Creative Momentum
Monday, October 22, 2012 at 3:13PM 
vermont studio center, johnson, vt
I was in Vermont last week to visit a few friends and to write. I didn't write much, but dadgummit I wrote a little. I plowed my way through part of a rough draft of an essay that I've been mulling over for about a year. I still don't know what the essay is really about or what it's trying to be, but I'm doing my best to find out. I wrote sloppy phrases, terrible sentences, downright ugly paragraphs. I forced myself to write one sentence and then another even when my writing muscles, which are flaccid and fatty from under use, screamed at me to stop. I wish I had written more and I wish I had written better, but this retreat wasn't about the quality of writing, and it wasn't even about quantity.
It was about momentum.
I needed to start moving, to start dancing clumsily with words once again. I needed to jump off the cliff, or into the water, or whatever physical metaphor of movement and faith you'd like to use.
In preparation for this little writing retreat, I cleaned my studio before I left. I'd hoped to have some momentum going when I came back, and I wanted that space to be ready to use.
Sadly, my studio (in a spare upstairs bedroom) is where clutter goes to live and to multiply. It gets especially bad just before I take a trip, when I'm always shoving things in there and shutting the door, vowing to deal with them when I return. But then I come home and avoid dealing with the stuff. The studio and I are in a constant cycle of avoidance, de-cluttering, limited use, and re-cluttering. Sometimes it's so bad that I actually apologize to the room itself, to any muses or creative energy that are trapped in there waiting for me to liberate and honor them.
The studio was pretty much unusable when I left for Oregon back in July, and it stayed that way until just before I left for Vermont last week, when I managed to make about half of the small room accessible again. That's three months of avoidance and neglect. Three months of a low-grade anxiety fever every time I even thought about the studio. Three months of working at my dining room table and on my couch. Three months is one-quarter of a year. Sad, sad.
I'm back from Vermont now, and yes, I'm writing this at my dining room table. The space in the studio that was clear and usable is now junked up with unpacked luggage. The rest of the space holds the never-ending miscellany that needs to be filed, recycled, put away, found a home. The dining room table is a nice place to work, but there are too many distractions down here: dishes to wash, laundry to do, floors to vacuum. Right now the sun is shining and the air is warm enough to have the sliding glass door open, so working here is lovely. Later, when the sun goes down and this chair starts to hurt my back, I'd like to move upstairs to my cozy studio space with the twinkle lights. But unless I deal with the clutter and clear a path to my desk, I'll simply move to the couch. The couch can be a nice place to work, but then the lines between work-time, writing-time, and home-time blur until I can't decipher which time is which. This sucks the life out of my creativity and kills my momentum.
A body at rest wants to stay at rest. A body in motion wants to stay in motion.
I don't have much momentum from my time away, but I have enough. If I keep rolling down the hill slowly, I'm bound to pick up speed, right? I'm recommitting to my writing, to my creative work. Maybe some day I'll find a rhythm or system that makes this commitment easier. Or maybe there's no magic formula for momentum but to do the work: clean the studio, write the ugly paragraphs, breathe and repeat, until maintaining the sacred space and movement of creation is second nature.
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If you'd like to commit to your own writing practice and gain some momentum, I invite you to join me for Alchemy: The Art & Craft of Writing (Oct. 29 - Dec. 14). Alchemy is the process of transforming something common into something special. This online course will help you take your writing deeper and w i d e r. (This will be the last time I offer this course online. I'm making space for new projects to be born.)
Reader Comments (3)
And indeed. Momentum is so key. I struggle mightily with the physics, too. A body at rest...
I went on a streak recently where I was writing every day and I went, whoa! It really *does* get easier once there's already motion. (So why does it stop again?)
Glad you're back at it.
Just want to let you know I trust your creative spirit to keep rollin' down that hill and start to fly.
As for me, I may not be flying at the moment - but I am moving.
I am sitting in my studio typing this, but I am very careful NOT to look too far to my right. Also careful not to make sudden and loud noises or I might get buried in an avlalanche!