Letting it cook

On trusting that creativity will return

Maybe it’s because it’s eclipse season, maybe it’s the upcoming mercury retrograde, maybe it’s some other celestial going-on that I’m unaware of with regards to my own chart, maybe it’s just the state of the world, or maybe it’s just the natural cycle of my life, but the last couple of weeks I’ve found myself feeling lower than usual.

Things seem to be moving slower or coming to a standstill, my own creativity included. Finding compassion for myself through this time of stillness has been hard, I’m not gonna lie. I’m used to the go, go, go. My dopamine response is tied to productivity, and when things slow down around me and when nothing I do to push it forward works, I begin to question everything, my own worth included.

Peggychoucair via Pixabay

Thanks to a reel I came across recently, I’ve been contemplating the inherent expanding and contracting nature of, well, everything. Think about it, is there anything at all in life that doesn’t expand and contract? There are days of sun and there are days of clouds. There are seasons of heat and seasons of cold. The waves in the ocean roll in and out. There are days we spend with our friends and loved ones filled with laughter, and there are days when you can’t be around each other because even words feel like too much. Even the very basis of yoga is built around the contracting and expanding movements of the body. The very lungs in our chests expand and contract with every breath we take.

I could go on and on, but you can try it out for yourself. Pick a thing, anything, and observe it. You’ll find that in some way it, too, expands and contracts. So why is it that when the themes of our lives start to contract, some of us begin to question it, we begin to fight against it, to resist, to try to figure a way to push that unmoving mule forward?

Clearly, there’s some conditioning here. Of course, society has drilled into us that if we’re not productive then we’re losing out. If we’re not filling up every minute of our lives with doing, then we’re going to end up destitute, you’ll be a nobody with little means for supporting yourself, and people will look down on you because, clearly, you didn’t try hard enough while everyone else, who’s supposedly doing so much better, did.

The thing is that I’ve never believed that anyone has their sh*t together. Nor do I believe that anyone ever gets their sh*t together. I think that you can be a grounded person. I think that you can learn to roll with the tides. But I don’t think that you ever learn to evade the tide. I think that it comes for us, whoever we are, whatever our background, regardless of our plans. Life will always find a way to life.

So why tie this natural contraction to our self-worth? Why start believing that somehow we become less, that we are “losing” the game of life when life forces us into a respite? Maybe we can keep our self-worth *and* take a breather. Maybe it’s okay to see our imagination retreat after months of plowing forward on whatever we’ve been working on.

Since late summer last year, I’ve been moving forward with this novel idea that’s been living rent-free in my head for nearly ten years. I finally decided to give it a voice and writing it has been a magical, almost surreal experience. Surreal because I’ve never actually plowed forward with a story so swiftly before.

But as I get closer to writing the last act, as I’m forced to finally work out the more intricate details of the entanglement of these complex characters, I’ve begun to see the wheels slowing down, like a car that’s slowly running out of fuel. For a while, I felt that I was racing against it. Seeing those wheels slowing down prompted me to try harder, to get things down quicker, which is, in itself, a ridiculous idea. If your car’s running out of fuel and you press the gas harder, you’re only more likely to run out of fuel faster.

My creative gauge is officially pointing to that ominous red E. Still, while I’m feeling low and depressed, I haven’t panicked. I think I feel low because my brain doesn’t understand what to do with the openness of this time, and it’s reading it as a failure, even while some part of me knows, a story that has persisted in my mind for ten years didn’t just disappear. The ideas will come back. They just need some time to cook.

I think one mistake we make as writers is believing that unless we’re actively writing then we’re not really writing. Which is absolutely not true, not even a little bit. There’s so much more to writing than tapping away at a keyboard. There’s the wall of Post-Its, of course. There are the hours of research (that can often turn into hours of falling down rabbit holes, but we’re curious beings, so this is understandable). There are discussions with friends and fellow writers. There are solitary walks to get away from the project for a breather. There’s daydreaming with music on. There are one-person dance parties to get back in touch with your body, to get the neurons hopping along to something different for a change.

We cannot keep constantly pushing to expand. It’s unnatural. We need to retreat as well. Whatever that looks like for you. Whether it means being alone. Whether it means lying in bed staring at the ceiling. Whether it means putting the manuscript away for a few weeks. The mind gets cluttered. Expansion is beautiful and so rewarding, but it creates clutter. Have you ever seen a child painting or doing crafts? The area they’re occupying while they play or create becomes a mess of toys, crayons, glue, paints, glitter, paper, etc. Sure, the kids are learning, their knowledge expanding. But eventually, everything needs to get cleaned up again, which no one ever sees as fun.

But once you’ve cleaned up (the contraction), there’s room to start something new again (the expansion) on a different day. And this is the most important part to remember. The cycle doesn’t end. Expansion *will* return. So let’s learn to give ourselves grace. Let’s learn to ride the tide, not try to stop the tide. No one stops the tide. Besides, those learning to ride the tides are having a much better time than those trying to stop it.

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Hi there, I’m Maria! I’m a freelance fiction editor assisting women writers in amplifying their voices through their writing. You can find me on Instagram @theintuitivedesk. Or visit my site
www. theintuitivedesk.com to find out more.