Lean into the crazy
Why we need to leave spaces in the day
Do you ever get this thing where your brain is fizzing with ideas, and you worry that you won't be able to grasp hold of them before they disappear again?
I have been in a creative slump for a long time. I have projects lined up in my mind, but I also work four days a week and have children. My brain is tired, and, in the evenings, it feels like I have nothing left, so I tend to read and do some journalling before I fall asleep.
On my one day off, I get the week's shopping done, fit in a workout, and meet with a friend. But then I also have to get actual writing done, as that is what the day off is for. After this, my Mum comes over for an hour of gardening before I leave to collect the kids again. I sometimes feel like jobs are screaming at me from the sidelines all day, 'Do this! Do this! Pick me! Pick me!'
I have read enough Oliver Burkeman to know that I can't do it all (more on this here). I also talked two weeks ago about the effect ADHD had on my creativity – that sometimes there was a torrent of ideas and not enough time in the world to do them, and other times, even doing the smallest of things felt like trudging up a hill, dragging a large sack of stones.
So, I have come to a new way of defining a day well spent. I go to the supermarket straight after school run (otherwise I dread it for the whole day and clock watch.) Then I prioritise. This week it was one hour of writing and then pack up my Etsy orders. So, I forgot all the other jobs and set a timer on my phone for one hour. (This is a great technique because you don't have to keep track of time, you just keep going until you hear the beep. And then of course, you can still keep going if you want to!)
And another thing, success is not how many words you get done, not for me, not at the moment. Success instead is to spend that hour either writing or staring out of the window, thinking about writing.
And this week, as I was feeling frazzled from trying to squeeze all these extra things into my writing day, I had some realizations. These thoughts kept barging in sideways as I was trying to write.
But what I did this time (Thank you, Alex Partridge) was to be kind to my ADHD brain and let the interruptions come instead of just thinking I had to double down and FOCUS more intensely each time my mind started wandering. What if these random thoughts weren't actually random? What if they were the voice of wisdom after all?
The voice was reminding me of some nitty gritty jobs I had to get done, so I wrote these down. The voice was also speaking to me about a new project which I am going to be starting soon, and some different ways that I could do that, so I wrote down the ideas for that. And then it said to me, 'Don't worry about your Etsy shop, just let it tick over.' Don’t get me wrong, I love running my Etsy shop (which you can see here - 30% off everything at the mo!), but there is always the weight of 'I should be doing more, I could do this, I could try that...' and it NEVER STOPS! There is no end to what I could try. It is a great source of additional funding to help bolster my royalties, but it’s nice to remember that it can exist in service to me, rather than me living in service to it.
It is almost as if the ADHD/ never-switching-off part of my brain is working all these things out for me in the background, while the other part of my brain is trying to write my novel. I mull these things over for a few days, and then all at once, I make four decisions, bam bam bam, and move on to the next thing. This is the benefit of this staring/composting/filtering time. I wasn’t ready for all things to come in, but thankfully, I wrote everything down, so nothing is lost.
I could see interruptions as a waste of time, or I could see them as a sideways use of time.
I watched a video this week where Shaun Tan was explaining his process, and he said this, which stayed with me:
'All the good ideas start life as very small, silly ideas, and often ideas that you don't entirely understand. If you start doing work with the intention of doing something significant, there's a presumption that you're understanding what you're doing and that's not going to lead to anything useful... not in my experience anyway.'
Because this is the life of a creative, isn't it?
Mulling things over, holding space for multiple outcomes, trusting our gut, waiting, filtering ideas the way sunlight falls through trees, some thoughts getting tangled in branches, some finding their way to the bare patch of ground in front of us, where our intuition speaks and says, 'This way.'
Half the time, we don't know what we are doing, half the time, we are lost, but there is one person who is our constant through it all - our dear selves.
So, this week, be kind with yourself. Lean into the crazy, the torrent of thoughts, the boredom, or the emptiness.
Be a friend to yourself and stand back and watch how your brain makes these amazing things. We are all unique.
Lean into the crazy and let the distractions come at you sideways. Leave space for the unexpected. And write all of your ideas down – you never know when you will strike gold.
Thanks so much for reading Miners,
Elisabeth,
x
