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Sunday, August 31, 2014

Getting My Groove Back

The day job included some grunt work last week as well as working with invoices that translated to thousands of dollars and require monastic focus to make sure no details are missed when finalizing each step of the process.


Some people find the fact of a day job to the very description above a creativity killer. In my case, it’s a means to an end (it pays the rent, for the most part). Last week, it created an indirect funnel for creativity.

Work itself was not the inspiration, mind you. Being at work and having to adjust to both projects to complete them led me to the path of inspiration.

The grunt work required no intellectual capacity, it was automaton work. I can do that and do it like a robot! If you break it down something, a production line style, you can rely on muscle memory to move from step to step and create a rhythm – so that when you deviate from the rhythm, you can stop, back it up, and fix whatever went wrong.


How does this help creativity? It frees your brain to wander any fantastic realm it wants to inhabit.

Some would use this freedom (from reality and responsibilities) to push the envelope on repressed sexiness. Some would use the opportunity to imagine comebacks to situations they’d lost control of earlier in life. Some can fantasize about things they may not yet have found the courage to do in real life.


But to build these mindscapes in which to operate and manage these reveries, one must be in the right state of mind: It’s a studied meditation of sorts.

For me music sets the mood. It can relax you, it can evoke color, texture, flavor, and it can suggest so much more. To me music is tied to specific memories and emotions and these affect the stories and landscapes in which these stories exist.

Music may also suggest dance, and in turn also affect how the characters interact.


It was music that took me out of the mud and propelled me to write two stories last week.

They are unrelated short stories, and the first is awfully dark. Content is not the object, but that I was able to sit and knock out a couple of short stories.

The second is well-rounded; the first is a rough draft. Ultimately it’s the simple act of writing that, the facility of having words follow other words, sentences turn into paragraphs; characters speaking to others and dialogue flowing; things happening…

It was the creative kick, after weeks focused simply on getting well and getting back to normal.

There are only a couple of stories and there is no particular project plans for it. I wrote. The Muse hasn’t left me. (I need to get back into my RPG but that has been a little more challenging.)

Now, to create a routine until writing feels instinctual again. 

It was a song that got me started on Because She Was A WomanSo, let the music play! 


Tuesday, August 19, 2014

What I Did This Summer

Sometimes I question my sanity.

Then, it is the nature of humanity to experience moments of uncertainty and to wonder if we have what it takes to endure.

But sometimes it is unclear whether I can attribute my reaction to things as strength or the fact that I am a sociopath. Okay, I know that's extreme! I am my worst critic, and besides I do have a conscience.

My concern is more about my emotional health.


I just told somebody I spent three weeks in the hospital and the abject horror in their eyes left me a little confused.

No, everything is okay,” I reassured them.

But it wasn't okay, was it?

I went into the emergency room, voluntarily (a rarity in itself). They admitted me because they were not sure what the hell was wrong with me. For a better part of two weeks my condition was a mystery!

There was a steady stream of specialists coming through my room, each trying to determine whether my malady was part of their collective font of knowledge. 

They poked me every day, bled me daily, they changed my diet three times, they X-rayed me, threw me into a CAT scan machine, then confined me to an MRI machine. And I lived in those hospital gowns that leave your butt exposed.


In the meantime, because I just started this new job, I was missing work and not getting paid at the same time as my insurance was about to end.

And yet, I had no nightmares. I cried exactly twice: the night I was admitted (because I had promised myself that I'd never spend another night in a hospital for as long as I lived); and at the 28-minute mark I found myself trapped in that damned MRI. 

In the first instance, I teared up and felt a great sadness and some fear; in the last, I broke down because even if you are not claustrophobic, the experience is likely to freak you out. It's loud, cold, restrictive, and alienating.

I either took it really, really well, or I am better at compartmentalization than even I suspected.

The only way I could manage was to focus on the immediate problem before me and only on whatever I could control.

You'd think that the potential for drama, comedy, tragedy, quirky behavior and bigger than life personalities would get the creative juices running. It's all there! People in pain, relieved, terrified, overjoyed, at their best, their worst, their most vulnerable...

I managed to read a book, which was about as much escapism as I could handle. My own creativity took a back seat. I am not sure that I will be able to look back at the experience without a jaundiced eye and extract story material.

I am not that strong. But I am good, physically. Mentally and emotionally, I kept it together because I have a stupendous support system and because I couldn't allow myself to fall apart. Other than that, I haven't given it much thought except to question my sanity.

Is there a mini-memoir in that? Probably. 


I haven't put it all in perspective, I've just kept moving through and past it. I'm also not quite ready to look terror in the eye so close to the metaphorical abyss--because the terror was in not knowing and now that we solved the mystery and fixed the problem, there's no emotional baggage to drag around. 

Beyond this, it seems especially important to preserve the privacy and dignity of those who went on the journey with me (some because they wanted to, others because their path traveled through shared roads).

I did take notes for myself, but that required more honesty than creativity. Are these mutually exclusive? I'm not sure, some days they are.

The question is whether I can get back to writing and other creative pursuits. My head isn't in it right now nor is my heart. I want to, but there are other priorities that call to me.

Big girl decisions need to be made and action must be taken.

And that is what I did this summer! And that is where I am headed!