Category Archives: Self Reflection

Inspiration Monday: Heroes

Iain Banks

Life is what happens when you are making other plans. Today I am once again deviating from my plan because something momentous happened yesterday. The Scottish novelist, Iain Banks died, aged 59. He was the author of ‘The Wasp Factory’, voted one of the Great Novels of the Twentieth Century, as well as ‘The Crow Road’, a book which begins with the immortal line:

“It was the day my grandmother exploded.”

Iain Banks, The Crow Road, Scribners 1992.

Surely, this is the greatest first line of any novel since Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’, and Orwell’s ‘1984’.

Regular readers will know that Banksie was a hero of mine. I went to see him speak several times, as he was a regular visitor to Norwich, near where I live. He was best described in three words, in my experience:

Angry. Talented. Funny.

He introduced me to a Scotland that I fell in love with, and to a way of writing that is spare, funny and insightful. He was extraordinarily productive and his work covered a wide range of subjects, genres and styles. When you opened a new Banksie novel, you never knew quite what you were going to get next.

If you want to read the best of Banks’s literary fiction, I recommend ‘The Wasp Factory’, ‘The Crow Road’, and ‘Complicity’. I can’t comment on his science fiction, for which he was also justly famous, because I never managed to get through one. Space operas aren’t really my thing. But as I have said before, his ‘Raw Spirit’, a book about whisky, driving, Scotland and being a writer, is one of the most charming I have read.

It is sad that a writer so talented and prolific has been taken from us so young, but why am I writing about this? Because Banksie was a writing hero of mine, that’s why. A writer I admired and wanted to emulate. Like Virginia Woolf, his photograph hangs in my study to inspire me. He taught me that protagonists don’t have to be likeable, and that little memories from growing up can serve as icons of our internal psychology. He taught me that you should keep at it, and write what you love. And that it’s okay to be funny, and a bit geeky.

Creative Exercise:

Who are the people that inspire you? Whose work do you seek to emulate, or admire? Whose biography have you read for a better understanding of the creative process? Who are your artistic heroes?

These people are your creative ancestors, and you must always acknowledge where you come from. Take time in your notebook to name the people who inspire you, whether it is their life struggle from which you take courage, as I do with Woolf and Frida Kahlo, or their creative process which fascinates you. Perhaps it is their politics, or religious faith you admire, or their down-to-earth attitude. Perhaps it is simply the creative work they produced. Whether your hero is Steven Spielberg, Gandhi, Maya Angelou or Picasso, explore what they mean to you, what their example says about where you want to take your art.

Happy Creating,

Journal Friday: The Gratitude Journal

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If you trawl self help and wellbeing blogs like I do, you’ll probably have come across the idea of the Gratitude Journal before. Lots of people swear by them. You might think they are a bit of a cheesy idea, writing down what you are grateful for in your life every day. I mean, isn’t it self-evident?

Maybe not.

Think about all the time you spend moaning and complaining about what is wrong with your life. Our consumer culture programmes us to always want something else, something more than what we already have. There might be a reason why all those slum dwellers you see in doumentaries look so happy. Its not because they are glad to be living in squallor and poverty, that’s for sure. Maybe it’s because they have so little that they value what they do have.

Let me tell you a story about one of the most inspiring people I have ever known:

My Great Auntie Kitty.

She was in her late 80s and early 90s when I knew her. I was a small child – I think I was probably about 8 or 10 when she died. I didn’t know her well because she lived in a town four hours drive from our home, so we were only able to visit her rarely, but she made a big impression.

Auntie Kitty was born disabled as a result of problems with her hips and legs, though I don’t remember specifically what. Suffice it to say that she had never been able to walk properly and had worn calipers all her life. By the time I knew her, she was severely crippled with arthritis, in appalling pain, and mostly blind from macular degeneration. She was also quite deaf. But she had a brain as sharp as a knife, and wit to match, loved to debate politics, ethics and religion, and kept up to the minute with all the news through her radio. She also loved talking books, which she listened to continually as well. She was funny, entertaining, and never let you get away with anything, especially self pity or fuzzy thinking.

Like many younger daughters, she had devoted her life to caring for others in her family, nursing her own parents and siblings through old age and into death. She was the last of her generation to survive. She had never married. She had battled her way through a hard life through sheer force of will.

I remember her telling me this:

Every night, when she lay in the dark after the carer had come to put her to bed, she would think of three things in her life to be grateful for. Sometimes she was in horrific pain, and thinking of anything to be thankful for was very difficult. But she told me that no matter what, she could always find something.

Every night for the last thirty years, I have done the same. Three things. Just three. Usually there are plenty more. I could fill pages! Some nights, if I’ve had a row with my husband or I’m in a lot of pain, as I sometimes am, I can struggle a bit. It can be pretty rudimentary on those occasions:

1. I have a roof over my head.

2. I have a bed to support me.

3. There is ibuprofen in the cupboard.

Most of the time, there is plenty to be grateful for:

1. I have a wonderful husband who loves me.

2. I live in a beautiful place that most people would give a limb to inhabit.

3. I have lots of friends who care for me very much.

4. I get to write!! (And so on)

I do this every night, come what may, partly in remembrance of Auntie Kitty, in celebration of her huge personality and bravery, and partly for myself. Because it helps.

Being grateful shifts us into awareness, not only of what is real in our lives, but what is important. Having that latest pair of shoes or the new Clarisonic really is not important compared with the people who we love and who love us. Unlike the slum dwellers of the Developing World, most of us know we have a safe place to sleep tonight, and food in our bellies. We have other, First World problems, I suppose, but there is still such a lot to be thankful for. It is so easy to forget how fortunate we are. Let’s not.

(I was going to take a picture of my Gratitude Journal to show you, but somehow it felt wrong. An invasion. Privacy, remember? I find my reaction about that interesting itself, and I propose to explore it more in my own journal later, because I wasn’t expecting to feel that way. Its interesting when you find boundaries you didn’t know were there, don’t you think?)

Journal Exercise:

Okay, you get to go out and indulge in the stationery shop again this week! Go and choose yourself a nice little notebook, one with small pages. I use this one.

Every night before you go to bed, get your notebook out and write at least three things that you are grateful for today. Use a separate page every day, and date each. Sometimes you will fill the page, and wish you had another. Maybe you will go on a fill another, that’s up to you. Some days you will be grumpy and resentful, and won’t feel like doing anything other than having a pity party for yourself. Regardless, remember: write three things. Just three. It will help.

At the end of the first month, go back through your notebook and reflect on the things you have written down. What are your lists showing about what important to you? Write about this in your journal, if you like. How has a daily gratitude practise changed the way you feel about your life?

Happy Journalling,

On Process: The Myth of the Suffering Artist

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(Henry Wallis’s painting of Thomas Chatterton (20 November 1752 – 24 August 1770), who was an English poet and forger of pseudo-medieval poetry. He died of arsenic poisoning, either from a suicide attempt or self-medication for a venereal disease.)

I was going to start this post with a list of all the Creatives who have damaged themselves for the sake of their art. I lay in bed the other night, trying to compile a list of them. There were a lot, and those were just the ones I could come up with at 3am!

And why bother? We know who they were. We know the names of Rothko, Hemingway, Woolf, Pollock, Kerouac, Kinski, Dylan Thomas, and so very many others.

We conveniently don’t notice the ones like Grayson Perry, and Tracey Emin, who credit their art with saving them. (I’ve made links to autobiographies here, and I encourage you to read them, as they are enormously inspiring.)

We certainly don’t remember the millions of artists who, over the course of the last two millennia, have lived happy, healthy and fulfilling lives as well as making art of all kinds.

You don’t have to suffer in a garrett to be an artist. You don’t have to drink yourself to death, take drugs, cut yourself, starve yourself, tolerate life in abusive relationships, live in squallor or destroy your health. That is not what an artist is.

An artist is someone who makes art.

(Whatever kind of art that is, from writing to painting to dance.)

Just that. Nothing else. Just that.

Creativity is the greatest healing force in the Universe. I know this because I have seen it and felt it for myself. When you begin to create, you end suffering. You will feel better. I promise.

