Keeping the creative juices flowing

My head is usually full of thoughts about all of the things I think I should be doing. We all know the saying: “Nobody regrets a bad workout.” You still moved your body, you kept a promise to yourself, you stuck with the routine. How often don’t I remind myself that like workout, so it goes for any practice you want to be good at or better at. Most often I think of my writing. I fill pages in my journal, I write regularly here on Substack and for Community Forward Redlands. I read as much as I can (real books and here on Substack).

Besides keeping up with a regular workout routine, how do I get out of my head and into my creative soul? How do you, as a writer, keep up with your creative juices?

Do we really need to add another dang thing to our busy schedules of work, family, house work and meals, spending time with friends and sleep 8 hours every night? This spring I’ve added activism to the list. In a way, I’ve tried to circumvent the tired trope of “time is finite.”

And then in February, The 100 Day Project announced it was starting up again: From February 22nd to June 1st. I’ve joined before and wrote about it here. Could I do it again? On top of everything else? But then I was thinking, how can I not? Playing around with watercolor and ink, sketching and drawing silly pictures, experiment with color, or letting the watercolor do its thing (learning to let go: what a concept). Could I sit at the dining table as the family settle in to watch a show at night, and do a five minutes art project? Yes, I could.

Sometimes I couldn’t and found myself doing three pages in a day. That’s what I like about The 100 Day Project, you can always catch up.

I was tempted to join our local Hands On Knitting Center, that hosted a crochet/knitting streak for the month of May. Do I get a pat on the back for not overcommitting? Asks a chronic overcommitter who was already overcommitted.

One might think, writing itself is enough of creative work. Venturing into making writing a bigger priority though, I know that you need to feed the creative beast. Reading and writing is not enough. You need life itself, focused time that will load the batteries for when creativity hits. Most creative people know Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” with the nudge of going on artist dates with yourself. I have Wednesdays off for that exact purpose, to be able to go to the places that will help move my book writing along. But this year 0 % of my Wednesdays were spent that way. Maybe a five minutes art project/day could fill the gap.

Here are some examples of what that looked like.

For a while I tried to stick with an idea for a week before I switched over to something new. This is both effortless and a struggle. My head is always full of a million ideas, so coming up with ideas was easy, the struggle was sticking to a whole week with an idea then follow through.

There is no plan. There is no pressure. Just put something on the page, every day.

The themes tended to be: watercolor, ink and collage.

Did the few minutes of creativity make any difference in my day to day life? Not really. Except I think they were great reminders of adding something whimsical and pointless to my days. I am really proud that I finished a whole sketchbook. 105 pages filled. It was also a reminder, that I can finish a goal I set myself. Those reminders build self esteem on the days that I tell myself my writing doesn’t matter.

I want to add a couple of other great creative events I did with my youngest. One for Mother’s Day, painting the gorgeous mountains and orange groves here in Redlands by StudioWorks Art Collective. I adore Cindy and Lola and can’t wait for them to create events for women in perimenopause (that’s me!). Making art is a great way to utilize the rage we feel (besides becoming activists).

In June, we joined the great creative team at Museum of Redlands who offers classes and events every month until the museum, hopefully, opens this fall. We did a junk journal class with an abundance of materials to choose from and every participant created such different pages that it looked like we took individual classes.

You might have wondered were my mostly weekly Substack newsletters have gone? And I admit I have several cued up.

Then life got in the way.

A dear, dear friend/writer/author/inspiration1 passed away and it’s been taken its toll on me. I’ve been spending the month of July in Denmark, a needed respite. And I’ve been mulling over my commitments (as I did in this piece, which I wrote the draft to in the beginning of June).

Yes, life and death, horror and beauty follow us like bright shadows throughout the hum-drum of everyday life. I hope to get back to more regular postings soon.

Thank you for your patience.

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Thank you for following my writing. I write primarily about events in and around Redlands that support our local community and make this city a better place. Sometimes, I write about the aspects of our community that we need to protect.

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In Gratitude,

Siw