One recent afternoon, doodling with colored pencils in my 5x7 notebook (blue and green were the colors that drew me), I found myself filling in some open spaces with three phrases
the creative journey
fits and starts
and yes, an arc.
As I sat there looking at what I’d written, three p’s popped into mind: presence, patience and practice. Perhaps these were reminders of what lies at the heart of the creative journey, at least for me, at least at this stage of my life. Show up, wait patiently for inspiration then, inspired or not, put something on paper, if only a doodle. I wrote the three words at the top of the page.
Then three other words presented themselves. I wrote them at the bottom of the page realizing that they indicated obstacles to creativity: time, purpose, productivity. They resonated but didn’t seem quite on point. I crossed out time and wrote haste. I changed purpose to resistance and, finally, productivity to greed. The message from me to me cautioned against a rush to complete work, resistance to themes that seem unfamiliar or take me in a new direction, and greed—putting out work for the sake of putting it out, adding it to my portfolio and, with luck, publishing it. None of these impulses nourish creativity.
Interesting where a doodle can lead. Interesting what happens as I (in poet Billy Collins’s words) wait for a little flame / to appear at the tip of my pencil.