My Words (a reminder to myself)

I wrote this whirling whorl of an essay and first posted it just over two years ago. Tonight something made me look for it and re-read it. I'm glad I did, because I needed a good jolt in the creative spirit. I'm constantly needing to remember to write, to start, to let my words do their thing. It's good to remember the snap and sizzle when I let the words fly. If you read it, I hope you'll get a good creative jolt, too. (And tell me: What do you words do)

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My words have been buttoned up in tight tuxedos, choking on champagne, cliché, and caviar. My words are tired of these too-tight high-heels that manage to look sensible, not sexy. My words have been holding their breath, corseted and small. My words have been making small talk but missing the flirty banter at the other end of the bar. My words ache to wear a sexy red dress that shows off a fair piece of décolletage. My words want to sprawl atop a piano. Or maybe my words prefer a seedy bar and a sequined halter top, just because they've never done that sort of thing before. Beer is an acquired taste, a bitter fizz and pop on my words' tongue. My words want to whisper in the dark, play it fast and loose, run across a field of wildflowers with a bottle of whiskey and Tom Petty singing sweet-yet-dark in the soundtrack sky. My words need to laugh, need to shoot up, need to let the bottom fall out. My words have never scandalized anyone, but they are still trying. My words are a carousel in the desert heat. My words drip honey onto hot buttered toast.

My words pick locks, jump out of planes, know exactly how to touch a man to make him moan. My words know First Aid. My words will never tickle you, because tickling is cruel, not fun. My words want to ride a fast horse. My words take a long, hot bath and then an ice cold shower. My words heard a strange noise in the night and whimpered. My words learn something new every day. Yesterday it was the term crepuscular, which sounds clinical but is actually something beautiful. My words try to speak French. A Cuban woman once mistook my words for Spanish. My words never flag. My words are in love. My words shake their fists and yell at the sky. My words miss you. My words have traveled to every timezone on the planet and never had jetlag. My words always say please-and-thank-you-very-much. My words will sing you a song. My words saw you standing there.

My words know when to be quiet. My words saw a hawk and called it an eagle. My words like to make an entrance. My words know all about cause and effect. My words mimic your casual affect. My words are Whirling Dervishes who live next door to Rumi. My words have fled the sand of the desert in search of water. My words are a sure-footed mountain goat with a little white beard. My words crossed the river. My words strip naked and streak across the page. My words will run in circles and all fall down. My words will keep you company. My words will shed a tear. My words will muster up a barbaric yawp and let it loose over the rooftops of the world. My words will spin you right round baby, right round. Like a record, baby. My words are your words. From California to the New York Island. My words hide in the shadows of a campfire. My words disco in the woods. My words will carpe diem. (Yeah, my words saw "Dead Poets Society." So did you.) My words strain at the seams, finger the hem of your dress, bite the soft pad of flesh on your upper arm. My words are hungry. My words don't know when to stop. My words are willful and ignorant, like a crab in the sand. My words are heavy ripe fruit on a tree. My words know how to count to one-hundred. My words are lullabies. My words are stars. My words will listen. My words know nothing about the ways of the world.

Super sweet discount code for Alchemy Inspiration: Start Writing

Hello, creative souls! I put this out on Facebook and Twitter already, but I thought I'd post it here, too, in case you're not, you know, glued to my social networking streams. :)

Tonight at midnight (U.S. Eastern Time) I'll be sending out a super sweet discount code for Alchemy Inspiration: Start Writing to the peeps on my mailing list. If you'd like to get in on this action, just sign-up before then and I'll make sure you get the deal.

My newsletter sign-up form is a bit hidden over on my Connect page, and I'm not sure everyone knows about it. I'm revamping things and will be making the sign-up more visible soon. I'm also sweetening the format of the newsletter so that every few weeks you'll receive something useful or encouraging for your writing life, such as stories, writing tips, invitations to inspiration, and other bits of creative loveliness. I respect your privacy and will never sell, rent, or share your information. And of course, you can unsubscribe at any time, no worries.

Remember, the discount code for Alchemy Inspiration: Start Writing will go out tonight at midnight (9:00pm on the U.S. west coast). If you've been on the fence about joining in, now's the time to come on over.

Why is starting so hard? (a video & invitation)

A few posts ago I wrote a roundup of my upcoming courses and workshops. The next course, Alchemy Inspiration: Start Writing, begins next Monday (February 6).

In this video I talk about the challenge of getting started with creative ventures (including video making!), and give you a glimpse into why I developed Alchemy Inspiration. I also talk about who it's designed for. (hint: want to write? feel stalled? feeling afraid? it's for you.)

It takes a lot of energy to start writing. This is true if you've never put pen to paper or if you've written a lot and "should" be an old pro by now.

Creativity needs kindling, something to spark the fire and get it going.

It needs time.

It needs courage.

It needs kindness, which can often be found in a community of like-minded souls.

And it needs trust. Trust in yourself, trust in your creative process. Of course, before you can trust yourself and your creative process, you need to know what that process is. You need to get acquainted with your own creative voice, with your muse, with the words bubbling up inside of you.

