What's Here Now? Let's Make Stuff!

[artistic license by Hallie Bateman, the back side of which says, ‘this is issued as a license to make art. It does not mean the art has to be good or make sense.’]

I love working with clients on the topic of being creative. I think I love this work so much because I’ve been on a kind of accidental creative quest of my own over the last five years.

Perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned is that there is no one, right way to be a creative person. I used to think there was. I didn’t get a lot done that way.

YOU are the one who gets to decide how to approach your creative life. Most of us are following what we think we SHOULD be doing instead of what feels right for us given who we are, how we’re wired, and what our life is actually like.

I believe our job as creatively-minded people (which is all of us, by the way) is to learn what being creative looks like and feels like for us, specifically. We get to make it all up. Sure, listen to all the how tos, read up on what artists say about creating, take classes and workshops, seek inspiration (or not), do online tutorials — whatever. Then take what works for you and leave what doesn’t.

I offer all of the following not because I’m right or I know better than you, but in case something in here resonates. If it does, take it and run with it in your own way.

"You have to be willing to spend time making things for no known reason."

— Lynda Barry

FIND YOUR TEACHERS
(And sign up for their classes even if you’re scared. Especially if you’re scared!)

One night in the fall of 2013, I impulsively signed up for a thing called Writers Camp at the Esalen Institute run by Cheryl Strayed (author of Wild). It was a five-day writing workshop taught by Cheryl and other writers I adored (Pam Houston and Steve Almond), and a couple of writers I had not heard of before (Alan Heathcock and Samantha Dunn). I took a swig of wine and entered my credit card number, hit the submit button, and told myself I’d save the freak out for when camp started eight months later.

And the freak out did come. Was I good enough to attend? What if I had to share something I’d written? What about the clothing optional hot tubs?! I was intimidated and anxious and shy.

But I showed up and it was amazing (and I got to see a lot of butts).

Those five days at camp ignited a love of workshops and I have taken many since. Not only have these teachers helped me become a better writer, they’ve also shown me how many ways there are to be in relationship with the creative parts of ourselves.

When Cheryl Strayed told us she didn’t write everyday, that was such a relief to hear. I’m not a write everyday person either. Hearing Pam Houston talk about how she builds pieces of writing out of what she calls the glimmers — things in the world that snag her attention — I recognized my own habit of jotting down the things I see and hear as I move about the world. When I took a workshop with the writer and cartoonist Lynda Barry, I found a love of drawing I didn’t know was lurking inside of me (I also found the person I’d most like to Freaky Friday body swap with — because it looks like a total blast being Lynda Barry).

I am always on the look out for good teachers. Sometimes the teacher is a dog or a tree or an old letter you found tucked inside the pages of a book. Sometimes it’s a Mary Oliver quote you get tattooed on your arm. Sometimes it’s your mom’s dementia.

JOIN A GANG
(Full of people who make you feel like you CAN)

Over the years, I’ve found my people. In each workshop I take, there are usually a couple of people I hit it off with and whose work I admire (or am even jealous of). Inevitably, these people become part of my growing writer gang. When I’m struggling or stuck, I reach out to them and I feel supported and encouraged. When I hear how they are struggling, I don’t feel alone. When I hear that things are going well, I feel buoyed by their success. I feel lifted up, like I CAN. I feel them rooting me on, holding me accountable, and giving me the kind of feedback that will help make my work so much better. Go, gang, go!

AT THE BEGINNING, DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE END
(Let it suck)

I know what good writing is simply from reading a lot (being an English major and working in bookstores and publishing helped too). And it is crazy-making when I can’t make my own writing as good as I want it to be, which is 99% of the time. It feels like an insurmountable task. Why even bother?

One of my writing teachers said that you learn how to write a book by writing a book. So, you really have to start so you can learn what you need to learn. I try to focus on what I’m learning instead of worrying if it’s going to be any good or not. I try to write through the not knowing. And it almost always sucks in the beginning. And the middle. OK, the whole things sucks right now, but I know I will keep working on it until it doesn’t. I try not to think about the audience or how it will be received. Or how the cover will look, or if anyone will show up to my author readings. Or if it’ll end up in the remainder bin. Then I tell myself, SLOW YOUR ROLL, SALLY! Nobody even knows this thing exists yet. I just try to stay in the moment of it. I try to keep putting words on the page, bird by bird, as Anne Lamott says.

CREATE STRUCTURE
(Just enough)

If I don’t create some structure for myself, the creative work doesn’t happen. One thing that really worked for me was doing a 100 day project. Being part of a writing group also kicks me in the pants. Deadlines work too (uh, except for this newsletter, it seems). Daily, weekly, monthly goals — that can work too. For the first three months of this year, I changed my work schedule. I moved all my coaching clients to three days a week and I left two days open for creative work. My rule for myself was to get the work done BEFORE I looked at the internet, because once I got online, the battle was straight uphill.

My clients often tell me they want structure. We work together to design a framework that takes into account what their actual life is like. And one that’s not going to be so rigid that they end up avoiding it or feeling defeated before they even start.

