withdrawal & reward

Right. So I’ve fallen off the writing wagon. Fallen off the creativity wagon altogether, really…save for work stuff and one rogue day of making earrings out of Sculpey. (Earrings out of Sculpey? Seriously, I wonder who the hell I am sometimes.)

Anyway. I haven’t been doing much of my own work lately. I’ve been CRAZY productive with pseudo-creative projects at work, which is in its own way very rewarding, but not in the way that doing my own work is rewarding. When I create things with my hands for the mere sake of creating, it makes me feel whole, human, and connected in a way that nothing else does. It doesn’t have to be profound or even have an end–either in the sense of having purpose or in the sense of ever being finished. Even the feel of the keys beneath my fingers as I now write drivel is slightly euphoric.

I constantly wonder why it is that I encounter Resistance to my own work every day, when I ought to be compelled toward it as a drug compels a chemical dependent. It gives me a high, I feel tremendously depressed and unlike myself when I’m away from it. So why do I ignore my withdrawal symptoms? I’m even rewarded beyond what I thought possible when I do even the bare minimum. Quite some time ago I did some very small paintings on a whim. Just simple designs that I did just because (gasp!) I liked them. I hadn’t intended to sell them, but put them on Etsy anyway. Would you believe that they’ve actually garnered a respectable amount of interest? I’ve sold one and been asked to do four more.

Lest you think I’m tooting my own horn here, I’m not. My point is this: when creating purely for the pleasure of creating, that is it’s own reward. And sometimes the Muse gives me success beyond that, sort of as a bonus. The joy of creating lies in abandoning success–commercial or otherwise–as a motive. If I’m not whole without doing the thing I feel I was born to do, what more incentive could I possibly need? What more compelling call to action?

I recently restored my computer to its factory settings because it was being, for lack of a more precise descriptor, a total knobhead. In the process, I lost ALL of my writing. Every script, every short story, every college essay. Gone. I’m sure I have hard copies of them in binders somewhere. I hope.

I have to insert, dear patient reader, that at this point in writing this blog post, I somehow temporarily lost this blog post. My hand grazed the track pad and I accidentally navigated to another page. Having begun in “quick post,” I was cussing at my computer again for fear that it didn’t auto save. It did, but how quickly I forget my own lessons. Ironic, ain’t it? Back to our regularly scheduled program…

But if I never find my collection of writings, I’m starting to be okay with that. Because it’s a fresh start. Because I don’t have anything to fall back on or a past voice against which to compare myself. Because I can be better than I ever was. Because I can experience the joy of writing just for the hell of it with no expectations, knowing that I’m creating something that is my own. And that is its own reward. Anything else I may gain from it is just a bonus.

Please follow and like us: