The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life

I confess: I am a shameless junkie when it comes to books on writing, creativity, art – anything that feeds the incessant stream of words, images, and colors that constantly flows through my mind. I also confess a terrible inability to organize my time, thoughts, and what comes out of my head. So when I stumbled across Twyla Tharp’s book, The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life, the title alone intrigued me enough that I went to Amazon and looked it up, snagging it with my trusty 1-click button. (That button gets a lot of use.)

I am constantly amazed by how we tend to barrel into projects with no clear-cut idea of where we’re going, what we plan to do when we get there, and what we expect from the effort. I spend a lot of time on the road in pursuit of interesting and fascinating research, and I go a lot of places I have never been before. I would no more think of heading to an unknown location without a map, a MapQuest printout, and my GPS than I would try to fly there with my eyes closed and hands tied behind my back. Yet I tackle daunting creative projects with no sense of beginning, end, or outcome. That could explain the piles and stacks of books, chicken-scratching, and photos I cleaned and organized all day Saturday.

I envy those who can simply throw words down on a screen (or paper) and have no mental distractions or endless stream of internal chatter to deal with. I have never known that kind of peace.

The definition of “overwhelmed” is sitting in the floor of your office, surrounded by mountains of filled notebooks, boxes of photos, stacks of reference books, and binders bursting with notes, maps, and printouts of everything from your own articles to bits and pieces of ephemera that you may or may not recall what interested you about them. It’s enough to reduce anyone to a tearful mess. In fact, I’m not entirely sure how I managed to churn out one novel in the midst of the chaos and I am quite certain I wouldn’t be able to produce a second one in the state my workspace (and head) was in before The Great Cleanup of July 2009.

I didn’t become that unorganized overnight and I won’t conquer the issue overnight but I am on my way to understanding my thirst for yet another piece of knowledge, and what on earth to do with it. Twyla doesn’t present a step-by-step “out” for the compulsive creative; rather, she goes back to the beginning, to the foundation of what and who we are. She presents exercises to help us understand where our desires are rooted and how to nourish them into blooming beauties. I am in the process of answering questions about myself now that I never thought of before, and understanding where my impulses are coming from.

I have known all my life that I wanted to be a writer, but why did I know it? What switch flipped in my brain, at what age, that established me as a person who would work with words as a “reason for being?” Twyla’s book helps understand the process, and lays a foundation for productive inventiveness whether in art, writing, dance, or any other pursuit. In fact, I rather like how she melds art, movement, and words into a sort of “connected” creative thread. It seems to give me more “dimension” in my thoughts and I hope influences my words as I arrange them.

I know this is a book I will refer to many, many times in my life; in fact, it is taking me longer than usual t read it because I go back and re-read chapters so I completely understand them. Every time I re-read, I find something new; it’s as if the book has a life of its own. Thank you, Twyla, for the perspective and the encouragement.

Knight Agency Booksigning and Q & A – June 7, 2009

Yesterday I managed to get to Athens, GA to meet Deirdre Knight, Jia Gayles, and some of their clients. Thanks to Borders on Alps Road… you guys rock!

I have met authors before, of course, and attended booksignings. But this was particularly fun; meeting Deirdre and fellow authors Jennifer St. Giles, Debby Giusti, Shannon Butcher, and Maria Geraci was purely delightful. What lovely ladies they all are – so generous with their time and advice. Listening to questions offered by the audience and to the detailed and usually amusing answers given was a great experience. I can’t say enough about how encouraging this group is to writers, and they appeared to also be supportive of each other and comfortable with each other. This speaks well of The Knight Agency as a group of authors as well as a literary agency.

What did I take away from it all? (Besides a giant sack full of books?) I believe it was Maria who had the most impact on me. One of the attendees asked the authors how much time they devote to writing and Maria had the best answer. She said she writes in 2-hour spurts but she doesn’t get to write every day. Yet she does open her work every day and look at it, even if she doesn’t have time to actually do anything with it. She pointed out how important it is to stay in the story.

I’ve learned this from my two NaNo experiences. I knew it. I tell other people how important it is. But, as we so often do, I fail to follow my own advice. Thanks, Maria, for reminding me and catching me at a time when I most needed the jolt. You’re right. If an author doesn’t stay in the story, it affects the flow. Not only that, characters get surly when you ignore them too long and they become difficult to manage. They hate it when you forget details about them, and this can cause them to wander out of your consciousness and do things that tick you off. Then you have to make nice and get back in their good graces so your story can progress.

