By Tabitha Bozeman
The other night, my husband handed me a note my daughter had written for me. When I unfolded it, I read her request to write a story she’d had an idea for, about a woman cursed to live forever and falling in love then losing her love over and over throughout many centuries.
I told her it was a wonderful idea for a story, and that she needs to write it, not me. I was reminded of Beverly Clearly telling us “If you don’t see the book you want on the shelf, write it.”
Last weekend, I had an opportunity to work one-on-one with an artist friend on telling stories. Going through building a plot, developing characters and just having fun with the entire process reinvigorated my own desire to create — something I’ve had a hard time with lately mostly just because life is so busy. It is hard to get excited about creating when time is limited, and the perfect end result is looming.
Sometimes, it’s hard to separate the process from that end result we have in mind. The goal is neat and tidy and well-defined. But the process? The process is messy and uncomfortable.
Elizabeth Gilbert says it this way: “Creativity itself doesn’t care at all about results – the only thing it craves is the process. Learn to love the process and let whatever happens next happen, without fussing too much about it. Work like a monk, or a mule, or some other representative metaphor for diligence. Love the work.”
Loving the work is easier said than done at times.
I saw a video this week where a university professor worked with students all semester about understanding that the discomfort of the learning process is actually evidence that they are moving between not knowing and knowing. This is something I tell my girls and students: that they are moving through the unknown to the known, and the unknown is scary. But the only way to knowing is through that space of the unknown.
Creativity is learning and experimenting and moving from the unknown to the known. It is messy and uncomfortable and challenging — particularly if we aren’t what we consider “good” at it right away.
When I told my daughter she needed to write the story herself, and offered to help her, her response was to wrinkle her nose and shrug her shoulders in discomfort and say “But I’m not good at it.” It is easy to remind her that she doesn’t need to be good at something right away, that she just needs to try it. That “good” comes after “unsure,” “awkward,” and even “terrible.” It’s easy to remind her of this, to encourage her and support her attempts. It can be much harder to remember these things myself. Especially if we are working alone in our creativity.
Thinking about how I could best encourage my daughter in her creativity, I thought again about meeting with my friend last weekend. Instead of feeling drained or “peopled-out” afterward, I was energized and motivated. I thought of Maya Angelou ‘s reminder that “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use the more you have.”
Collaborating is one way to help ourselves and those around us generate more creativity and motivation. So, I asked her to help me with a project — a project that will hopefully help her generate and organize her ideas and give her story life.
I hope she will take our work together and work through her discomfort as she puts her skills to work crafting her story, writing her characters into existence, and as she creates her own path in life.
After all, we each become the stories we write as we walk our own unique journeys from the unknown to the known.
