When I stopped writing, my creativity ended. Initially, I had stopped because I was burned out. I didn’t realize that quitting completely would make the situation so much worse. What could have been a recoverable burnout ended up stretching into a several year period. Sure, I did heal. However, I made it unnecessarily difficult on myself.
Where I once enjoyed endless streams of ideas and possibilities, I barely had anything. The well was dry. If I had just kept writing, I am sure this wouldn’t have happened.
Yes, I thought my joy of writing had faded for good, and I feared that I would no longer experience the joy of a satiated pen. I needed tomato a change, but I didn’t know where to start. This is when I bumped into this quote, though, and began to change my perspective:
Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is the result of good work habits.” – Twyla Tharp
That day, I knew I had to take back control of my creativity, and the quote gave me the initial spark that I needed. from there, I felt empowered to take more actions. Here’s a look at what I did:
Read the Artist’s Way
Julia Cameron had it right. Follow the process and implement her strategies and the creativity did. It took a while, but it did. It would have happened sooner, but I was somewhat inconsistent implementing them.
My two favorite tools have been the Morning Pages and the Artist’s Date. To this day, I still do them on a regular basis. In fact, when I skip my morning pages for a few days (it happens!), I feel myself reverting to old habits.
Joined Ship 30 for 30
This is my first cohort for Ship 30 for 30. I had hoped to use it to build a daily writing practice. Well, the objective has been achieved! I have been writing daily despite my full time job, an active social life, church life, and ballroom dancing.
Ship 30 for 30 has been life change for me. I’ve done the cohort several times, and each time, I’ve gotten something different from it.
Began to Honor My Inner Voice
I have been letting my inner voice guide me during this cohort. The voice helps me choose topics, and also has been steadily feeding me ideas. I have a lot of them now, and I am excited to see where the journey takes me. I plan to write books, essays, poetry, whatever the Inner Voice wants.
I have been a writer for over two decades, and the burnout has been unsettling. It feels nice to write again, and I had to learn the hard way that my writing was tied to my creativity.
Today? I still with my hard-earned creativity practices and continue building momentum with my online writing.