Posted by Deborah Atherton

It often helps us, as we struggle to find time to do our creative projects, to have a little prompt, some gesture that tells us that it is now time to get serious, and sit down with our work.  We tell ourselves, “After I finish reading the paper, or cleaning up after dinner, or eating lunch, I will go ______ (you fill in the blank – paint, or sort out my photographs, or edit some video, or write).

For me, this is most often a cup of coffee or tea (you can see my earlier post on coffee and creativity here ). I wake up with coffee, and then switch to tea later in the day.  Coffee is my first burst of inspiration; tea sustains and comforts and helps me bring ideas to fruition.   

 Tea, like wine, has its devoted connoisseurs, the people who will tell you that if you do not drink the white tea made from buds that bloom only for a week and a half every other year in some obscure province of China, you have not really experienced tea.  Like Captain Jean Luc Picard, I enjoy a nice cup of Earl Grey, hot, when it is available, but honestly will settle for lesser brands, at any temperature, when it is not.  It is the making of the tea, the ritual of heating the water, pouring it over a tea bag (or sachet or leaves, if we are being elegant), that creates the moment of peace, the little separate space, that allows you to launch yourself into the next hour of your day, the hour when you will have a little peace to do your creative work.

As firm believers in the drinking of coffee and tea to support  creative endeavors, and to help inaugurate what we are sure will be a wonderfully creative New Year, The Intuitive Edge invites you to participate in our first annual haiku contest with seventeen syllables on the subject of coffee or tea and creativity.  Use your vivid imaginations – and we know enough of our readers to know that this is not in short supply.  The traditional Haiku form used in English is 17 syllables (5-7-5), but this is the Intuitive Edge: give yourself a little room for creativity.  

We offer this haiku from the great Japanese master Matsuo Bashō, who some say invented haiku, on starting your mornings with tea:

drinking morning tea
the monk is peaceful
the chrysanthemum blooms

The prizes for the winning entries will be, of course, be Starbucks cards (we are here to support your creativity in many ways!) to help you break new creative ground in the New Year.  All entries must be in by midnight, January 22nd, GMT (which seems to be the clock WordPress runs on.)

Please post your entries here in the comments section. You will retain all rights to all seventeen syllables after they have first been posted here.  Good luck, and we look forward to your entries!  

I leave you with these final words from Matsuo Bashō: “The haiku that reveals seventy to eighty percent of its subject is good. Those that reveal fifty to sixty percent, we never tire of.”

We would probably all be reasonably happy and productive during the holidays (after all, who doesn’t like a nice turkey?) if it weren’t for our memories of the past and the way they create expectations of how things will be—or should be—in the present.   And of course, our memories are selective—we don’t remember the family disagreements, or how our parents couldn’t put our new bicycles together right, or how Uncle Phil always had a little too much too drink—we remember the wonderful presents our grandparents gave us, and decorating our homes, and baking cookies, and the way our mothers always made the stuffing just right. 

Intellectually, we probably understand that the present can’t compete with the Hallmark version of the past our memories present us with, and yet every year we rush into the holiday season full of plans and expectations.   We may accept too many invitations, or not be invited enough; we may find ourselves exhausted in the middle of cooking a big holiday dinner; we may attempt to gather the entire family together and be defeated by distance, expense, and competing schedules. And in the midst of all this—of parties, families, and events—we feel frustrated at our inability to get back to our projects.  Our novels, our paintings, our films, our photograph and videos call to us—but we are too busy trying to squeeze in one more must-do activity to listen. We are almost like addicts, seeking to recreate the holiday high we had as five-year-olds, and, like addicts of all stripes, we are usually doomed to disappointment.

As humans, we are always going to have memories and expectations, and as creative people, we depend on them for our work, but we do have a tool that allows us to not lose ourselves in them to the point of misery. We can practice mindfulness; we can focus on the present moment, and understand that this moment we are experiencing is unique and deserving of our full attention.

