Creative Aspirations

I like to think that I am creative and that I have some talent as a writer. (I think I am funny too, although you’d never know it from reading my blog.) For as long and as far back as my memory goes, there is an immutable urge to write something good.

For a while I worked on an adventurous tale of deception, desire, and magic set in 14th century Romania and France (though France wasn’t France back then.) The story was born on my couch just before I started grad school. After a minor surgery, I was stuck there on that couch recuperating for days. Once I ran out of magazines to read, bingo lottery scratch off tickets to scrape, and movies I’d rented... there was nothing left to do but watch t.v. Very late on one of those confinement nights, a movie started and it looked like it was going to be good... there was real potential bubbling in that cauldron and then it turned out to be The Beastmaster or something or other like that, and I was disappointed. So I asked myself, “What story would you have wanted to hear?” I scribbled the answer down in a green spiral notebook and that became my project for a time.

I never finished writing that story. Life got in the way... grad school, a husband, a bunch of kids, and then I changed. Once that happened, a magical story didn’t seem appropriate anymore.

But now that I am bored out of my mind cleaning up poop, cooking dinner, washing clothes, and reading A Mother for Chocofor the zillionth time... I find myself percolating with an itch to write. It isn’t that simple though... I mean, I can’t just sit down and do it... I feel like I need some foreplay or something.

As all this was going ‘round in my brain, I stumbled on a FB post by LL Barkat referencing an invitation to participate in a virtual book club experience where the selection is Julia Cameron’s The Artist's Way. I have that book. It was a gift from my Artist Aunt. I remember really liking the idea of the book way back when but never actually doing more than one or two of the “tasks.” I ran out to the garage and dug through five or so plastic bins of books until I located it. I am ready.

Next Wednesday I will begin a journey to “recover my creativity from a variety of blocks, including limited beliefs, fear, self-sabotage, jealousy, guilt, addictions, and other inhibiting forces, replacing them with artistic confidence and productivity.” Ok, my dear aspiring writer friends... do any of those blocks apply to you? Want to join the quest to “connect your creativity with the creative energies of the universe”? If so, check The Artist’s Way out of your local library or buy yourself a copyand meet me over at the Tweetspeak Poetry blog on May 23rd.