In Alchemy Inspiration you'll explore ways to listen for -- and hear -- those words bubbling up inside of you. You'll begin to recognize the stories aching for you to tell them. You'll play with words and delight in language. You'll uncover and experiment with your unique creative process. You'll learn to listen for -- and to trust -- your own writing voice. You'll give yourself the gift of time and space to write. (Maybe a little, maybe a lot.) You'll give yourself permission to play on the page. You'll allow yourself to be a beginner and to let the magic unfold without fear or worry or the need to make it "perfect."

It's going to be so good! Fun and accessible and inspirational. Friendly and supportive. Insightful and useful at the same time. (I love that combo!)

"Alchemy" can be defined as the "power or process of transforming something common into something special." In this course, the something common is words. The something special is your beautiful stories. Alchemy Inspiration: Start Writing is about the magical transformations that happen within us and on the page when we allow ourselves to start stringing words together, delighting in language, and giving form to our stories.

I would love it if you joined us. Registration is open, and class starts next week. Want to come along? Want to start writing?

Creativity & Time (In The Word Cellar)

The last "In The Word Cellar" post wrapped up the MFA mini-series. That said, I'm happy to add to it if you have questions, so just let me know. This week I'm thinking about creativity and time. I'd like to write a beautiful, meditative essay about this topic, but that's going to take more time than I have right now. So for now here's an off-the-cuff post instead.

Doing stuff takes time. Doing creative stuff can take a lot of time. It can also make time go all wonky, contracting and expanding it, making it refuse to play by the normal hourly rules.

Scenario #1: You sit down to write and the words won't come. You tell yourself, I'll sit here for one hour and do nothing else but focus on writing. Time limps, drags, scrapes by until you're begging for mercy, aching to stand up and do something more pleasurable, like wash dishes. 

Scenario #2: You set out to write (or paint or dance or take photos) and you shimmy into a sweet groove. You are in the zone. You look up and zip! You've "lost" an hour or two or five.

Scenario #3: This is the in-between scenario: You write something, maybe a blog post. You think it will take about an hour to write it, edit it, proofread it, add a photo to it, and hit "publish." Sometimes it takes an hour. Sometimes it takes three. It's not that time zipped or dragged, it's just that the process was more involved and consuming than you thought it would be.

I was talking about creativity and time with a client the other day. She was feeling frustrated because Scenario #3 happens to her a lot. It happens to me a lot, too. Things often take much longer than I think they will. (Except when they don't, of course. Sometimes I put off doing something because I'm sure it will be difficult and a major time-suck. And then it ends up being easy-peasy and taking five minutes, and I feel like a schmuck, albeit a productive schmuck.)

I've been thinking about the nature of creative work, and how it forces us to play by different rules than if we were just making widgets on an assembly line. Creative work isn't so regulated, so orderly, so perfectly timed.

Ideas don't come down the conveyor belt in perfect succession, spaced apart just so. 

Developing an idea doesn't happen in an orderly, assembly line fashion. It's messy. Things do not always proceed in a linear direction. There is much doubling back, doubling up, rearranging, redoing. I have to remember this every time I start writing a new essay or developing curriculum for a new course. Each time I do it I learn something new, but the learning never stops.

The most important thing I keep learning about creative work is that it needs time and space to breathe. If I sit down to write, I want to be writing--actively. I want to see words filling up the blank page. Letter after letter, word after word, line after line, punctuation mark after punctuation mark. Progress! I worry that if I'm not typing, I'm not doing anything. And if I'm not doing anything, then I must be lazy or stupid or creatively blocked. But no, this is not so. Idling is a good and necessary part of the creative process. Let your mind wander. Daydream. Doodle. Give yourself -- and your work -- time and space to breathe. I mean this literally (meditation, yoga, deep breathing, taking walks -- all good things), and more metaphorically. Let things steep and simmer for awhile. It adds flavor and depth, like a good soup. (Not everything needs -- or can wait for -- a lot of marinating, of course. This blog post, for example, won't get a lot of breathing room. It's a bit more slapdash than that. But the essay I'm working on this week is getting a lot of breathing room. I've been noodling with it since August. This frustrates me, but I also know that it needed this long to come into being and to come into its own.)

Creative work is like window caulking: It needs time to set-up and cure. Or compare it to wine and men: It needs plenty of time to mature. (My apologies to the men. And the grapes.)

(Those jokes probably won't make it into the meditative essay I want to write about creativity and time, so thanks for indulging me here.)

What about you? How does time fit into your creative process?

{In The Word Cellar runs on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month. Read other posts in the series here.}

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If you'd like to explore your own creative process and give yourself the time, space, and permission to write, I invite you to join me for Alchemy Inspiration: Start Writing. This fun, gentle, and encouraging 4-week ecourse is perfect for anyone who wants to start writing for the first time or the first time in a long time. Alchemy Inspiration runs February 6 - March 2, and registration is open.

A Lesson in Kindness 22 Years in the Making

"It takes me a few minutes to understand that the screeching, crunching sound is coming from my backyard...." 

Read the rest of my Kind Kindred guest post on Kind Over Matter today.