Meg Evans

Once upon a time when I wasn’t so concerned about whether I should be doing more important things instead, I wrote goofy stories in response to challenges posted on creative writers’ lists. You know, stuff like “Write a story where the main character’s lines come from the lyrics of a popular song.” But I got busy with other things and didn’t write much fiction for a while. After that, I found it wasn’t flowing as easily as it once did, but instead felt more like a slow stream lazily meandering through mossy rocks.
 

Then I was reminded of how much I once liked challenge stories when the author of the cheerful blog Nuggets of Gold recently invited her readers to post ideas for story topics in the comments, and she would find something to do with them! So I’ve decided to give my creative writing a boost by joining in the fun with a new weekly feature, Tuesday’s Tales. Even if I end up with a lot of silliness, at least it’ll keep me from taking myself and my writing too seriously.

Readers, please feel free to post challenge topics here. What would you like to see a story about?

This morning when I went to get my hair done, I ended up having to wait because my appointment had not been entered into the computer and the stylist hadn’t arrived at work yet. So, rather than get annoyed about it, I started writing this post while sitting in the salon’s waiting room, which seemed very well suited to my current topic—writing in bits and pieces.

I keep a folder with handwritten notes and partial drafts of projects that I am working on, or that I’d like to work on when I get around to it. Sometimes they sit for a very long time. I began posting a serialized novel called Breaking the Ice last year, but the original draft goes back to the year 2000. To be honest, that draft sucked, and putting it aside until I had a better idea of what to do with it was definitely the right choice!

The subconscious mind often sets priorities and makes judgments that we don’t notice consciously. When we jump into a project with enthusiasm and then find that it’s fizzling out all of a sudden, or that we’ve gotten distracted by another new interest, there is probably a lot of subconscious processing involved. It doesn’t mean that we are lazy, can’t finish what we start, or need to discipline ourselves to just tough it out regardless of how we feel.

If it’s not a business project that needs to get finished right away to pay the rent, then why force it? After all, there will surely be time to do it later. Even if it doesn’t look like it has reached a natural stopping point, maybe that just means it is missing something that hasn’t become obvious yet.

(At this point I wasn’t sure what my next paragraph should be, so I decided that I had reached one of those non-obvious stopping points and put the draft aside to finish this evening.)

Why does a big heap of unfinished creative projects leave us feeling like we ought to have accomplished much more? Probably because our society has been insisting that we finish our work since we were in preschool. And while that might be fine for reciting the alphabet and other rote stuff, creativity travels its own paths, and they’re not always linear. Sometimes when we feel like we’re slacking off, there are plenty of connections being made beneath the surface.

(Went outside just now to eat a yummy red apple while enjoying the warmth of the setting sun.)

Usually I have the most creative energy at the very times when my folder is crammed full of notes and drafts. It doesn’t mean that I have been neglecting my projects—on the contrary, it means that my mind has been tossing out ideas much faster than I can keep up with them! And that is a very good thing because it means I’ll always have something fun to work on. Whether or not they’ll ever turn into something productive in the business world, well, who knows? There’s no harm done by leaving that question for another day.

Now that this blog is in its fourth year (yay!) I’ve been posting entries on a fairly regular schedule. Usually I write three (optimistically four) posts a week: a Clutter Comedy post every Sunday, a Nurturing Thursday post every Thursday, and one or two articles or stories in between. That’s mostly good because my blog now has more content than it had in past years, and the posts that I write for my two regular feature days flow pretty easily because they’re short and structured.

But if Wednesday evening arrives and I haven’t yet written the miscellaneous early-week post, then I feel as if I’m slacking off because my readers will expect me to stay on my regular schedule. Yes, I know that’s a silly thing to worry about. I never had any plans to make money from my blog, so there’s certainly no reason to think of it as having a production schedule like work; and in reality, I don’t believe I have such a demanding audience.

If I slack off once, though, I might do it again, and then this blog could end up as just another derelict hulk adrift in cyberspace. It’s the slippery slope worry—once you start slipping, there’s just no telling where you might end up!
 

Earlier today, when I didn’t have anything in mind to write, I got those slacking-off feelings and then started giving myself a lecture on how ridiculous it was to worry about staying on a schedule that I had just invented last year for no particular reason. Life in the modern world already has too many randomly imposed expectations, so why add more?

I had just about decided it was time to apply to the Court of Conscience for official permission to slack off, when I realized that everything I had been telling myself would work just fine as a blog entry! So as it turned out, there’s a post for Wednesday after all, and no need to get myself an excuse note just yet.

