Stuck between chapters
"An icy attitude will put out a woman's creative fire. It will inhibit the creative function. This is a serious problem, yet the story gives us an idea. The ice must be broken and the soul taken out of the freeze.
When writers, for example, feel dry, dry, dry, they know that they way to become moist is to write. But if they're locked in ice, they won't write. There are painters who are gasping to paint, but they're telling themselves, "Get out of here. Your work is weirdly strange and ugly." There are many artists who've not yet gotten a good foothold or who are old war-horses at developing their creative lives, and yet and still, every time they reach for the pen, the brush, the ribbons, the script, they hear, "You're nothing but trouble, your work is marginal or completely unacceptable -- because you yourself are marginal and unacceptable."
So what is the solution? Do as the duckling does. Go ahead, struggle through it. Pick up the pen already and put it to the page and stop whining. Write. Pick up the brush and be mean to yourself for a change, paint. Dancers, put on the loose chemise, tie the ribbons in your hair, at your waist, or on your ankles and tell the body to take it from there. Dance. Actress, playwright, poet, musician, or any other. Generally, just stop talking. Don't say one more word unless you're a signer. Shut yourself in a room with a ceiling or in a clearing under the sky. Do your art.
Generally, a thing cannot freeze if it is moving. So move. Keep moving."
When writers, for example, feel dry, dry, dry, they know that they way to become moist is to write. But if they're locked in ice, they won't write. There are painters who are gasping to paint, but they're telling themselves, "Get out of here. Your work is weirdly strange and ugly." There are many artists who've not yet gotten a good foothold or who are old war-horses at developing their creative lives, and yet and still, every time they reach for the pen, the brush, the ribbons, the script, they hear, "You're nothing but trouble, your work is marginal or completely unacceptable -- because you yourself are marginal and unacceptable."
So what is the solution? Do as the duckling does. Go ahead, struggle through it. Pick up the pen already and put it to the page and stop whining. Write. Pick up the brush and be mean to yourself for a change, paint. Dancers, put on the loose chemise, tie the ribbons in your hair, at your waist, or on your ankles and tell the body to take it from there. Dance. Actress, playwright, poet, musician, or any other. Generally, just stop talking. Don't say one more word unless you're a signer. Shut yourself in a room with a ceiling or in a clearing under the sky. Do your art.
Generally, a thing cannot freeze if it is moving. So move. Keep moving."
There's this opportunity to do something different and wonderful and brand new sitting on my doorstep. I have no clue what to do with it just yet. See, for months now I felt inadequate, confined and limited. Completely unenthused, withdrawn and drained. A part of me packed up and walked out the door. Yet everyday my creative spirit begged and grovelled to return. I shut down without wanting to shut down. Going about my day sleeping, waking, eating, commuting, talking, typing, working, and dying. A routine that smothered a fire I worked hard to light. But what did I expect? That's what happens when you stop watching and adding fuel to the embers. The fire extinguishes. It took the end of a day to understand just how frozen I've become. There's now a yearning bubbling and touching the tips of my fingers and I would be lying if I said I wasn't feeling scared. Not even a whiff of a plan is in the air but at least I finally understand. I need to be mean to myself if I want to survive. A different kind of mean but mean nonetheless.
I think I'm scared.
Badley
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