In The Mindful Way Through Anxiety, Susan Orsillo PhD, and Lizabeth Roemer, PhD, define mindfulness as: “a specific way of paying attention to things. It involves purposefully expanding your attention to take in both what you are experiencing inside –your thought, feelings, and physical sensations — and what is happening around you. But the kind of attention you bring to noticing is an essential aspect of this practice. Mindfulness involves bringing a gentle and honest curiosity to your experiences. It involves looking at familiar thought, people, and situations with a fresh perspective, as if you had never encountered them before.”

At a time when every bite of food is subject to comparison, we can allow ourselves to simply savor the eggnog we are sipping and not worry about whether it tastes as good as our Aunt Sharon’s or is up to Iron Chef quality. We can understand that as hard as we try to get the whole family together, there is going to be someone who can’t or won’t make it and that although the gathering may not be complete, it can still happen (and hey, they invented Skype for just this reason!) We can occasionally close our eyes, take a few deep breaths, and let everything fall away but the chair we are sitting on and the air we are breathing, and let go of all the memories, and all the expectations, and know that life, in this minute, is as important as it gets.
 
And most of all, we can be a little kind to ourselves.  So many of the people with creative projects I have talked to in the last few weeks have been upset about their inability to get anything done since Thanksgiving, and worried that the rest of the year will slip away with nothing accomplished.  But time only slips away when we aren’t fully experiencing it, if it is filled with anxiety, or frustration, or a nagging dissatisfaction with things as they are. Fifteen minutes of just being in the moment—of just listening to what is going on around you, or really tasting the food in front of you, or taking a short walk and smelling December in the air—will bring you back to the present moment, and may even help you get to your computer or studio or camera to do a little work.

And you know, it’s possible that the work, when we all do get back to it—even if it isn’t until after New Year—will have benefited from the break.  The fog will have cleared, the excitement and disappointment will have lifted, and we will all be ready to work again.

Thanks to Eric Ember, the Intuitive Edge Photographer in Residence,  for the holiday photos!

As we are all constantly searching for more time to do our creative projects, we will all have frequently encountered this advice: wake up an hour earlier and work then, while the world is still quiet.  (This is also a favorite of people who are trying to get you to exercise, or get more work done.) As a survivor of more books and articles on writing, creativity, and productivity than I can count, I am going to give you the opposite advice: Go To Bed, and stay there!

When we are very young, and staying up all night to finish papers for our teachers our professors, this may be less vital. Our bodies and minds will suffer any amount of abuse and survive, and even be relatively perky, the next morning.  But once you hit 25, and definitely once you hit 30, your body really won’t settle for less sleep than your natural internal schedule demands.  If you need 7 hours, and you decide to give your body 6 in order to rise at 5 AM and write five pages, or go out in the world and photograph it before it is awake, or even get in 100 pushups, your mind will eventually take its dream-deprived revenge.

Our creativity depends on whatever it is our brains and unconscious minds do at night, and if we don’t give ourselves enough time to do that, our imagination will either go on strike, refusing to come up with any ideas at all, or start cooking up some very odd scenarios indeed.  Whether you are one of those people who wake up with ideas and want to get to work immediately, or whether you are someone who really doesn’t become alert until midnight, the sleep you acquire at whatever hours you choose to acquire it, is vital for your creativity.

Ben Stein (sometimes a surprising source of wisdom) gave this advice on a recent CBS Sunday Morning, and I thought it was well given (although I paraphrase): Sleep. Sleep extra hours, whenever you get the chance.  Sleep if you are bored. Sleep if you are tired.  Turn off all those tempting electronic devices, and sleep.    

If you give your brain enough time and room to sleep, it will return the favor by offering a lot more creative entertainment and ideas than even your i-Pad can give you. So, unless you are one of those naturally early-to-bed, early-to-rise people—and I know there are still a few out there!—forget getting up at 5 am and depriving yourself of the hour or two or three of sleep that might make the  critical difference. Sleep, and find some other time in which to be creative.  Your dreams are calling you!

Occasionally, Leslie and I go away to shore hotels (off-season) to work on our creativity book. This weekend, we chose Asbury Park, New Jersey, one of our favorites, because of a great hotel rate.  To our shock, when we arrived, we were told that we were still in time to get makeup for the Friday night Zombie Events. Seeking quiet, we had unwittingly landed in the greatest Zombie convocation in the world, the culmination of which was a Zombie parade, set to break the world record for most people gathered for a Zombie walk.

Our first impulse was to flee on the next bus back to Manhattan; but the trouble with those great rates is, you have to pre-pay, and running into Zombies is probably not grounds for getting your money back.  Judge Judy would dismiss us instantly. Instead, in the spirit of the Intuitive Edge, we decided to explore, and ask questions.  We first went to question the guy on the Boardwalk who does the Zombie makeup.

“Why do people dress up as Zombies?” we asked. He shrugged. “It’s the new fashion,”” he said. “For a while people loved vampires—True Blood and all that. And then werewolves.  But now people like Zombies. It’s just fun.”

“Are you a Zombie?” Leslie asked.  “No, not me,” he said, “I just do the makeup.”  “But who does want to be a Zombie?” “There is no demographic,” he said. “Old, young, skinny, fat. It’s just fun.”

We proceeded to the information booth.  “Are there qualifications to be a Zombie?” Leslie asked. “No,” they told us. “All you have to do is pour a little blood over your face and join the crowd. And,” they continued, “Don’t forget, we are going for a world record!”

We remained puzzled, and began to walk back over to our hotel.  We ran into a number of Zombies, all of whom were extremely polite, considering they were undead, and a few square dancers, who had also chosen this weekend to convene en masse this weekend. Apparently the whole world had chosen this week to come to Asbury Park.  But as we walked back, we saw a huge, beautiful, inspiring bonfire on the beach, with sparks flying to the heavens, apparently surrounded by Zombies, square dancers, and their happy children.  We decided to stay.

It ended up being a very productive weekend—we wrote and strategized and tried to practice what we preach, creating a schedule of goals, and times, and accountabilities for the book and blog.   And as time went on, and a parade of Zombie nurses, prisoners, chefs, fairy princesses, and even a mermaid sailed by, we realized that Zombies are all about creativity.  Zombie creators spend time and energy creating costumes, makeup, and back story for their characters, and then join together to share their work—and of course eat brains.

It turned out to be the best place and time in the world to work on our creativity book after all.

The festival reports over 12,500 people attended.  Just a nice quiet October weekend on the Jersey Shore.

Asbury Park, New Jersey

October 22, 2011

Sheri Heller

“Creativity is a Metaphor for the Subconscious” is only one of many  unique nuggets of wisdom expressed by Rev. Sheri Heller when I interviewed her in August.  First, a little background – Sheri Heller is a colleague of mine who is both an Interfaith Minister and a seasoned psychotherapist. I recently met her in March at a professional conference where we were both on the same panel.   After I heard her presentation,  the only word that comes to mind to describe how I felt was Inspiration.   After the conference, I spontaneously  asked her if I could interview her for this blog.  In addition to being a therapist,  she is also an actor, writer and playwright. Sheri’s love of being creative goes back to her childhood, when she said that as a kid she loved the theater.  Having been a shy and self conscious child, she  found soalce in writing and reading.  As she said, “When we connect to our creative impulses we are deeply authentic.”   As we talked further she revealed that when younger she “knew there was an artist in me but did not feel entitled to give her expression and in certain ways afraid to give her expression – fear of my own power – difficulties with my own power being allowed to shine and to play.”  She goes on to say, “Being an artist is affirming your right to be who you are.”

I wonder how many of us feel this way about letting out even to ourselves,  perhaps especially to ourselves,  our desire to be creative.

I will blog  more  about my interview with sheri in  future blog posts To learn more about her you can  go to her website: www.sheritherapist.com.

Recently, Leslie and I were having lunch with a good friend and colleague who has just begun to write seriously.  She posed the question:  Why is it that we don’t do the thing we in theory want to do the most? (For all three of us right now, it is finishing a book.)  Why is it that our weekends and evenings fill up with chores, errands, TV, email, etc., etc., and suddenly it is 11 PM Sunday night and nothing has been written? 

The classic answer for this, of course, is resistance (something explored really brilliantly in Stephen Pressfield’s The War of Art), but, as Leslie said a few blog posts ago, let’s for a moment resist calling it resistance.  Maybe this isn’t always our inner critic at work, blocking all change and creative effort in our life; maybe this is something else.  Because we all enjoy working on our books; when we set the time aside, it is almost always good time, not frustrating or self-critical time.  

As we discussed the problem, we realized all three of us tended to do the same thing: we feel that we have to block out a day (or an afternoon, or a week!) to work on our projects, and that we can never find a separate block of time long enough (or quiet enough) to really stretch out and enjoy working on it.  And so we postpone, and postpone, waiting for a time when we accumulate enough vacation days, or can take a break from clients and obligations for long enough, to REALLY get some work done.  But what happens, of course, is that that time never comes, and our projects pull further and further away from us, until they seem to have left us entirely.

Last year, when I was facing just such a dilemma, trying to finish a novel and thinking I would have to go away somewhere to make any progress, my friend, the amazing coach Cindy at Less Drama Queens made a suggestion: can you find one hour a week to work on it?   At the time, I was highly doubtful that I could get much done in an hour a week – I had a whole book to rewrite!  But I had already allotted my vacation time, and I didn’t really have much choice.  So, somewhat reluctantly,  I tried it.

And it worked.  Every Saturday morning, instead of rushing off to the dry cleaners, or picking up a few groceries, or (let’s be honest) catching up on Top Chef on the DVR, I worked on my novel. Interestingly, the hour often expanded into two, and sometimes even three, time I would have sworn I didn’t have. But there it was. And because I was obligated only to that hour, I honored it. Everybody, except maybe Hilary Rodham Clinton when the Mideast is exploding, has an hour.  We just don’t think we can do anything with it: it’s only an hour.

But that hour a week worked for me: it took more than six months, but I did finish editing the book.  It is a lesson that it is hard for me to remember; I still think longingly of all the work I could do if I just had about a month to go sit somewhere quiet and write.  Someday, I’m sure, I’ll get that month (although whether I am able to actually sit down and write for that stretch of time is another issue!)  In the meantime, I try to remind myself: just one hour a week, and eventually you can finish anything.

Part of our cultural mythology is this vision of the artist alone, writing or sculpting or drawing  in solitude. The solitude seems to validate the experience , verify the genuineness of the self-communion.   We imagine J.D. Salinger in cranky hermit mode up inNew Hampshire, or Van Gogh in tortured self-mutilating mode in a garret.  Virginia Woolf told us that every writer needs a room of her own, and it seems so obvious that we all immediately nod in agreement.

But although Virginia Woolf had a room of her own, she also lived in a constant social whirl of friends, writers and other artists who argued with her, supported her, designed her books and  furniture, and brought her their work for publication and critique.  As anyone who reads her diaries knows, she was very seldom actually alone.  Many artists do feel the loneliness of creating in solitude, or taking the stage by themselves, and get quite self-reproachful about their dislike of creating by themselves.

But there is actually no rule that you have to lock yourself in an empty room  to create, or even create or perform or present work with others.  Starbucks sometimes seems to exist largely to serve the needs of people who can’t stand to write in a room alone.  Of course, actors and musicians and other performers have always known the joys of performing together—but writers? Photographers?  Composers? Painters?

Well, maybe you can’t write music at Starbucks with all those world instruments jingling in your ears, but you can almost always find a less lonely situation that eases that anxiety about solitude and being in the creative process by yourself.  Whether this means having a trusted other who sits and reads while you are working, or actively collaborating with other artists on a film or musical or book or mural—or duo piano performance—sometimes the presence of another human being (or non-human being—there is a reason some writers are always photographed with their dogs at their sides) is the exact missing ingredient to spur your creative process.

Sometimes all we want is an empty, quiet space to do our work, or to walk out on to a stage and face the crowd or critics by ourselves—but we don’t have to be alone with either our ideas or our audiences if it doesn’t work for us.  Collaboration can be one of the most exciting and fulfilling modes for any artist to work in—although you still might want that room of your own to go home and decompress in at the end of the day!

So in this post,  I want to talk about the issue of aging and  how to maintain hope about engaging in a creative endeavor.  It is so easy to think it is just too late.  But while it might be  too late to become a ballerina, it might not be too late to enjoy seeing others dance.

I was especially inspired when I read that  David Seidler received the Best Original Screenplay award at age 74  years old.  He said, “my father always said to me I would be  a late bloomer.”

He also said “I have heard I am the oldest person to win this award. I hope that that record is broken quickly and often”.   I hope so too.  And not just for the big fancy accolades  like his but for accolades of any kind. It could  be  as simple as someone at 90 years of age in a nursing home taking a painting class .

So  what do I mean by being mindful?   In an extremely upbeat book written by Ellen Langer, entitled :”Counter Clockwise, Mindful Health and the  Power of Possibility,”  she describes it like this, “It is about the need to free ourselves from constricting mindsets and the limits they place on our health and well-being, and to appreciate the importance of  becoming the guardians of our own health.”  I’d like to suggest that this same belief  can be applied to one’s relationship to their creativity.

by Deborah Atherton

Once upon a time, in my ever-more-distant youth, I longed for reviews. Reviews meant someone out there had noticed that you existed. And at that time of my life, I also loved reviewing things, and saying exactly what I thought about them, in the most clever way I could. I particularly liked it when authors wrote back, explaining why I DIDN’T GET IT, giving me the opportunity for a second go round. And sometimes, I admit, even when I review things as a grownup (or as grownup as I am likely to get) the old impulse to be snarky overcomes me, and I write down something I know I really shouldn’t.

These days, I’m less excited by getting reviews. Bad reviews remain disappointing, and good reviews still inspire some elation, but I’m far enough down the road to realize it probably doesn’t make a heck of a lot of difference in the long run. Yes, in this day of the Internet, everything you have ever written, and everything anybody has written about you, remains ever-present. But the truth is, nobody much cares. (Unless of course, you are the producer of Spiderman: Turn off the Dark, when presumably whomever provided the much vaunted $65 million dollars wants some return on their investment other than media indignation over the mounting body count.) But I’ve had bad reviews, and I’ve had good reviews, and I’ve had no reviews – I’m beginning to sound like a Sondheim character – and I’m still here. I’m not famous; I’m not infamous. I’m a mid-career artist with a day job which, while it does not make use of my ability to create rhyming couplets, accomplishes some good in the world.

What the young authors who wrote to me, the even younger reviewer, did not understand at the time was that I didn’t have to get it. I might even have been right in my judgments; it is too long ago to remember exactly what prompted them. What I remember today is the thrill of getting a real letter (because in those days, of course, there was no email) from a real writer. And I try to remind myself, when I read reviews good and bad and indifferent, that it is all communication between creators and audiences, and whether I am on the receiving end, or the judging end, what matters is the excitement in that flicker of acknowledgement. Somebody read my work, or watched my work, and whether they liked it or not, they thought a little bit about it and wrote something down in response. And that, in the end, is what it is all about.

And all that being said, if you’d like to read one of my recent reviews (and yes, of course, it is one I liked!) check out:  New History Operas on the Way: Monsters and Wars.

For example , I am reminded of a  New York Times bestseller called  He’s Just Not That Into You. I actually never read the book but from what I have heard about it, it sure sounds like a one trick pony to me.   The basic assumption  was that if a man does not return a phone call after a date it is because he is just not that into you.  What if he just lost his job?  What if he is commitment phobic and responds this way to all women? It is not hard to find other books with  a tendency to oversimplify also on the best sellers list.

In that vein, I feel it is often common for people to assume that if someone says the often used comment  “I just don’t have enough time”  in referring to their creative endeavor,  that it is a sure indication of resistance.     What if it is not so black and white?

What if someone just suffered the loss of a parent and is paralyzed by their understandable grief?  Or perhaps a woman is yearning to set aside time to work on her passion of writing yet has just given birth to twins. 

Sometimes it may be about the lack of energy and consequent lack of   ability to focus that may be one way to explain the behavior.  IF someone is weighted down by  a difficult emotion or a new life transition, it can feel like wanting  to get up from the couch with a body that just won’t move.

Sometimes life happens and our behavior  just cannot  be easily labeled.