I haven’t felt in touch with my creative self recently, even though I’ve posted about the same number of blog entries. When I have a few quiet hours on a weekend and sit down with a cup of coffee or tea, instead of feeling inspired to create stories I’m likely to start reading a novel instead, or maybe just daydream about how I’d like to redecorate my house and plant new flowerbeds in my backyard.

That’s when the nagging voice at the back of my mind starts up again, asking where are all the stories I ought to be writing? When I examine that question more closely, it strikes me as the wrong question—or at least an incomplete one, packed with assumptions that don’t seem to be tethered to anything in present-day reality. And we all know what assumptions make of us, don’t we?
 

Unpacking the assumptions gives rise to a lot more questions than what seemed to be there at first. Where did I get the idea that I was supposed to write stories whenever I had some free time on a weekend? Most likely, that came from letting myself get too busy several years ago. Well, okay, I’m not too busy now, so why are those feelings of pressure still there?

Besides, I never had a strictly regimented writing schedule where I produced a specific number of pages at the same time every day, unless you want to count the time I wrote a vampire romance novel while waiting at my daughter’s physical therapy appointments after she had a knee injury in high school soccer. So there’s no particular quantity of stories that I can reasonably assume I ought to create in a week or month or whatever, given the fact that my past experience has been nowhere near that predictable.

Some of it probably has to do with cultural attitudes, in that our society tends to dismiss writing stories as an insignificant, silly hobby. That leads to worrying (often subconsciously) that if we haven’t done much with our stories lately, then maybe the naysayers are right and our creative work will never amount to anything. And if we have an especially prolific week or month or whatever, it gives us the idea that if we’re not sustaining that level all the time, then we’re not doing our best and something must be wrong.

Another assumption in need of deconstruction is that I ought to be writing stories, rather than engaging in other creative efforts such as writing nonfiction entries on this blog—which in fact I’ve been doing quite regularly. Why do I feel that I’m not doing enough unless my creative work includes stories, in particular? What gave me the idea that I can best express myself through fiction? That’s not necessarily true—or at least, it’s not necessarily true at all times. Maybe I’ve been doing more good for myself and my readers by writing nonfiction posts that spark reflection.

Because stories are drawn from real life, maybe those daydreams are telling me that I need to recharge my creative energy by getting out and doing more in the real world. Maybe they’re telling me to spend some time discovering the right questions!

Somehow I got myself into a mood the past few days where instead of actually writing posts, I started ruminating about why I write a blog, whether I’ve really accomplished much with it, and so forth. Instead of giving my creativity room to run around and have fun (which is, of course, the reason why I write a blog—it’s not that complicated!), I got sucked into a pointless black hole of navel gazing.

Then I decided to just sit down and write a blog entry anyway, inspired or not, to let the air out of my own absurdities. Because I don’t have a pretty bellybutton ring like my daughter, I refrained from illustrating this post with my actual navel and instead took a photo of a navel orange on my kitchen counter.
 

That looks so goofy, I feel better already just seeing it in the preview! There is no profound, world-changing insight to be found in this post, except perhaps the simple observation that I never was obligated to produce world-changing insights on a regular production schedule. And what’s more, the next time I start taking myself and this blog too seriously, I’m just going to come back to this post and gaze at the navel orange until I go away giggling.

Generally, leaving tasks undone sucks up a lot more mental energy than taking care of them promptly. But this time of year, when the days are cold and the nights are long, sometimes a lack of energy feels as if it comes from the season instead. That can lead to excusing procrastination with an internal narrative along the lines of, “I’m too tired to do a good job on that now, but I’ll work on it later when I feel more refreshed.” Too much of that, and the tiredness persists while the more refreshed feeling never comes. Creative projects, in particular, end up getting stalled.

So I’ve decided to give myself an attitude adjustment whenever I catch myself thinking like that, by changing my self-talk to convince myself that I have plenty of creative energy. Even if I don’t feel energetic, I take a few minutes to imagine myself working on the project and zipping easily through it. I tell myself something like, “I have lots of creative energy to put toward this, and it’s going to be so much fun and turn out great! I’m feeling fresh as a field of daisies!”
 

Of course, there are days when I haven’t gotten enough sleep and honestly can’t focus on a creative project enough to do much with it. I’m certainly not suggesting that we should all force ourselves to check off tasks on the to-do list when we’re half asleep! But even on days when going to bed early is the best choice, we can cultivate creative energy by picturing how things ideally would go, instead of reinforcing a lack of energy with thoughts of feeling tired.

If we’re always telling ourselves that we feel too tired to do anything, sure enough that’s what happens! But when our self-image shifts to having lots of joyful energy, then we’re likely to feel more inspired the next day and get much more accomplished, after catching up on sleep.