The year of unblocking creativity

This is not your obligatory "goals for the year" sort of post. I promise.

Hi friend!

Happy New Year! I hope it's started off on the right foot for you and that you've had a wonderful first week.

I was thinking about what I would like my first post of the year to be, as blog and newsletter posts around this time of year tend revolve more around lists, goals, resolutions, etc. I'll be honest that I don't really vibe with any of that when it comes to the creative realm, and it took me most of last month and a bit of this one to be able to articulate the reasoning behind that urge.

But I did get there, eventually. That's what counts, right?

I just finished Julia Cameron's book called The Artist's Way, and I can easily say that it's changed my perspective on creating and creativity in general. It's a book that I've definitely been recommended more than once by authors and artists of all kinds. I first heard about it through Kara Cutruzzula's wonderful newsletter, The Brass Ring Daily. Since then, I've also heard recommendations of the book from wordcrafting expert K.M. Weiland in one of her weekly blog posts and even read about the book in Leslie Ottom Jr.'s autobiography, Failing Up: How to Take Risks, Aim Higher, and Never Stop Learning.

It's one of my unspoken rules in life that if I get recommended a form of media at least thrice, especially if said recommendations come from vastly different social circles, I definitely at least explore the recommended title. So that's how The Artist's Way came to sit on my TBR since the winter of 2019 (which is now, uh, four years ago somehow???), and every recommendation would nudge it up to the top of the list incrementally without actually making it to the top.

That is, until this past holiday break. I had put a book on hold at the San Diego Public Library many moons ago (and had promptly forgotten about it) called Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison. It was another crafting book recommended by a good friend and amazing author, Almah LaVon Rice, during one of her workshops back in the summer of 2022. You may remember that I briefly talked about it in another post, mentioning the Mind Map technique and rhizomatic storytelling.

Anyway, long story short, I've fallen in love with the ideas in Alison's book regarding different storytelling techniques, specifically, different patterns in storytelling. (I might dedicate a whole 'nother post on this one book alone, but for now... just take my word for it). My extremely (nerdy) excitement, though, led to me voraciously looking for other books on the craft that delivered other impactful epiphanies about writing. 

And that's how I came full-circle to Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. As Cameron herself mentions in the introduction of the book, it's more like having a creative toolbox that I never knew I needed. The thesis of the book revolves around healing our inner artist first and foremost and thereby combating creative blocks that we all experience.

One of the biggest reasons this resonated with me is, of course, that Cameron talks about art exactly as it is -- as part of the creative realm. It is an emotional endeavor, through and through, and it cannot be created without some semblance of inner awareness and emotional intelligence. My former literature teacher from high school, Dr. Englund (and before you ask, no, the irony of her name and profession are not lost on me), claimed that in order to understand literature, it is first necessary to understand the psychological topography of any given narrative.

I realized this is where I've been struggling a lot. I have a highly analytical day job, and my mind tends towards making sense of and sorting the chaos of data. But as I've already mentioned, art is an emotional business, and I've realized that I've been looking at my own writing from an extremely technical point-of-view. That isn't to say that I haven't had any emotions in my art, quite the opposite, but where I've struggled for the past six years constantly is in trying to pin down a process for my writing while consciously acknowledging that the craft of writing tends towards chaos rather than order.

Somehow, I took the "creative" out of the creative writing process. Yikes.

But I've recognized since that I can't really dissect art the same way I can a computer program, and that's actually mostly the appeal of it from a consumer's perspective. There's always something new to be found within a story, a poem, a song. An old mentor always said that art is a two-way street. Sure, the artist performs what they're called to express, but the resonance of the art depends entirely on the understanding and connection of that art to the audience.

Cameron's advice on healing the inner artist also merges a few different branches of life together quite unexpectedly. She claims that the inner artist is a child, and thus, in healing our inner child, we are able to create without our inner critic obstructing our way. I'd like to expand on that: Healing the trauma of the inner artist brings flexibility, and with that flexibility comes the capacity to more deeply connect with ourselves and not only create but sustain a connection to the heart of the stories we are in desperate need of telling.

This is a deeply spiritual journey, and indeed, Cameron makes the case that creativity is a spiritual endeavor. And as with all things spiritual, art cannot be forced. Dynamism is the key.

But where does that leave me in terms of what I want to do in 2023?

I think that instead of creating milestones that I'll then surely stress about meeting, I'd like to propose a journey to myself. I'll be undertaking Julia Cameron's 12-week program and extending it throughout the year in the hopes that I, too, can unblock my inner creative. It's interesting that I've already been on this path semi-consciously, but now, I'll be doing so much more intentionally and without needing to grope in the dark. My ultimate goal, I think, would be to find different ways to sustain my connection to the heart of my art.

If you're willing to come with me on this journey, leave me a comment and let me know! I'd love to hear about your experiences throughout the whole year.

Thank you so much for reading!

Much love,

Yasi