The courage of creativity

Hi All,

Towards the end of last year I finished a novel (yawn, sorry to go on about it but it was a big deal to me after more than ten years of work) and I found a publisher whom I would love to have read it and managed to get in touch with her through a mutual contact. After several emails and some weeks waiting for replies and not wanting to be too pushy but perhaps just pushy enough to get my work in front of her, she agreed to let me send the manuscript to her. Now I wait for her to find the time to read it and let me know what she thinks and I sit on my hands trying to resist the urge to follow up which I already did once and she said please be patient, I have a lot to read and do and she knows it's frustrating but there are only so many hours in a day, etc. Eggs all in one basket for now.

I started the website imagine365.org and that has been chugging along nicely for some months despite a glitch over the last few days where I applied an update that I shouldn't have and stuffed things up a bit so it has been offline but should be sorted some time today, haven't checked yet. Also still with teaching, copywriting and looking after the family so time marches on. Have done a bit of extras work on a couple of ads which was fun getting hair done and make up and all that but boring hanging around and doing the same thing over and over.

My point is that a few months have passed and I have not written creatively in this time. I have blogged and written in my notebooks like I do and worked on imagine365 which is something of a creative outlet especially when I add my own imaginings. But I haven't written a story nor been involved in a different world to this one (if you don't count tantric meditation but that's something else and probably not what you are thinking though blissful and beautiful all the same).  

Last Friday I went along to a class over at Glebe called, "The art of being", which is facilitated by an amazing lady called Sally Swain whom I have worked with on and off over many years, always drifting back to her lovely, quirky studio when I need some inspiration. In the company of six other women I painted and wrote and we shared tea, figs, nuts and our work. Then this morning before checking emails or doing life admin stuff or looking at my site to see if it is fixed, I sat on the back terrace with a pile of blank paper and wrote bits of a story.

It started from a painting I did at Sally's class last week of a woman in a yellow coat, a canary yellow coat. She is in Paris and it is night time as she hurries along a steep street with light rain on her face and a suspicious looking man walking towards her wearing a beret of all things but it's not too much and he smokes of course. I know the coat because it has appeared in another story where someone leaves it out for collection in a big garbage bag just outside the front gate. Actually it is the same woman but I am finding out more about the coat, where she bought it (Portobello Rd in London) and what happened when she wore it in Paris and Amsterdam and eventually when she brings it back to Sydney to finally leave it out for collection with a pile of other old clothes.

Now I am at the reason for this blog post, thanks for your patience. It takes courage to work creatively. It is kind of scary to look at a blank page and not have any idea what will appear there and if it will be any good or any use and there are so many other things you could be doing with your time but you plunge in anyway and it's exciting and exhilarating. It brings together all of these little details you have noticed about the world and mixes them up with characters and dialogue that didn't exist before and then you have a story. You have created a new world for these new people to live in and it's a place where you can also hang out which is like a parallel world to the one you live in when you put down the pen or the brush.

Got to hang out the washing, mind drifting between both worlds, an orange, black and white butterfly fluttering on a branch outside the window above the bins.

Enjoy your day.

Love K.x
 

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