This causes you to lose valuable time. I hate it when that happens.

So today, I have a new rule. Stay in the story. No matter what, no matter how busy I am, no matter where I am, no matter what I am doing. I may not have time to add a page to my manuscript but I know I have time to open the file and read the last few pages or so to stay in the story and keep track of my people and events. How hard can it be?

Because either I am a writer or I am not. Anyone can write – that has been established time and time again. But taking the craft – and the profession – seriously is critical, particularly if the goal is to be published. I am a little weird in that I don’t care if an agent or publisher picks me up or not. I don’t measure the quality of my work against whether an agent or publisher likes it. I hope everyone does, but if publication is my end goal I can self-publish if it’s that important to me. And “self-publish” is NOT a dirty word! ~smile~

No, publishing is not my goal. Telling the story well and clearly is the goal. If I do that and do it right, the rest will take care of itself.

Excuse me for a moment while I say something to my lead character: Paula, I left you in a finished story we both knew was not the story we wanted to tell. I apologize. So today we’ll start over, and this time, we’ll tell your story the way it should be told. And I won’t do that to you again.

Again, thanks to The Knight Agency and to Maria, for prodding me and reminding me of who and what I am. Congratulations to you all for your accomplishments and your abilities, and please, please continue to encourage those writers who have not reached your level yet, but who dream of it.

As for me, I am reminded that I am a writer, and Paula and I have a story to tell. So now we will finish what we started in 1993.

The Best Time Of My Life

For as long as I can remember, I have loved words. I was born knowing how to read and cannot remember a time when I couldn’t. I read the Sunday comics before I even started preschool; which in those days was called “nursery school.” I went to Mrs Tribble’s nursery school from 9-12 four days a week. I wanted to be a fairy princess when I grew up.

I started first grade in 1967 and remember how proud my mother was when I brought home my first reading book – one of those “Dick and Jane” things. I celebrated along with her although I had no idea what the big deal was… I had already read the whole thing and found it silly and rather boring. Since I was totally unfamiliar with the concept of “school” I did not realize at the time that I would have to sit through hours of my classmates sounding out their way through each word in the book, and class discussions on comprehension. Bored out of my skull I was… and my teacher told my mother I was daydreaming and not paying attention. Fortunately, my mother figured out early on that it wasn’t that I was not paying attention… it was that I was bored to tears.

Didn’t alter the fact that I had to do the work, though. Yup. I had to sit through it.

Second grade was a little better… we had real textbooks and after I read my reading book through, cover to cover, on the first day of school, I had other books to read as well. That was when teachers started encouraging us to read library books – novels and stories for kids, books about our world and the weather and other fascinating things. Of course, back then girls were mostly in love with girl detectives and horses. My friends and I all had horse-related books on top of our piles of textbooks. By then I had decided I wanted to be a horse-training fairy princess.

Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew were my best friends. I loved Trixie because she loved horses. I used to pretend my bike was my horse, and Trixie and I would ride together in the evenings after school.

By high school I had discovered that the only thing I wanted to do was read, and write. By then I had been writing forever… stories, poems, book reports, letters to my friends. I was happiest when I had a pen or pencil in my hand, a blank sheet of paper, and no one was bothering me. I hated math and science… sort of liked history but math – whew, boy. I am so abysmally bad at math that it is the thing that has kept me from graduating college all my life. But then, I have never found a college that offered a degree in “fairy princess” so maybe I didn’t miss much.

By the time you hit high school you are supposed to know what you want to be when you grow up. I had abandoned the fairy princess idea – limited job market. But I had to be something. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to be other than a writer. I broached the subject with my mother who thought it was a terrible idea… she thought I should go to nursing school and get a job and then go to journalism school… that way, if I failed as a writer I would always shave nursing to fall back on.

I hated that plan. I didn’t want to be a nurse. I didn’t want to be anything else either but I had to be something so I declared “elementary education” as my major in college. I most emphatically didn’t want to be a teacher. I figured if I found something I liked better as I went along, I could change my major. Sigh.

In the end it didn’t matter. I left college in Macon, moved to Atlanta, had an amazing boyfriend-soon-to-be-husband, and my horse-training-fairy-princess career began. It wasn’t the happiest time of my life… but I was doing what I wanted. I didn’t love it but I liked it. In the evenings after the barn work was done, I read novels and thought “I could do this. I could write these.”