SET YOURSELF UP FOR SOME EASY WINS
(Also, let it be hard)

I like being radically realistic when it comes to what I can and will accomplish. This doesn’t mean I don’t have audacious goals or dreams, but I have learned that setting small milestones that are relatively easy to reach, makes me feel proud of myself and motivated to do it again. If I set myself a big goal and I don’t reach it, I feel defeated and am more apt to throw in the towel. A couple of years ago, I gave National Novel Writing Month a try. I wasn’t sure I could write everyday, nor was I sure I could reach the 50,000 word goal (I didn’t, I got to 36,000), but I set myself a super realistic goal — to write for at least twenty minutes every evening after dinner. When the timer would go off, I felt so good about making it for twenty minutes that I would often set the timer for another twenty, and often another. That small goal kept adding up and before I knew it, that novel (a very shitty draft) was getting written. And it was more than I’d ever written before. Twenty minutes at a time.

One of the questions I often ask my clients is What’s the least you can do to feel like you’re making progress? When they set out to do that small thing, they usually surpass what they set out to do.

Also, when it gets hard, which it will, I don’t really waste time asking why it’s hard. I get curious about what feels difficult. And maybe I set the thing I’m working on aside for awhile, or I work on some other part of the project. Or I talk it through with one of my gang members. Or I take a shower or go for a walk.

EXPERIMENT
(Make room for some happy accidents)

Writing is my main creative outlet, but one day a few years ago, some watercolors whispered to me, and I paid attention. Playing around with paints, something I’d never really done before, was so satisfying and fun. It was so much more freeing to me than writing. It was the process of messing around with paints that I loved — it almost didn’t matter what I was making. I loved picking the colors, deciding where to place the paint, what shapes to make. It thrilled me. It didn’t matter that I knew nothing about painting. It was like the kind of play we did as kids. Our play didn’t have to have an outcome or result in something to monetize. It didn’t have to be pretty or posted on Instagram. We just made stuff because we felt like it. I have learned that I like having a visual outlet to turn to when the writing is hard. Using my hands to make something frees up my writer brain for a minute. And often when I’m making pictures, something about my writing project clicks into place. Sometimes I even combine the two.

LEARN WHAT YOU CAN TRUST
(Let your creative brain call the shots)

I believe my creative brain, or ‘the back brain’ as Lynda Barry calls it, knows way more than my analytical brain does about how to make stuff. I try and listen to my creativity, and to be curious about it, and when my inner critic doesn’t have me in a headlock, I allow myself to be led by it, even if I have no idea where it’s taking me. I’m almost always pleasantly surprised. I’ve experienced this often enough, that I have learned to trust that part of my brain.

I’ve been working on a book, and for months I didn’t know how to move forward with the story. I knew what I had to do, I just didn’t know how to do it. I kept letting the question of how roll around in my mind and then one day something clicked and I just knew how to proceed. I don’t understand how that happened, but I trust it. So now when I get stuck, I just keep asking the questions and I keep the door open for the ideas to return. And they do.

In that Lynda Barry workshop I mentioned earlier, she had us write by hand, which is not usually how I write. She set a timer. We were to write for eight minutes, never letting our pen leave the page. If our brain glitched and the words didn’t come, we were to keep writing the words tick tick tick until our brain got its act together. I was amazed to watch my pen move across the paper. As I finished writing a word, I would have no idea what word would come next, and then miraculously, the next word would appear on the page. It was almost like my pen had a mind of its own. It was trippy! My ‘back brain’ knew what it was doing even if I had no awareness of it. I trust in that completely.

RITUALS
(To get going and to keep going)

Another thing I’ve learned is that having rituals — things that signal to my brain that we’re about to get down to some writing — really helps. For me that usually means setting up my writing space (for a few months, that’s been my bed, before that it was a particular chair in the living room). Sometimes I have to wear a certain sweater. Sometimes it’s a necklace I bought at that first writing workshop I took. Sounds are important — lately it’s been a jazz playlist. Last year, when I was writing a particular scene, I could only listen to 70s Neil Diamond. Sometimes I have to listen to the same song over and over and over.

One of my writing teachers keeps a little box of things that remind her of the thing she’s working on — trinkets, photos, a candle that smells like the house she grew up in. All these things evoke the place she’s writing about.

I also have rituals for when I’m stuck. Taking a shower is the number one place where writing problems get solved. Same for washing the dishes or taking the dog for a walk. I have a client who dances when she’s stuck. Another one who writes poems as a warm up for her memoir project.

One of my writing teachers suggests taking a book off your shelf and opening it to a passage and begin copying it word for word. Then begin again, but start replacing the author’s words with some of your own. You repeat this until the entire thing is in your own words. Another teacher watches movies with the sound off when he gets stuck. Or looks at famous paintings. Whatever gets you rolling again!

EXPECT YOUR INNER CRITIC TO SHOW UP
(They just stand around waiting to pounce, that’s what they do)

We all have an inner critic. Or ten. And you bet your sweet bippy they will show up. At some point, maybe right when we’re feeling pretty good about ourselves and our work, they’ll barge in and tell you what they think. This is shit. You’re no good. Who is going to want to read this crap. You’re no Toni Morrison, you hack!

I have learned to expect them. I let them ‘share their concerns’ and I listen with detachment, I check to see if there’s any truth to what they’re saying, and then I keep doing what I was doing. I have learned that they will move on eventually.

MAKE A PLEDGE
(Give yourself permission)

Give yourself permission to play, to not be good, to explore. Pledge not to be too hard on yourself, to try again tomorrow, to keep going. Write these things down, keep them where you can see them. If it helps, raise your right hand and say your pledge out loud in front of a mirror. Take your project seriously. It can’t exist without you.

OR, DO NONE OF THESE THINGS
(You get to make it all up, remember?)

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This originally appeared in my Spring 2019 email newsletter. To get on the list and receive this and other goodies in your inbox, sign up at pamdaghlian.com/newsletter