Human Doing, Human Being

I have the privilege of being a creative resident sponsored by Centrum in Port Townsend, WA. I have week to write and dream and go wild creating. This is my fourth day here. I was driving myself nuts trying to produce something “worthy” through the first few days. The editor and the creator usually have to be separated in times like these. And the internal critic, that surly little man, needs to go on vacation. What about sending him to Maui, or even Australia? I’m going to be content here on the salty skirt of the northern Islands.

Walking on Fort Worden beach I found a curious army washed up in the foam. Hundreds of infant kelp, high and dry, clinging to small stones. I’m not sure if the stones were meant to be anchors or just tools to slow the drift until the young kelp get stronger and bigger. Either way, the young were lost to the air and howling sands.

This got me to thinking about the rules I’ve been anchored to. I’m connected, yet I continue to drift in my creative process. Here are a few tidbits from my critical editor. Sure, all of them make perfect sense. Yet when they become religious dogma, they squelch the joy and fire out of the creation. process. Ultimately the end result looks land locked and meager. Maybe you’ll see yourself in these contradictions:

Rick’s Rule-O-Rama:

Invoke the muse every time you write.
Just be yourself.
Release your pain.
Be joyful.
Free write.
Be disciplined.

Light the candle.
Be free, damnit.
Rise early.
Sit by the window.
Don’t move.
Walk more.
Use fewer words.
Put flesh on the story.
Don’t be such a critic.
Be deep.
Tell a story worth hearing.
Let it come from the heart.
Autobiography sucks.
Seek to be heard and published.
Write for your own joy.
Make it therapeutic.
Just be real.
Be bigger than yourself.
Collect stories.
Use ordinary words.
Challenge the reader.
Don’t be too ethereal.
Share the dirt on everything.
Allude.
Show. Never tell.
Have a plan.
Never plan.
etc. etc.

Well, you can see the mess one could get into if all the rules rose up in a storm. I’m not sure whether to be grounded or dreamy, to be connected to the ocean bottom, or a drifter. I think I’m like the little kelp. I have the illusion of being grounded and the companionship of a form. But the sea will still take me where it will.

At the beginning of the week I had a vision that was honed into a plan. After all, one needs a juicy plan to get into a residency like this, right? That’s all in the past. I’m learning something about my unique voice. I don’t usually tell workaday stories very well. Yet, I can sing ruthless beauty from my heart!

What does all this mean? Put boundaries around the “shoulds”. So, I made a structure for my days of solitude: Create, unfettered in the day. Edit last season’s writing at night. And if I’m lucky have a rockin dream, where something beyond the rules or structure makes a visitation.

Today a storm rushes from the San Juans down Admiralty Inlet. The sea is wild, but not frantic… like me. I just go with the weather, faithfully being true to my particular, quirky self.

Rick


Here’s the view out my window:

THANK YOU CENTRUM!!