Creative Friction

and why it's been hard sitting with it

I’ve been trying to write this essay for a month, now. Each time, I would arrive at the page with bubbling excitement only to watch the cursor blink back like an impatient lover.

It’s been a source of frustration because it’s not that I’ve been procrastinating. It’s not that I haven’t had the urge. It isn’t that I don’t have ideas (trust me, I have plenty of ideas). I think it comes down to the fact that I simply wasn’t ready to write about it.

But in the words of one of my favorite people on this planet, Nic Antoinette has recently said:

When the time comes, you will know

It was while reading her essay (and nodding a thousand times) that I realized my expectations of myself were out of alignment. I went into this year with a mantra of: “Investment and experimentation without attachment.” But that’s hard to do.

Since I’ve been making big moves in my personal and professional life (the “integration” phase my therapist tells me¹), things have felt blurry. I’ve been trying my hardest to work with that blurriness… giving it the space it needs. Demanding very little clarity in exchange for creative motivation. And motivated I have been! I haven’t seen this kind of creative output since I started my first business and wrote to publish books. It’s been dreamy and sexy and intense. I’ve fallen back in love with creating.

But… at some point, the friction between wanting to talk about what you’re creating and being ready to talk about it becomes too great. I think this moment is what Erica Perry refers to in her essay “There is sexual tension between you and your dreams,” when the tension morphs into frustration.

There is sexual tension between you and your dreams.

In reading that paragraph, I’m struck by how Julia Cameron has named this very thing in her book, The Right to Write. She says:

“Being in the mood to write, like being in the mood to make love, is a luxury that isn't necessary in a long-term relationship. Just as the first caress can lead to a change of heart, the first sentence, however tentative and awkward, can lead to a desire to go just a little further.” — Julia Cameron

This feels very much in line with Erica’s lesson for this issue:

Learn to love the tension. Learn what you need to comfortably sit in tension.

And even though cognitively, I know this is true, it’s also fucking hard to do. Trauma survivors often interchange tension for conflict but they’re not the same thing. There’s a fine line with tension… the promise of something happening. Unlike most conflicts though, tension can be good. Fun. Flirty. It could go either way and that’s half the fun.

So this idea of loving tension is good — but it requires work. I have a feeling it’s something I’ll be working on until the day I die.

SIDE NOTE

Another essay I read this week that was 🔥 was by Sarah Gardner of “Cult of Friday.”

This very essay was written directly after reading the tip in her essay, “How to Be Unstuckable,”

Write about the piece instead of writing the piece. A diary entry or a letter/email to a friend about what you’re writing about often helps you better understand what you’re writing about.

But everything she says in that essay is just brilliant. Also, we live in the same state and I immediately fell in love with her words even more after finding that out.

Trust & Resistance

I want to circle back to Nicole’s essay though because I feel like she really cuts to the heart of what I’ve been feeling lately.

This nuance between so badly wanting to do a “thing” but never quite knowing how to move forward and wondering, is this creative gestation or avoidance?

At the end of the day though, this is what I think brought the essay into true “a-ha” territory for me:

Trusting myself means opting out of the capitalist, ableist binary that says doing is always better than not doing, and that not doing is therefore a problem to be fixed.

Trusting myself means refusing to believe that my brain or my body (or anything else about me) must be wrangled into submission in order to immediately make progress on everything — or else!!

Every time I trust myself I reaffirm my own pacing and my right-fit way of doing things, as well as my ongoing commitment to opt-out of a culture of 24/7 urgency and instant gratification.

I want to learn to trust myself as deeply as Nicole does. I want to be able to look at my creative projects and practices and know that I’m giving them the proper time to gestate and grow and that my lack of patience can be tempered by a deep knowing that my mind intuitively knows what it needs and when. Of course, there’s also Agatha. She is often a good indicator of whether I’m truly waiting or just avoiding the hard stuff.

I asked for her help in selecting my monthly card reading and she did not disappoint!

L-R © The Animal Spirit Deck by Kim Krans, Sacred Creators Oracle by Chris-Anne, Witch Sister Tarot by Julia Jeffery

It all made complete sense to me and reflected exactly what I’m writing about here in this essay. Isn’t it wild that even when we intend to follow and trust our intuition, it takes more affirmation to feel like, “Okay, I’m NOT crazy. I can actually do this thing I really want to do?”

My North Star Book

In Nicole’s essay, she mentions reading a book about writing that set her ablaze with feelings — and that led me to re-read my old essay about The Right to Write, which I’ve pulled out of the vault as a companion piece to this essay. You can read it below!

Your Right to Write

I know a lot of people say that The Artist’s Way is their Julia Cameron bible, but I’m going to dissent and say that The Right to Write is mine. It’s the book I return to over and over again when I feel out of alignment with my writing practices. It’s the book I return to when I need a reminder to “not make writing a big thing.”

It’s the book that guides my deeply insecure writer brain back to home base with a reminder that:

“We should write, above all, because we are writers whether we call ourselves writers or not. The Right to Write is a birthright, a spiritual dowry that gives us the keys to the kingdom.” — Julia Cameron

So in honor of Julia, I’ll keep writing. And I’ll remind myself that I am a writer even when the words won’t come.

1. Another connection and nod to Julia Cameron and the power of her words:

Writing is a valuable tool for integration. The root of the word “integration” is the smaller word “integer,” which means “whole.” Too often, racing through life, we become the “hole,” not the “whole.” We become an unexamined maw into which our encounters and experiences rush unassimilated, leaving us both full and unsatisfied because nothing has been digested and taken in. In order to “integrate” our experiences, we must take them into account against the broader canvas of our life. We must slow down and recognize when currents of change, like movements in a symphony, are moving through us.