What shall I write about today?I have no idea!
Sigh.
That happens sometimes, and staring at my laptop doesn't usually solve the problem. I close my eyes, lightly, not tightly, and take a deep breath and hope the muse will start moving my fingers across the keyboard. Nope, that doesn't happen.
It is not as if I haven't been working. I finished the draft of another chapter for my spiritual memoir, and I have read through all seven chapters for part one of the memoir. Plus, I started gathering materials for the adult forum on summer spirituality I will present on May 20th.
But the words for a new post just are not flowing. I am as dry as the Christmas wreath I saw when I took a walk the other day. It's May, people, not December or even January or February! Take it down. Throw it away. Plant some pansies!
Ah, maybe it is planting time. Time when I need to refresh my inner garden.
So that's what I am going to do today.
I am going to take a walk, even though it looks like rain. I am going to write a letter to a friend, instead of struggling to rewrite a section of my memoir. I am going to wander through my garret bookshelves and see where my fingers land. I am going to daydream and look out the window. I am going to do whatever pops into my head.
And I'm going to remember that inspiration and support is everywhere, even on restaurant walls.
An Invitation
What do you do when you feel dry? I would love to know.
I am struggling writing a policy and procedures manual. "Key Control" is today’s topic. It was last night when I put the project to bed. It was this morning when after a good night sleep I banged out five hundred words. Five hundred plus words that sounded like the adult the adult characters speaking when I read it out loud to myself during editing. Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah.
ReplyDeleteDelete All. Stare at the blank page. Click on the feedly.com icon. Discover your timely blog post: Uninspired: Thursday’s Reflection, and read.
Years ago, on a planet far far away, I took a beginning sketching class. In an early lesson, we picked small objects which we had with us to draw. Students drew their lunch bag, book bags, one even took a shoe off and struggled to put an image on paper. Our instructor walked around the room answering questions and giving advice.
A frustrated student near me had one of her running shoes on the table. Parts of her sketch were the running shoe. She was struggling with the big space you put your foot in. The front of the shoe in the drawing had a certain grace and life about it. Moving your gaze to the rear of the shoe in the sketch, was this a shoe for a human or an elephant.
“Draw the negative space.” was the instructors advice.
Negative space is the area around the subject you’re drawing. In this example, the instructor was urging my fellow student to draw the hole, not the body of the shoe making the hole. Something clicked in my mind when I heard that bit of instruction, but which my one shoe fellow student did not understand.
I was struggling sketching my empty brown paper lunch bag. I worked as a parking lot attendant to pay for school and had eaten the lunch I had packed in it during my shift before class. My drawing experience to this point had been in mechanical and architectural drafting classes. With that experience, I was confident I could draw a full set of blueprints, various views, and a flat layout of the bag which a die maker could use to make the cutting die for manufacturing the bag. That was not my task. My challenge was to sketch this exasperating empty brown paper bag standing on the table in front of me.
“Draw the negative space.” I understood the visual trick being suggested to help draw the space on a shoe intended for a human instead of an elephant. The advice clicked in my mind; however, perhaps not in the exact way the instructor had in mind.
I imagined the sandwich and fruit that had recently occupied the space inside the bag and then drew an image of the bag around the picture in my mind. A line on the bag that had frustrated me suddenly made sense. My apple made it when the bag wrapped itself around it. The curling bag top was the result of folding and holding the fold in my hand. I wasn’t drawing a brown paper lunch bag, but sketching the boundary around the lunch, I had eaten.
In another life, I hope to be an artist. In this life, I enjoy struggling with sketching and being the scribe for the voices in my head. On a good day, when the voices, others call their muse, go quiet and leave the room, I think of my art class and the discovery of drawing the negative space.
I look at the picture of your backyard used to illustrate your point. I wonder who filled the space that is now empty? Who hung the wreath? Who laid the stone around the garden and why did they choose them? What was the day like when these things happened? Imagining what filled the negative space goes on and on until my voices become jealous and return to do their job.
This morning’s work was full of all the keys, locks, control logs and more needed in a policy and procedure, but lacked the presence human presence to change Wah Wah Wah into living and meaningful words. Thank you for reminding me, when uninspired; draw the negative space.
I must close. I have dictation to get down. A scribes must act when duty calls.
Your comments always amaze me and I am so grateful you take time to read my posts. (One clarification --that nasty dry Christmas wreath was NOT in our yard. I am obsessed about removing Christmas decorations before they are past their prime!!) Since reading your comment, I have been thinking about negative space and how often I fill space with negatives. That is a different path than what you suggest, but it is where my mind went. I wonder how often my negative thoughts diminish whatever inspiration might have been trying to find a way in.
DeleteI hit dry spells with my writing/blogging often. I just go with it and try something else that's creative...cooking, card making, gardening, listening to music. Eventually, the muse comes back. Sometimes it takes awhile, and that's ok.
ReplyDelete