How I Moved Deeper
As the editor of Sinister Wisdom, I get the greatest emails. One that came earlier this week, posed this question:
Might I ask how you moved deeper into art / publishing / literature / your creative life? I’m at a real crux in my artistic development and, just reading Tee Corinne’s biography, I have the feeling “I WANT THAT now.”
I have been thinking about the question for a few days and thought that I would organize my thinking here first.
Tee Corinne’s biography is amazing. She produced creative work consistently over a lifetime. I did not know her, but I would imagine she was incredibly disciplined. I imagine that she worked every day, in some way, on her creative work. I would also imagine she had small and large goals that she was always pursuing. A large body of work like hers only comes from hard work and a sustained commitment to one’s work and one’s vision.
That said, it is easy to see a life told in retrospect and think, I want that. It is more difficult negotiating the daily realities of living: making a bit of money, having good relationships, and producing creative work. In other words, the life narrative, written at the end of one’s life, does not reflect the day to day struggles, insecurities, and quandaries. Biographies tell the triumphal narrative without dwelling on the cul de sacs that lead to nowhere, the defeats, and the failures. So it seems to me along with the hard work and goals, we as creators have to embrace the daily messiness of uncertainty and the realities of failure.
Holding on to all of that at once is life work itself. Yet to create, there is even more. To speak directly to my interlocutor, here are five things that have helped me move into my creative life more deeply.
Work that is meaningful, provides material support, but is not all consuming. That in itself is a big challenge. Most of us do not have inherited wealth and so we need to work and make money. Yet that isn’t enough. We have to not only make money to materially support us, but that work cannot consume all of our energy, intellectual, emotional, creative, and psychic. We need at least 70% of our energy for the creative work.
Core relationships that are nurturing and drama-free. I will admit this is not true for everyone, but for me, I need the stable home life to create. I recently read this piece about Andrea Dworkin; she had the stable partner and home to create. She also has quite a impressive oeuvre. I am lucky that points one and two come together for me in my beloved companion.
Friendships that support and challenge you creatively. Friends, comrades, collaborators are so important. Nurturing an circle of friends who both support and challenge you creatively is an important way that I move deeper into my creative work.
At least one big and hairy project, and preferably two or three. We all need a big project. One that feels difficult, even at times unattainable. I try to work on one of mine at least an hour a day. The great thing about our big, hairy projects is that when we need a break from them we do smaller projects. This means more work produced.
A thousand words a day. I am Dickensian in my approach to writing; I write as though I am being paid by the word. Sometimes they are a thousand really shitty words, oh, who am I kidding, they usually are, but I take those words and edit them in subsequent days and over time, this process of writing and editing produces final products.
These are the things I know about moving deeper into my creative life. How would you respond?
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