And yes, it will be frustrating at times, and maybe you will cry your way through every chapter, every linocut, every sculpture, every pas de deux, as you work through all the difficult feelings that come up. Because lets not kid ourselves, people who create great art of all kinds are often driven to do so because of their own difficult pasts.

So maybe writing 500 words a day is like getting blood out of a stone for you? There are ways to deal with that, but remember that struggle often comes from deep hurts from long ago, from entrenched behaviours that stop you being your most luminous self. And if you write those words, every day, you will get through those barriers, and you will feel wonderful.

I promise.

I know because it happened to me. And continues to happen. Every day.

If you think that you cannot communicate accurately to your readers the misery and suffering of your characters without having lived it yourself, I will tell you the secret of how you can do without nailing yourself to a cross.

Three little words:

Imagination, empathy and research. And the most important of these is IMAGINATION.

Imagine yourself in their place. How would you feel? What would distress you the most about their position. Read up. Find out how other people felt who went through similar traumas.

DO NOT TRAUMATISE YOURSELF.

Eat well. Get enough sleep. Value yourself. Work at having loving and fulfilling relationships with others. Exercise. Meditate. See the doctor and the dentist if you need to. Use your art to heal whatever wounds you have. Care for yourself, and your art will be the better for it. As will you.

Happy Creating,

Journal Friday: More about Privacy

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Herstmonceaux Church, East Sussex

I’ve been thinking a lot about boundaries lately, and about the freedom they afford us to be ourselves. We talk a lot about the boundaries we set for ourselves in the external world – saying no to doing too much, closing the door for some quiet time, backing off from an over-needy friend who is monopolising us. What we rarely seem to do is think about the internal boundaries we set up, or fail to set up.

I think one of the things women, especially, do is to set up one set of boundaries for themselves, and one for everyone else, and not in a good way.

Let me give you an example: my mother is a nice lady. People like her. She is charming and good company. But she speaks to herself in ways she would never dream of using to others. ‘You stupid bloody woman,’ I hear her saying to herself when she gets frustrated that she can’t remember things anymore now she’s in her 80s, ‘You idiot, can’t you do anything right?’ My mother does not have a boundary about treating herself in acceptable, compassionate and loving ways. I suppose I must have learnt the same trick from her, because sometimes, I catch myself doing it too.

It is hard enough to put your foot down when you need to set external boundaries. It is even harder to do it when those oh-so-flexible standards are inside your own head. We need to destroy those self-sabotaging habits as much as we can. This is what my husband calls:

‘Locating and Killing Your Inner Nigel.’

(You’ve heard about my ‘Nigel’ voice before!) Sometimes Nigel is just your inner critic, telling you the story you just wrote, the sculpture you just made, is crap. Sometimes he is a complete Hitler, out to annihilate you with core beliefs you didn’t even know you had!

Keeping a journal is a great way to kick the crap out of Nigel.

To do this, you have to feel free within your journal’s pages to say and do whatever you want. Rubbish spelling? Fine. No punctuation? Great. Scribbly handwriting, not being neat? Perfect. And those scrappy drawings? Absolutely compulsory, if you feel the need. The rule is this:

No Judgement.

Tell Nigel to go copulate with himself. You say and do what you want. Only then wil your journal come into its own, only then can it be your complete friend, your safe place, without self-censorship.

I wrote in a previous post about who you write your journal for, and although I still stand by that piece, it has been bothering me. Because you see, if you always have an eye on posterity, on what people who come after you will with think of you, then you will never be honest. And you must be honest, otherwise why bother? Without honesty, you are wasting your time. Who cares if you are being petulant, smug, dull or sulky inside your journal’s pages? No one is perfect all the time.

Your diary must be, first and foremost, always for you alone, whatever else it is.

Journal Exercise:

When you write this week, do not judge yourself. Do not think about what anybody who reads your journal in years to come will think of you. Pay no attention to Nigel the Neat Nazi, who wants everything in pukka little rows, with perfect handwriting and impeccable grammar, spelling and punctuation. Scribble. Make a mess. Be what ever you are inside. Set yourself this new internal boundary.

When it comes to my diary, I will be completely myself, whoever that is at this moment.

Happy Journalling,

On Process: Your Creative Clock

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Ickworth Garden Temple – take a moment to reflect

I don’t think I have ever read a book about how to write (and I’ve read a lot of books about how to write) that didn’t stipulate that writing first thing in the morning, as soon as you get up, is the best thing to do.

Excuse my “French”, but bollocks to that.

I am not a morning person. Not in any way, shape or form. I never have been, and I never will be. In addition to this apparently genetic disadvantage (my mother is terrible in the mornings too), I suffer from a chronic illness which means I need about four hours to get going for the day. My brain doesn’t normally come online in any meaningful way until about 11am. And if I try to get going any earlier, I am totalled for days afterwards.

Writing first thing in the morning is never going to happen for me. Its a biological impossibility.

Ask me about 9.30pm, though. Yep, by then I am motoring! I have suffered from insomnia since childhood, when I lay in bed making up stories in the dark to amuse myself while everyone else slept. I think this is when I became a writer. I am at my most creative in the hours of darkness, when my mind flies along, pumping out ideas and exciting images like Spielberg on speed. I even dream in glorious technicolour.

And yes, I write during the day too, but mostly not before about 4pm. I often have a big pulse of creativity between 4pm and 6pm that is great for finishing stories, and for writing blog posts, which is exactly what I am doing now – its 5.45pm and my brain is firing on all cylinders.

Ask me to invent something at 10am, though, and you are wasting both our times. Ask me after 10pm and you probably couldn’t stop me with a sledge hammer!

We all have an internal body clock. Some of us are naturally larks, and some owls. If you are honest with yourself, you know which you are, when you function best. You might be brilliant at doing advanced maths in the morning, or you might be better checking your email or dusting the objet d’art.

This doesn’t just apply to the hours of the day, but to your annual clock too. I find I have a bit of a manic period in March, when the sap starts to rise and I can’t sleep at all because my brain is whirring so frantically with new ideas. I actually get breathless! By the time April comes in, I am mentally drained, and can barely come up with an idea for something for tea until July. July is often my time for last bursts of activity on a project that needs finishing, the final sprint. But during the summer months, I can safely say there are better things to do than sit inside with a laptop.

Once September comes in, I start to go into my creative cave, a kind of incubation period where I sit with ideas, mull them over, do my planning. Then during the depths of winter I engage in my deepest writing, my most productive spells, when I can turn out 2-3000 words a day at times. I find I draw best in the first half of the year, which to me is an exterior time, a period of surging energy. The second half of the year is for going inside, for living with the images and tales in my head.

I’ve discovered this pattern over the years, observing myself and my creativity and making notes about how I am working in my writing notebooks. Self reflection is something that helps your creative process and there should always be space in your writing notebooks, sketchbooks and journals for considering how you work best, and what you do when. These things are important to know, because that way you can optimise your output. I know, for instance, that there is no need for me to beat myself up in June when I realise I’m not writing. That’s ok. Its not the time to do it. June is when I am out in the world, filling my well. I know the time will come, and that the downtime in the summer is an important resting and refuelling stop. Knowing when not to beat yourself up for not being creative is incredibly important for your self confidence and longevity as an artist, and for your mental health.

Writing Exercise:

Take out your notebook, journal or sketchbook – whatever is your creative workbench – and spend some time reflecting on when you have produced your best work, both in terms of the time of day, and of the year. Do particular seasons have creative resonances for you? Are the liminal times of dawn or twilight the moments when you come up with your best ideas? Do you write or paint great stuff in the summer months, or when you are on holiday? Are you stupified by the cold grey winter skies, or do they encourage you to look within for brighter pictures?

Make sure you take time periodically to reflect on this subject, as it will help you build up a clearer picture of your creative clock. I like to do it at the beginning of each month, like a review, or quarterly, at the changing of the seasons. The more you know yourself as a creative person in this way, the more easily you will be able to use your energy for your best work, and to avoid frustration and blocks.

Happy creating!

evenlodesfriend

Speak Your Truth: Writing and Creativity