Creativity in Anxious Times

How do you keep in touch with your creativity in times like these? Many of us already live with anxiety on a daily basis and there may be all sorts of causes for that, creating a background hum of unease. Add to that the sense of global anxiety we now live with, which has been ramped up to an extraordinary level - the pandemic, climate change and now the crisis in war-torn Ukraine - and it becomes even harder to maintain calm, confidence and positivity. We feel powerless. We feel fear, for ourselves, our loved ones, our countries, our planet.

Anxiety and creativity are not good bedfellows. You may feel inhibited or utterly drained of inspiration and excitement.

What can you do when your inner voice is saying ‘What’s the point?’

The point, very simply, is this: humans are born to be creative. Creativity is our shout against the darkness. It’s our way of reaching out. It’s our way of creating fellowship and sympathy. It’s our way of creating joy and recognition. It’s our way of defeating time. On an individual and collective level, creativity is what we’re all about.

Fine words, you may say, but how does that help me when I’m wide-eyed in the dark, terrified of the future?

Here’s how:

• See creativity as your anchor, distracting you from the ‘out there’, grounding you in yourself.

• Creativity is a celebration as well as a distraction. You can choose to focus on what gives you joy and reassurance, what liberates your imagination in a positive way.

• Creativity is an assertion. it is a great ‘I am!’ shouted out - and if enough of us do it, it will lift us all.

• Creativity is a retreat. Take your gaze off Twitter and the rolling news. Back away from doomscrolling. Sit in a peaceful place, breathe slow, remember.

How can I write when I’m too worried to write?

• Keep your aspirations and intentions modest. Don’t strive too much and don’t beat yourself up if nothing much emerges.

• You can use a journal as a release. You can dump your anxieties on the page and the act of offloading will help you. You can also record the things you love and value, rediscovering your perception of them. The birds still sing, after all.

• You can befriend yourself in your journal. It is your shoulder to cry on, your reassurance. And even if no-one ever sees it (you may not want them to), you have given voice to the you that is truly you, to the experience that is uniquely yours.

• If you feel the slightest nudge to invent, seize it. A tiny drawing, a line or two of verse, a flash fiction, a character sketch …

• Explore other forms of creativity. I have learned how to make and bind my own notebooks. I have rediscovered crocheting, having not done it since I was a girl. These activities soothe me and because I am not invested in trying to win a publishing deal etcetera, I am calm. The joy lies in the process and the product for its own sake.

Dear friends, reach out. Keep sharing, donating and creating. It matters. In the end, creativity saves us. it rises, battered by circumstance - but it rises still. And it always will.

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You want to write - what's stopping you?

It starts with the dream, one that often starts early. You’re a child bookworm, you live inside your imagination, you start making up stories – and you dream, one day, that those stories will make it into print. 

For some people, that dream fades as other dreams come along and take its place. But for some of us, the dream becomes an addiction. An obsession. We may spend years trying to make the dream come true: we practice, we learn, we try and try again. 

We face continual challenges and we try to beat them all. Some are external, many are internal -  and when it comes to those internal ones, we tend to think we’re alone, thinking and feeling the way we do. 

But we’re not. 

And here’s where I ask for your help, because for the past couple of years I’ve been working on a book on mindset for writers. At the start of the project I ran a survey which yielded incredibly useful answers and played a strong part in guiding the direction of the book. Now, as I get near to completing the draft, I’m running a new survey. I want to check I am on target with what you want to see in it and whether I’ve given the right proportion of space to certain issues, plus I need to check if there is any area I’ve missed. 

Those who’ve already contributed – thank you! Your responses are invaluable. This book is a distillation of all I have learned personally, all the advice I’ve given during twenty years of being a writing coach, all the feedback I’ve had from those I’ve worked with. 

By completing the survey you are, quite simply, helping me to help you – and others. The survey only takes a few minutes and it’s anonymous unless you wish to give your name. 

The survey is here. Thank you so much in advance. Please share with other writers if you can – the more responses I get the more targeted my book can be!

To sign up for updates, sneak peeks and launch goodies when The Unputdownable Writer’s Mindset is published, go here.

