Category Archives: Writing

Brushing Up

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If I’m honest, I often think of myself as a future writer. I’ll be able to fill that role someday. There are plenty who would say that the first step to achieving a goal is to become it and to think of one’s self as if the goal has been achieved. I would love to and think that I’m a writer at heart but it feels incomplete to say, definitively, that I’m a writer now.

As much as I practice and try to write, I know what I’m doing most often is simple journalling. There’s nothing bad with journalling. It’s a wonderful activity and a great release. It’s a way to privately deal with emotions, thoughts, or situations that were otherwise overwhelming. It’s well worth the time spent on it.

I know, though, that journalling is often not complex writing. It’s not writing that I reread and edit. It’s not meant for the eyes of anyone but my own. And if my goal is to one day call myself a writer and feel like I’m not a big faker when I do so, I’ll need to escalate my writing to a more creative plane. I’ll need to relearn how to write for an audience.

That’s why I’ve embarked on becoming a better writer and phase one is well underway. I am reading more.

All great writers seem to agree that there are two ways to become a good writer: write a lot and read a lot. For years now, I’ve been lacking in both. I rediscovered journalling more than a year ago and have been working on writing here and there for many years. Reading, though, slipped off my list of priorities for a while.

That changed when I got a Kindle for Christmas. I’ve been reading at a much more rapid pace and I’ve worked reading into my daily life. Reading has been something that I always thought I was slow at but I’m realizing I’m not. Sometimes when I read, I get distracted by my own thoughts and that’s the part that slows me down. If I push those thoughts out of my head and dig into the story, well, I can push right through the end of a book, even if it’s well past my bed time.

Many people seem to be nostalgic for paper books and snub e-readers but I love my Kindle. I love the flexibility that I have with my whole library in my purse. I can even purchase and download new books from anywhere, on a whim. I don’t think I would have gotten into reading so easily this year without the Kindle and I’m very thankful for the device’s help in working toward my goals.

It’s amazing how much change can happen in four months to make me enjoy reading on a level that I’m not sure I ever have before.

It’s also great to enjoy working towards the end goal of one day becoming a writer. There will be more work beyond just reading more. I know that. There will surely be more classes in creative writing techniques. There will be tough days when I can’t work out how to say what I want to. There will be tough editors who guide me away from lazy grammatical errors. There will be nights when I’m too tired but write anyway and just as many nights when I stay up late to finish just one more paragraph.

But, I want to be a writer. So I’ll do it.

My Movie Scene: Life as Art

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In the perfect moment, when I feel victorious, I’m consumed in the final scene of the movie about this act of my life, and I’m silently contented. It happens rarely and is so powerful that even if I hadn’t felt victorious before, the moment will make me feel that I have been.

It starts with one of a few activities, most commonly walking or driving (people watching and sitting in a coffee shop also work, but are less frequent). There’s a song playing but it’s not just any song. It can be many songs but not every song works. As it plays, time slows and everything I do is more deliberate. It brings me headlong into the present moment.

I am living now in perfect clarity with no more thoughts.

In my mind’s eye, I don’t just see what I’m looking at. I see myself as the subject in a camera frame that doesn’t really exist. It slowly pans out, always focused on me, as I’m moving along.

I’m the one driving the car towards my dreams in the end highway scene from Good Will Hunting.

I’m in the scene from the end of My Girl 2, except rather than it being Nick walking away with his stupid love sick smile, it’s me walking away, determined and happy.

In the moment, not only am I happy but I feel like I’ve won. It’s the perfect ending to the movie being made about this part of my life. Whatever battle I’ve been fighting has ended and I’ve emerged the champion. There are no more thoughts–just feelings–and it’s pure bliss.

I’ve won peace of mind, clarity, happiness, and the brief moment in time when I embody positive emotions. My body is coursing with energy usually hidden deep down somewhere and I know that there’s nothing else I can do but savor this. As long as I’m present and fully engulfed, it will last. So I smile and embrace it. It’s fleeting so I drink in every bit of it I can get. Don’t talk to me, it’ll stop it. Don’t look at anyone or think a single thought–I’ll lose it. It’s so urgent that I hold this happiness to keep it from running away when it breaks.

Keep.

Going.

Stay with me.

But,

It fades.

As much as I try to hold on, it will fall away. My thoughts come back and I return to being the me that everyone knows me as, with complex thoughts and emotions, and not just a grinning idiot blissful in the moment that my thoughts stop and I bathe in wondrous feelings.

“Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.” – Oscar Wilde

My movie scene is just that–art. But this art happens in my life and in my head. This art is my life for the seconds that I’m in my scene. My movie scene is my life as art.

It’s the most spiritual thing I’ve ever experienced. A deep awakening of this inner life happens and makes me feel intimately connected with my mind, body, and the universe in a way that nothing else has ever triggered. It’s spontaneous and organic. I can’t make it happen but it often happens when I need it the most. It’s like it knows I could use this win.

If I’m being honest, it’s probably the reason why I understand what people talk about when they’re talking about the soul.

For me, the soul is just a state of consciousness. When my movie scene plays, my experience becomes completely cerebral. I’m aware of everything and am absorbing what I sense, but my mind and my consciousness are open. I’m fully present. My awareness acts on my behalf. It’s part of me, maybe even the essence of me, and it’s showing it’s power.

I imagine that people who regularly practice meditation may feel like this at times during their practice. It feels like enlightenment and I’ve been given access to a deeper level of emotion. In that moment, I’m truly experiencing everything in life. And as long as I remember that feeling, I’ll always be striving for it.

The most disappointing part of it all is that I don’t know how to make it happen. I can’t enter into an activity, put on a certain song, and float away to this other state of consciousness. I can’t stretch it out and make it stay for hours. It’s locked inside most of the time and I welcome its appearance in my life, but it’s shy and hidden. It won’t happen when I won’t be able to appreciate it.

But if that’s the most disappointing part of achieving bliss and living inside a work of art, I’ll take it. Living through a moment that can be described as art really is as magnificent as it sounds. I just wish that I could bottle up the moment and send it to you, because that would be easier than trying to create art about art.

Rediscovering my Creativity

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A few weeks ago, I was digging through folders on my computer that I don’t often venture in to. I found my very vaguely named “Writing” folder and I really had no idea what would even be in there. So I looked. It was filled with both academic and creative writing that I’d done while I was in college. Much of the academic writing was quite dry and boring but the creative writing was, well, creative.

I read pieces that I forgot about writing. I read some and thought maybe with a little revision, they could really be something. I read through others that needed editing and even more that were somewhat juvenile. Regardless of the quality of the collection, it was all writing that took me back to that exact time and place when I was probably the most creative.

It was then that I truly realized how much I’ve lost.

After graduation, I immediately transitioned from a student to working adult and I left my creativity. I stopped writing when I started working. I entered the (incorrect) mindset that my job had to be wholly fulfilling and when I got home and relaxed on the couch, I wouldn’t need anything else to make me feel productive.

I got an itch to write again in late 2008 which led to the beginning of the wine blog that I had for three years but the wine blog was a temporary movement in my creativity. It wasn’t really the best of my writing but it was a way to dive into something I thought that I was the most passionate about.

I’m passionate about wine, that’s certain. I love it. But it’s not the thing that I’m the most passionate about. I’m most passionate about writing, but the writing I did then was handcuffed. It was limited to one topic and didn’t allow me to explore anything else. It was possibly the least creative writing I may have ever done in my spare time (at least since my days as a young girl writing in a diary about my day).

Of course, I tried to make things interesting but it wasn’t quite the same as when I’d walk the college campus at night to the steps of the campus’ main hall, and sit in silence (and often in the cold) while I worked out my thoughts.

Ever since I started this blog last year, I knew I’d lost a bit of my creativity but I didn’t know the extent of it. I’ve had little to write here but it’s not because I have nothing to say. It’s often because I’ve forgotten how to unlock what I have trapped in my head. It’s been hard to find elegant (or maybe messy) ways to express myself.

So I’m deciding to work on my creativity. It’s not an overnight process but the slow return of life to my fingers as I write is completely worth it. Scheduling a night to write in a cafe every week or finding music that can make me cry, even when there’s no lyrics, will help. Maybe finally taking piano lessons or French classes to break me out of the normal patterns of adult monotony will stoke the creative flame. Even writing pieces that aren’t really that good will help me rebuild my skills–not fearing to fail every time I put pen to paper is a huge factor in actually churning out something good. And when I find something like a movie that opens up my soul to new thoughts and feeling, well, I’m going to keep prodding that to see where that can bring my creative mind.

Writing is my main medium and where I feel most comfortable when I go to create my own things but dabbling in other mediums can help make my writing better by being a bit of inspiration. Other creative activities can open me up to be receptive to new ideas, letting myself fail, and try harder next time.

I’m not hoping to be perfectly back to a creative flow immediately. It will take some work. But I’m finding myself again. I’m finding my inner happiness by working to unlock my own creativity.