I remember a special creative moment as a child. I was at the age when I was required to send thank-you notes to aunts and uncles for gifts received for my birthday, or for Christmas, around ten years old or so. I didn't like to write them because I didn't know what to say after I had written "thank you for the gift."
My mother would have to ask me several times before I would even sit down with a paper and pen that she would provide for me. I would sit there chewing the tip of the pen nervously and stare at that blank page, feeling the mixture of emotions I can still feel when I am unable to write: anger, fear, frustration, even despair.
At last it became easier for me to write thank-you notes, and my mother didn't have to force me to do it anymore: what happened is that I suddenly understood that after "thank you for the gift" I was free to write anything I wanted or felt inspired to write down, that what I wrote to my aunt or uncle could be anything that interested me to tell them, and that there were no rules, only my own choice of words.
This changed the experience totally: I remember a sense of pleasure, even joy, filling me as I wrote, sharing whatever mattered to me or passed through my head at that time, a spontaneous rather than arduous task. This childhood memory of creativity is very helpful today as I struggle as a freelance writer.
There are still times when facing that blank note page fills me with a sense of despair or futility, or is it shyness?
I have come to appreciate after years of studying literature and the art of writing, how very complicated an experience it is. Reading books on the subject helps to clarify my thoughts and rekindle enthusiasm. I would like to share three books I have read recently that have done this.
As a writer, I am forever haunting libraries and bookstores. When I noticed the book The Call to Create by Jungian psychologist, Linda Schierse Leonard, in the "New Books" section of my local library, I checked it out right away, anxious to delve into it.
I had read some of Leonard's other titles such as The Wounded Woman and Meeting the Madwoman and had found them particularly insightful about the creative life.
Now I was even more excited about what I was reading, for Leonard blended her personal and analytical knowledge on being creative. What really resonated was how she defined creativity as "soul-work", as a spiritual issue. She likened it to the challenge of being in the wilderness.
In our materialistic and hyper-commercial world, bombarded with new slick products and jingles every day, it can often be difficult to distinguish what is true creativity, but according to Leonard, it is much more than entertainment. It is " a response to the care of nature and psyche -the wilderness within and without - ...related to spiritual growth, to creative transformation and ecological wisdom." (Leonard, 36)
Leonard continues by explaining how despair often overcomes those who answer the call to create, for western civilization is passing through a "dark night of the soul" where cynicism rules.
To overcome what she refers to as the "saboteurs" of creativity, described as inner tendencies or characters such as the Tyrant, the Perfectionist, the Critic, the Conformist, the Star, she offers inner figures that can bolster our will to create.
This is what I found most original and helpful in the book. The Muse of Nature, the Sower, the Witness, the Sentinel, the Adventurer, are discussed as helper to the creative act, whether it be in writing, music, dance, film or painting. To make her theories more accessible, Leonard uses the life stories of famous artists and makes use of her own personal muses, writers like Rainer Maria Rilke, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Toni Morrison, and film director Krysztof Kieslowski.
Two figures Leonard discusses that intrigued me most were the Artisan and the Dummling,. The Artisan according to Leonard "acknowledges that creativity is a gift" and unlike the Star who dominates today's newspaper and television headlines, is "humble" and works with the "care, patience, and strength to dwell in paradox."
The Dummling figure which can often be found in fairy tales, teaches the power to play through humor and laughter and overcomes the Perfectionist, another enemy of creativity.
The figure of the Celebrant closes the book. Leonard writes that those who celebrate the creativity around them are participating in the creative process themselves. The Call to Create is a book that emphasizes the human value of being creative and how it helps us to face death consciously and "unites us on our spiritual path." (Leonard,261)
As often happens, I had picked up another book whose message dovetailed with the above one. It was a ragtag second-hand paperback published over thirty years ago. I had purchased it in a tiny second-hand book shop in Sutton. The title Response to Literature was rather nondescript, but some of the chapter headings were interesting like "What is Literature?"
At forty-eight, I am still seeking answers to such questions, as one finds out that the passing of time occasions a constant change of perspective. Perhaps this is what maturing is all about: to keep open and flexible about definitions so you can grow.
I wanted to read about "Literature and Contemplation" and "Perceiving the Beautiful" especially. The author had a pleasing name, William J. Grace, and was an academic who seemed to be in vogue with today's alternative vision of body, mind and spirit, for he stated in the Preface: " This book assumes that a genuine response to literature engages our whole being - our emotions and imagination as well as our critical faculties."
What inspired me in this book was the vision of great literature as an expression of the truth of human experience. The word "human" seemed to jump out reassuringly everywhere in these pages. Some sentences seemed very wise like "A creative work of art is also a means to psychological health through its emotional impact both for the artist who creates and for the audience who enjoys the creation." (Grace, 8)
Struggling lately with a sense that being a "great" artist is defined by how much money you make, I was gladden to read that a great artist according to Grace, has far more important tasks to fulfill such as sharing "values" more than words, and responding to the universe with "great creative emotion," offering a "testimony of living experience."
This is what the writer Ann Lamott does in her quirky book about the writing life entitled Bird by Bird that I picked up in another library.
Gifted with an eccentric humor, Lamott does not hide her past which includes a period of addiction to drugs and alcohol, and her present, which includes being a Christian. She witnesses to the psychological struggles that being a creative writer entails and thus, by sharing this, imparts hope to those involved in the same struggle.
I found much to ponder in her words about what it truly takes to be a writer:
"You are going to have to give and give and give, or there's no reason for you to be writing.
And you have to give from the deepest part of yourself and you are going to have to go on giving, and the giving is going to have to be its own reward. There is no cosmic importance to your getting something published, but there is in learning to be a giver." (Lamott, 203)
And somehow, this vision returns me to the child I was, scribbling freely and joyfully her thoughts and experiences on a thank-you note.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Leonard Shcierse, Linda, The Call to Create, New York: Harmony Books, 2000.
Grace, William J., Response to Literature, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965.
Lamott, Anne, Bird by Bird, New York: Anchor Books, 1994.
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