On Writing Craft, Creativity & Inspiration
by Alexander Slagg
Getting a Feel for Winter’s Rhythm
Writing is an organic activity. Exercising your imagination
is no different than exercising your body. It’s an activity that helps keep
your life in balance, helps you stay healthy. Like all natural phenomena,
writing has its ebbs and flows. There are times when it’s more difficult to
trot out your sentences and ideas, and times when you are in the moment and the
limber and practiced synaptic pathways in your brain perform with
ballerina-like precision and grace. It’s rarely a steady, static process over
time.
We’re all told of the importance of writing every day.
That’s a valuable mantra to live by. But mantras have no value by themselves.
They need a comparison to provide perspective. How would we know the value of
writing every day if we did not also have a comparative experience—not writing
every day? I believe that experience is equally valuable to us as artists.
The start of winter offers a great opportunity to consider
this. Winter is a time when life slows down. The days grow short and the
temperature drops. Trees and plants withdraw. Squirrels and other animals hold
up in their hideaways. Human beings should be following this slowing rhythm
too. But we rarely do. There are e-mails to get out, holiday gifts to buy,
end-of-the-year business reports to pull together, family gatherings to attend.
We often approach our writing with this same tone-deaf
mentality. Regardless of the rhythm of the season, we must go, go, go. Maybe
it’s time to stop and slow down long enough to once again feel that rhythm.
What would that be like? What would that involve?
Before any of us were writers, we were readers. An
appreciation of what we read is what leads many of us to put fingers to
keyboard in the first place. Maybe this winter we hang up the discipline whip
for a bit, untether the horses and let them graze in the pasture. Take some
time to read without any expectations. Read for the simple joy of it. Your
imagination will thank you.
When you unbox it from its routine workout, your imagination
grows and changes. New influences come in and refresh the stock of ideas
swirling around in your subconscious. Step out of the routine long enough to
regain some perspective and to appreciate the good that is coming out of that
discipline. You’ll be refreshed when you’re ready to sit back down and face the
blank page.
Did that novel idea or first line emerge from you sitting
down every day and willing it to appear? Not likely. It probably came to you at
some random moment when you were not seeking it. That is the tameless beauty of
creativity.
This winter take some time to simply daydream over a cup of
tea or while you’re laid out on the couch on a Saturday afternoon. Open up some
space inside yourself for those moments of whimsy to happen. Leave the gate
open so those shy fairies can tiptoe into your garden and perform all of the
little magical things that they do when you aren’t paying attention. Get in
touch with the sense of joy found in just being.
When the season to write comes around again, you’ll be
amazed at the results.
