Question to self: is there anyone whose plans I've let seriously eclipse my own? If so, why have I done this? What are the "good reasons" I continue to use as an excuse? ]

***
All that angry, whiny, petty stuff that you write down in the morning [pages] stands between you and your creativity. Worrying about the job, the laundry, the funny knock in the car, the weird look in your lover's eye—this stuff eddies through our subconscious and muddies our days. Get it on the page.

***
It is very difficult to complain about a situation morning after morning, month after month, without being moved to constructive action. The pages lead us out of despair and into undreamed-of solutions.

[Note to self: I like the process aspect of this. It assumes that the undreamed-of solutions will take time. That's okay. Undreamed-of solutions can't possibly all be at the surface. Otherwise they wouldn't qualify as undreamed-of.]

***
Very often audacity, not talent, makes one person an artist and another a shadow artist—hiding in the shadows, afraid to step out and expose the dream to the light, fearful that it will disintegrate to the touch.

***
Creativity is play.

[Question to self: when I don't take time to play, why don't I take time? What's that about? What are the excuses I use?]

***
Progress, not perfection, is what we should be asking of ourselves.

***
Give yourself permission to be a beginner.

[Question to self: what do I feel like I am a beginner at? Can I let that happen? Should I maybe always have at least one area of pursuit that requires beginner-status?]

***
'But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really play the piano/act/paint/write a decent play?' / Yes... the same age you will be if you don't. / So let's start.

***

Lovely post photo is from Duane Scott. Used with permission.

Ready for an Onion Date

How to stay creative?

There are so many answers.

I like Julia Cameron's idea. The Artist's Date.

Yet my life doesn't easily accommodate such goings-on. I have two girls who I home-educate. I take care of my house (okay, I try :) — mowing, clipping, cleaning. I work as a writer and manager.

When would I possibly plan a date? It's hard.

Thus, my boy-scouts (girl scouts?) approach: always be prepared. There are dates lurking around unexpected corners, if only we are ready for them.

On Saturday, for instance, I ended up needing to take my daughter to a friend's house, far away. Spur-of-the-moment sleepover invitation. I had meant to spend the morning writing, but suddenly...

I saw my chance.

Camera, notebook, Luci Shaw. Into the bag. Water bottle, tissues, and banana muffin (in case I needed a survival kit)— also into the bag. And Lady Gaga, of all people: into the bag. Her music inspires me, despite that her risque lyrics, triangle hair and dresses are... what shall we say... creative.

Gaga in the speakers, the hours before me, I made a date with the day. I stopped on the side of the road to capture a little cottage.



I found a barn full of antiques and... corn, squash, onions, tomatoes.





As part of my survival plan, I stopped at a park that has a bathroom with running water and a brass lock on the door. Along the way to tile floors and paper towels, I found pinecones new-minted, red leaves flaming against blue skies, and bare-faced wildflowers that Lady Gaga could never rival with plastic or pop. On the way home, I did, however, turn up the music and dream.





The creative life doesn't hand itself to us. We hand ourselves to it. One creative date at a time.



Wordle by Sonia. Used with permission.

The Book I'm Not Writing (yes, I stole your title, Bradley)

What could it hurt to write some fiction? A scene here and there? Besides risking a little embarrassment because it's not my best suit, what could it hurt? I remember Julia (sorry my anti-Julia friend) saying that any one of us could write a novel just because. Just for the heck of it. I'm anyone, aren't I? Not a novelist by any means. But someone who wants to play...

---

The first thing she noticed were his fingers. Or maybe his fingernails. They were cropped to the tip, ridged and beaten. Yet despite their obvious wear, for a shoemaker’s nails, they seemed remarkably clean. This is the first thing she noticed.

The second thing Rachel noticed was the way he looked at her when he put the bag containing Edward’s shoes on the counter. It was not an unusual look by any means, and not too long. It was simply a flicker across black, like something remembered. Then it was gone.