In 1987 I started a graphic design business with a friend who saw my talent and encouraged me to write and helped me learn to do it right. I wrote an article – with pictures – about a local horse show and submitted it – unsolicited – to The Morgan Horse magazine. I had this idea that if I saw my name in print, I would be a writer.

In September of that year, my husband and business partner arranged to take me to lunch for a “surprise.” My husband had gotten his usual copy of The Morgan Horse in the mail at his work that day and he had something to show me. He opened his copy of the magazine and there it was – my name in print on my article, and my pictures. For a moment, I couldn’t feel my legs.

I was a writer!

Later that day I stopped at the post office to get our business mail, and there was a check for me from The Morgan Horse Magazine – $75. Seventy-five dollars! In 1987, $75 was a lot of money – and it was money I had been paid for writing. I was a paid writer!

That was a long time ago. Since then my articles and photos have been published in a number of horse and bird-related magazines. I have been paid quite a bit of money for my work. I have been guest columnist in the GA Farmers and Consumers Market Bulletin four times – and this is by invitation only. My work has appeared in publications around the world. I have queried an editor on an article idea only once, and I have never been rejected even though almost all my articles are written on spec and submitted on spec.

Writing has become as necessary to me as breathing.

I am a writer. Degree or no degree, I am a writer. But I have never considered writing to be a possible source of income or – dare I say it? A “career” for me. I have been many things… I have been a graphic designer, a horse-trainer, web-designer… Now I am a saddle fitter and equine massage therapist.

And I am a writer.

This is the best time of my life.

Hello world!

Hello, and thanks for stopping by. You can call me Summer. It’s my favorite season. I love the sun, the warmth, flip-flops, the freedom, and call me crazy but I even love the traffic when I am travelling and I see other vehicles loaded with luggage, dogs, people, and anticipation of “what-we’re-gonna-do-when -we-get-there.”

I am in my thirtyteens, and I am a writer. I am currently working on a novel about St Augustine and New Smyrna, in Florida. I drive a Jeep named Jonathan (in honor of F/V Time Bandit) who knows the way by heart as we barrel toward St. Augustine every chance we get. Along the way, Jonathan and I often stop at some of our favorite haunts along I-95 and the Georgia Coast. There is marvelous history and wonderful people, places and things along the coast and I love to meander south and stop anywhere that looks interesting.

I live in a little town in central Georgia, when I am not on the Georgis coast or in St. Augustine, Florida, poking around in all the lovely nooks and crannies while soaking up all the essences I can. I am a licensed St. Augustine tour guide although I do not reside full-time in the nation’s Oldest City. When on the Georgia coast or in St. Augustine I’m continually seeking out the next bit of precious truthful information to add to my already bursting collection of research and stories. I also enjoy replacing the looks of feigned interest with wonder on the faces of my family and friends when I drag them along on my visits along the Georgia and northeaster Florida coasts.

My Corgi, Sera, also loves to go along with me and Jonathan. She makes friends easily, and enjoys our evening walks in the historic district in St Augustine. Her favorite spots are Kilwin’s Ice Cream parlor and Pizzalley’s Pizza. Go figure.

Even though it doesn’t sound like it, I do have another life: Along with my husband Bob, I am an equine massage therapist and I am also a double-certified saddle fitter. Bob and I have owned Morgan horses since 1980, and in 1991 we added two Holsteiner mares to our herd. We no longer breed or show, and our horses are simply enjoying their retirement.

I love dogs. I am absolutely crazy about dogs. I have three Australian Shepherds, a little yeller “dropoff” dog someone left in front of my house, and Sera – who thinks she is also a saddle fitter as well as website designer and blog author. (I believe she has an extra ‘positive self esteem’ gene.) Fair warning: if I cross paths with you and your dog in St Augustine, I will want to meet you both.

I love my friends. (‘Scuse me for a moment while I wave at Carrie. Hi, Carrie!) Friends are the best gift you can get. Rita Mae Brown, once wrote, “Whenever I doubt the existence of the Almighty, I remember that through my friends, God has loved me.” Isn’t that the truth! Nothing soothes the soul like knowing you are loved by whoever happens to be on the other side of the door you are about to walk through.

Thank you for visiting and check back often as I add as much odd and assorted info as I can!