Can being ill ever benefit your writing?

You may have noticed this blog has been quiet for a little while. It’s because I’ve been fighting with my body. Or, to be more precise, I’ve been learning not to fight my body.

At the end of last year, I ran into a wall. I had been pushing myself, the way I do. When it complained, I told my body to shut up and keep on going. This is what we are all so guilty of. We live in a society that says do it, have it, keep burning the candle at both ends. Face it, conquer it. Your body is your vehicle. Your body is your servant. Your body is not as important to you as your mind and soul. It is merely the container for those abstract, superior elements. Exhaustion is your default state – but that’s a good thing, isn’t it? It shows you’re putting in effort; in modern culture, striving and effort are gold badges of worth.

Then there comes the day when the body says ‘Enough’. It tells you, ‘I’ve had it with this attitude. I’ve had it with you not taking care of yourself. Of me.’

That rebellion can take the form of an exhaustion so draining there is no functionality left. Illness creates a fog in the mind. That questing, rational brain of yours can no longer dart about. It is lassoed from below and chained to a body that now asserts itself as having primacy.

Or a grumbling, niggling level of illness suddenly grows into something unmistakable. Something that fills the foreground of your awareness and stops you thinking of anything else. The body’s main weapon in this is pain. Pain makes you sit up and pay attention, like nothing else does or can.

This is what happened to me. Two health issues reached crisis point in December. I was told both required operations. One of those operations I have now had (the other isn’t so urgent). Three weeks on from the operation, I look back and take stock of it all. For weeks beforehand, virtually unable to eat and living with the fear of severe pain if I ate the wrong thing, my energy levels and my mental acuity both went through the floor. In the recovery phase, I have had to learn patience. Passivity. A willingness to wait. I am not good at those things!

Regular readers know I’m writing a book on mindset for writers. Oh, the irony! I had to live my own advice. I had to understand that I couldn’t push on with the book and publish as speedily as I had planned. Nor did I want to, once I had accepted the situation. Why? Because, quite simply, the book would not have been good enough. The book wouldn’t have been as rich and considered as I wanted it to be. There is pushing on, there is driving on – and there is the old proverb about more haste, less speed. I would add: more haste, poorer quality.

So how have I used the time of this health crisis? I have learned to sit and think, quietly. I have learned to doze and not feel guilty about that. I have learned to give my body time to rest and heal. It deserves that care and respect.

I am lucky enough to work mainly at home, but my new morning regime has involved staying in bed, reading and writing, in what I call ‘the bed office’. This has been amazingly productive in the last three weeks, as my brain revives and with it the enthusiasm and joy I feel about the book. It was not dead; it was merely sleeping.

I have written parts I would not have written had I not had this crisis. This is the creative paradox of it all.

If you are a writer and your health challenges you, either temporarily or continually, here are some recommendations I hope will help you:

·        Maintain awareness that you are not separate from your body.

·        Imagination is a wonderful thing but it can be two-edged in that we imagine the worst results from our symptoms (even without late-night Google searches!) However, remember that it’s your imagination that gives you the empathy to be a richer writer.

·        Try to turn resistance and resentment into acceptance. We use the ‘fighter’ image so often when it comes to illness, but it isn’t always the appropriate way to look at it.

·        If you can’t write, use the time to read and ponder – you are refilling the creative well.

·        Illness isn’t romantic. You’re not one of the Brontë sisters (and what they endured was pretty hellish). Illness isn’t pretty. But it is human and it brings out human kindness. Accept help from others even if you’re the stubbornly independent type.

·        Do what you can, not what you think you must. Do the minor things and don’t obsess about the central task you really can’t cope with right now.

·        If the work has worth, it won’t go away. It will wait for you. Have faith.

Interested in reading The Unputdownable Writer’s Mindset? Sign up here for advance news and sneak peeks in the run-up to publication.

I am really excited to be talking about mindset during the Women in Publishing online summit March 2-8 2020! Grab your free pass here. This gives you 24 hour access to an incredible range of talks and presentations on all aspects of writing and publishing. Or you can upgrade to the Full Access pass at an early bird rate before March 1.