She fumbled through her worn leather purse to gather the appropriate payment, which she placed on the counter in exchange for the paper bag containing Edward’s shoes. The bag crinkled and muttered as she gathered it against her chest, and she glanced at the wall of shoes behind the shoemaker. So many shoes stacked in little openings, like orphans awaiting adoption. Brown and black, grey and navy, and a pair of red shoes off to the side. Who did they all belong to, she wondered. Then she blinked and said, "Well, thank you, Mr. Delano."

The transaction complete, and thoughts of what Edward should need for lunch beginning to crowd in, she walked out into the day. Elm shadows played at her feet, gray against her gray flats. Her shoes were rough at the toe, perhaps because she sometimes scuffed the ground when she got distracted looking at this or that sparrow. Who knows why Rachel’s shoes were actually in need of repair. It could have been any number of reasons—their age, her gait, the wrong leather, maybe even that she never polished them. But she suddenly understood what needed to be done. She would wait, though, for three Saturdays. And then she would go.

---

I think it is good for me to write in arenas where I'm a beginner. It reminds me how tentative a person can feel when putting his words out there for the world to see. It reminds me to be very encouraging, accepting, and careful when I work with new or shy writers. I think it is good to write something I have no plans of writing... to simply play.

(As an aside, my older daughter just gave me some feedback: "Well, it's not very bad." Yes sirree. This is definitely embarrassing. :)

Egg in the Window photo, by L.L. Barkat. Apologies to Bradley J. Moore for stealing his title. :)

What I Should Be Writing

We rounded a set of stacks, looking for books on the Victorian Age. "You should write fiction," said my older daughter. "You'd be good at it."

I'm not sure what I have done over time to give her this impression. I explained that fiction is something I don't feel I can do right now, maybe ever.

This week, when I sat down to do Julia's writing Initiation Tool, I felt equally unsure about what it said to me. If I put all the pieces together (my favorite movies, books, fairy tale, top things I think about), it appears I should be writing something along the lines of romantic business management books or dramatic treatises on education. It is possible I should also be writing these in broken French.

We'll see. For today I am writing this, about what I should be writing. And I am saying goodbye to Julia's book The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life. Which leaves me back at the beginning. What should I be writing?

Once upon a time, there was a romantic writer who spoke very little French...


Peony photo, by L.L. Barkat.

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On the Table Where I Write

"Why do you always say what Julia says? I am tired of hearing from Julia."

He was being honest, and it made me chuckle.

Well, I am saying what Julia says, because I am writing these posts for the HighCallingBlogs book club. But if I tell the truth it is more than that. For better or worse, I like Julia. I don't agree with everything she says, but I like her. And it may even be possible that she has changed my life.

That feels like a big statement. And I suppose it is. For today I am not going to try to defend it. It is part of the table where I am writing my life.

This week, in her chapter "Roots," Julia opens with talk about her actual table. Funny, she is also writing in what she calls "high summer," on the Fourth of July. Gracing her table is evidence of the season... roses, rambling and red.

I look at my own table. It doesn't seem graced so much as cluttered, with seasons present and past...

Faded yellow table cloth, French style. A painted mug, Picasso colorful—given to me by a student once—and a sculpture of mother-and-child made by my older daughter. Stubs from bills, summer camp papers, a travel alarm clock, a recently recovered-from-being-lost voice recorder. The impressive looking heft of Julian Bell's book Mirror of the World nicely diminished by a dried up grape stem that looks like an old woman's hand.

My table says a lot about me. Things that Julia can't say. That is how it goes. Someone can change your life, but she can't live it for you. Your life is yours to write.



Mother and Child balance sculpture by Sara, age 12. Photo by L.L. Barkat.

Driving to Words

Go driving, said Julia. It will give you miles to unwind.

I don't really like to drive. All week I drove my daughter back and forth to camp. I used it as a time to listen to music. But I was relieved when Friday came. Driving doesn't do for me what it does for Julia.

