Returning to Creativity After Absence
why it's hard to show up for ourselves & the courage to do it anyway
I want to reach out to the lurkers. Not to make you feel self-conscious. Only to help you feel seen. Although I guess the idea of lurking is to never get seen. Yet I am compelled to wonder (in the kindest and most sincere way) what is it that keeps us lurking? What keeps us from actually showing up (not for me, for yourself)? Because I have lurked. I have felt so far on the outside and way too anxious to ever show up. I know what it feels like. I am making myself show up next week for a thing I've been lurking about for a year now. I'll let you know how it goes. The folks who show up in Brave Space know, you get an A just for showing up. A lot of writers like getting As. A lot of us were told we could do this way back in grade school, that this was easy for us, or we made it look easy. Yet now with the level of the work we see, compared to the level of what comes out when we start--- it's so hard to stick with something that feels so far off! So we lurk. We dream. We wonder. We push our impulses down. I feel deeply uncomfortable that we do this. I want to say please, please, please trust yourself. I want to say that I know it's really hard. Trust yourself even though it's really hard. I want to hear what you have to say. I want the story you're not telling. I want your worst moment. I want your best moment. I want your heart. Your guts. The things you're proud of and the other stuff too. Because I absolutely believe that the world is out to get us to silence ourselves. I believe the world would like to keep us down, depressed, afraid and lurking. I think it's a plot. It creates more divorces and more lawyer fees. It creates more auto-immune disease and cancer and more Big Pharma joy. Why would anyone want to put any more money into the hands of Big Pharma when they could sit at a computer and try to write? The healing is in the resistance. The healing is in the showing up and the speaking up and the writing down. Of course it's going to come out wrong a lot of the time, most of the time, for me too. And that's the trick of it. We think "oh no, it's all wrong! I should stop. I should give up. I should forget this feeling inside that keeps saying it has something to say. I have something to say. Well, if I really have something to say, then why is it I can't ever begin to get close to it? It's just too hard..." But that's the trick because without all that mess, that wrongness, what feels like failure, we can't do the actual work we want to do. It's a kind of test to see who can manage the discomfort. If you don't make the mess, you have nothing to revise. And almost all of writing is rewriting. Half the time it's awful - what I write, honestly, first draft awful. But the other half of the time, it's so incredibly brilliant, I must be delusional. The flipping back and forth upsets me and makes me feel like I might need meds, but I don't. I took all the meds already, and they only made me worse. The doctors explained that because I was worse on all the meds (this took over a year of my life) it meant that I wasn't in need of those drugs. I have nothing against drugs, but they don't work for me. So then where is the in-between, average, this-could-be-a-job-it-feels-so-normal way I'd like to feel? I have to remind myself: this is creativity, not a job, and it's a privilege. It's normal to hate it and think we suck. This is the actual way it works. I have learned to recognize it as a trick. "Oh, I hate it today!" That's a trick. Tomorrow I'll love it. Also a trick. It is best to stop judging altogether. Good or bad. Show up. Do the thing. Follow the impulse. Allow and trust. This amusement park ride that happens is a way to keeps us lurking. We think the one time we liked what we created must have been a fluke. It wasn't. Don't be fooled. Come to Brave Space. It works. Or your money back! You will learn to enjoy the ride.
Self-Portrait by Scott Sherman (Taurus) artwork at ScottShermanStudio on instagram
Writing Prompt:
Soap. For a beginning when you have scared parts…
Bring a character to mind, someone with a voice of their own and a need to speak in a specific place.
That need to speak is a need to speak to a specific other character, but they can't talk to that character about what they really want to talk about. Instead they are going to talk about soap. Got it?
Set an alarm and write for 5 minutes without stopping. Let yourself write anything. Write badly. Whatever comes out. Any kind of soap. Learn to generate text.
You can try, for extra credit, to make the thing they can't talk about clear even though they aren't talking about it. That's a neat trick!
But even if that's not clear, and it seems to only be about soap, you are actually doing something worth doing. And your brain has been turned on, and it's exciting. Your frozen-ness - if you have any of that - is melting. That's what I want to be able to help you do. Melt the frozen part and the fear.
I want you to learn to be okay with how awful a part of you thinks what you wrote is. Learn to comfort that part of you. It helps if you tell them, "this is just a game or an exercise. You can come back when the real work starts."
Judges and Critics and Editors don't like to play games or do exercises. They will come back when there's real work on the table.
I want to know what happened. What did you write in those 5 minutes?
Post below if you want or send me an email. I will respond! I will try to guess the secret thing. I told you, it's a game.
Yes, it's hard. It may take you a few tries to feel like you’re getting it, to feel some kind of flow. But it’s only 5 minutes! So you might as well start now.
And the funny thing is that you might think it's gonna be hard, but the truth is it won't be that hard. You wouldn't be here if it was truly hard for you. You are here because there's a part of you that says “I can do this. I'm gonna rock at this.”
And you will. You already rock.
Brave Space Sched:
9/1 Sunday Labor Day Weekend No Brave Space
9/2 Monday Labor Day No Brave Space
9/3 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space with workshop
9/5 Thursday 12pm ET Brave Space
9/6 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
9/8 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space w/Sharing Salon!
9/9 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
9/10 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/workshop
Tuesday 7 pm ET Brave Group Coaching week 1 of 6
9/11 Wednesday 12pm ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
9/12 Thursday 12pm ET Brave Space
9/13 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
9/14 Saturday 2pm ET Brave Playwrights Workshop week 1 of 10
Each week Tuesdays include a workshop for up to 1 page of writing.
Each month there are 2 Sharing Salons: Second Sundays (730pm ET) and Final Fridays (3pm ET) for sharing work up to 10 minutes worth (less than 1500 words).
Announcements:
6 weeks of Brave Group Coaching starts Tuesday September 10th at 7pm. For anyone looking for simpler ways to manage being present in a difficult world. I’ll be teaching simple somatic exercises to help regulate our nervous system and parts work to create better relationships with our judges and inner critics. Trauma-informed and neurodivergent inclusive. More Info Here
Brave Playwrights Workshop starts Saturday September 15th at 2pm for 10 weeks. If you want to be held accountable, to bring in work each week, to share in a supportive and craft-oriented environment, join me! More Info Here
Deadline September 1st! Woodward/Newman Award at Constellations, you can send 2 full-length plays including TYA. More info here
Deadline September 8th! YALE DRAMA AWARD More info here
Due by Friday September 13th! Apply to the Jam at New Georges (for NYC-based or able to travel to NYC easily 2x/month for 2 years, women+ theatre artists) For information click here. And for the application click here.
I highly recommend Gina Femia's Novel-Writing Workshop!
Due by October 1st, Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival submit large cast plays for college-aged actors or submit short plays!
Due by October 7th, New Harmony applications for Playwriting Residencies are due!
Jenna Lourenco is looking for Autistic Theatre People for a study Examining Environmental & Cultural Challenges to Autistic Accessibility in Theatre Workspaces" through the end of October 2024 at this link!
Super, super relevant piece.
"Why would anyone want to put any more money into the hands of Big Pharma when they could sit at a computer and try to write?"
1000 times YES. I think I need this on a tee-shirt.