I prefer to unwind across pages or back porch mornings. Dew on begonias, sage, the lemon-thyme I just transplanted—these things give me rest, open me to write. While driving through Julia's words, I found a sentence that made me pause...

This is the molten light filmmakers call "golden hour," she said.

I liked that. I let it take hold of me. It tickled out an Independence Day poem of sorts...

Sunset

This is the golden hour,
when I can play out my life
in hot pink,
purple,
cherry red,
and instead of giving me
that look, you will
love me for it, ache
for tomorrow, ask me
to do it all over
again.









Fireworks and Girl photos, by L.L. Barkat.

Julia Found Words for Me

Where do writing ideas come from?

If we are open to the world, we find they are around every corner, inside every ice cream cone (or Popsicle, as the case may be). Writing ideas are often in the words that other people say. Like these from Julia Cameron...

Wherever I am, wherever I can, I write.... Am I balanced? Overreacting? Happy? Sad? My hand moving across the page teaches me my emotional weather. (p.173)

I loved those words. The minute I read them I knew they contained a poem. If I only I would write it. Part of me wanted to move forward and finish her chapter, but I ignored that dutiful self. There had been the slightest beginning of a discovery, the tip of something, and I decided I'd rather spend my time uncovering what Julia had found for me...

Weather Report

My hand across the page
tells me this is a hot
June day— unbearably
hot— and I am not anymore
the kind of woman who
will sit back and take it
without finding a lime green
Popsicle or a lone shaded stone
on which to eat frozen sweetness
down to its round-edged stick.

What words are waiting for you today, maybe next to the lawn mower? You'd better bring a notebook along to catch and keep them.


Sunset photo by Sara. Used with permission.

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Finding Your Writing Voice on Twitter

"Are you ready for that?"

Kathleen and I were reading Neruda beneath the redwoods. We talked about his exile. I was startled when Kathleen lowered her voice, looked steadily into my eyes and asked the question.

"Are you ready for that?"

It seemed unreal. Should I, as a writer and poet, ever expect actual exile? Was that was she meant?

continue reading at HighCallingBlogs...


Veil in the Tree photo, by L.L. Barkat.


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An Accidental Post While Watering the Garden

I gave myself permission not to write again for a while. Then I went and watered the garden. The eggplants were particularly wilted. I thought about the eggplants. I considered writing. I decided to just think about the eggplants.

Then I came inside and had a glass of water and started reading Julia Cameron, and I decided maybe I will give myself permission to write a post on Monday— one that I start here and structure with a click-over to HighCallingBlogs. The noon spot. Or maybe the 4 o'clock. I am trying not to scare myself back to the eggplants.

Anyway, if I do the post, it will be called something like "Finding Your Voice on Twitter." Or maybe I will just water the garden again.


Framing the Eggplant, a "Mr. Bill" style photo for PhotoPlay.

AN ON-PURPOSE POST:
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Happiness Beyond Writing

I was supposed to take a bath, then run, not walk, to make a list of things that make me happy.

That was Julia Cameron's advice.

I took the bath. It seemed like a perfect Sabbath thing to do.

Should I rush to the page like Julia advised? It seemed counter-Sabbath. I did not rush. In fact, I did not go to the page at all.

Why list the things that make me happy? Why not give the day to acts of joy instead? I thought about God's idea for the Sabbath. Rest. Rest and rejoice.

Downstairs, I made a cup of green tea. I poked through the fridge and found herb-butter my children had made the night before. I slathered it on crusty brown bread and cut a few slices of fresh mozzarella. Simple Sabbath morning.

I took my time. One of my girls sat quietly on the couch, writing. The other was off with Daddy to church. I did not go to church, but instead slept in after a late Saturday night. And woke to Julia's advice. And took my bath. And took my time.

The rest of the day I gave over to friends. A picnic. It rained before we were finished. We moved on to someone's home. I had more tea. This time mint, fresh picked, fresh brewed and iced. We played cards, talked, laughed.

Several times throughout the day I felt drawn to the computer, but I listened to a deeper sense that said, "Not today. Today I do not want to see news, or answer questions, or feel responsible." I played the piano, played guitar, started reading a new chapter book to my kids.

Sabbath. Rest.


Lamb's Ear photo, by L.L. Barkat.

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Excuse Me, I'm WRITE-ing

I have sometimes been a cranky writer.

"I'm writing," I say when my daughter interrupts. I put special emphasis on the word writing, and extra-special emphasis on the first syllable.

I think I do this because when I draw out the wr sound, it's an act of verbal wringing. I want to wring the interruption right out of my day.

Okay, the truth is I was a cranky writer as lately as Saturday, when working on my Barbie poem. My Littlest became very insistent when I was smack in the middle of what felt like my best thoughts. I had to stop in the "boys" section and attend to her. I felt irritated, and I even gave her a mini talk on how it's unkind to interrupt people's creative processes. It can take away their thoughts.

There is a place for drawing boundaries around our moments. Still, I think Julia Cameron is right. Interruptions will not ruin us. They will not wring our thoughts out of us, ruin our poem or chapter. Do we really think our ideas are so superficial as to disappear that easily?

If I'm honest with myself, I know my daughter cannot steal my thoughts; they rise from deep places. So why did I give her the mini-talk? It's because my pleasure had been interrupted, and that felt uncomfortable. That is the more precise reason, and it moves away from blame.

Somehow it seems important to try to be more precise and, instead of blaming, say, "I felt sad to stop writing my poem, because I was having so much fun." It is the real reason for my irritation. After all, as a seasoned writer I've been interrupted over and again, and it never stopped me from finally getting my words on the page.

As it turned out, my Barbie poem went where it needed to go. Even with a 45-minute detour between lines three and four. Maybe even because of the 45-minute detour (special emphasis on the word because :)


Pea Flower photo by L.L. Barkat.

Finding Your Words

The poet walks. That's what Julia says. I did not know this is what she says until I got home, from walking. Julia is right. When we walk, we find our words, we find memories we take home in our bodies. These are a few of the memories I now hold...



Giant leaves make me feel I am in the rain forest, but this is just a quiet walk in a Northeast wood.




"There's a circle!" She runs over and sits, telling me it reminds her of Stonehenge. What is it about a circle?




My Littlest has gone off and found a secret garden. It feels enchanted.












A white moth surprises me when I look again at the photo. I did not know he was there.




The green of an open field. It heals without words.




My girls know all about what a field can do. See how it animates?




The day is like seed upon seed. Who knows where it will drift in memory, and maybe someday in words?


Ward Pound Ridge Reservation photos, by L.L. Barkat.

Writing for the Lint Pickers

I am going to tell you about my friend Liza.

Okay, her name isn't really Liza. But if I told you her name, then I wouldn't get to write about her. And I want to write about her, because Liza used to do something deadly to her creative self, and maybe you are still doing what Liza used to do.

She would make these beautiful poems. Truly beautiful.

Then Liza would go to another poet friend who would read her poems quietly and seriously, as if she really cared about these beautiful poems.

It would start small.

You should take out the last three lines.

Liza would feel a little sad. She especially liked the last three lines.

The language here is too wide open.

Liza liked wide open language.

I just don't get the point of this poem.

Liza liked a little mystery.

By the time their "sharing session" was done, Liza felt like the dumbest poet on earth— which, if we listen to Julia Cameron this week, we will understand was exactly what Liza's friend was hoping. Maybe not consciously; she spent the time reading the poems, she took the time to share her critiques.

But, in the end, Liza's friend was like the playwright's friends that Cameron discusses...

The feedback from the playwright's jealous peers? Mainly lint picking. How is the playwright to understand the size of what's been done when the comments all address the creative lint?

I'm not saying that it's bad to have friends who can tell us where we need to cut three lines (or maybe even ten), but if that's the only kind of feedback they ever give, we need to do what Liza finally did. Find a new place to share.


Making the Boat, photo by L.L. Barkat.