Getting to the Fun Part

In the midst of societal chaos and instability, creative communities are joyfully stretching, growing and finding their flow states — myself included.

First of all, before we get into things, after this most recent (and treacherous) Mercury in Microbraids followed by a shake-it-out Pisces eclipse, how we doing? Y’all alright?

I know that I’ve been feeling all the universal shakes and shifts lately and, I dunno… I think I kinda like it?

This has been one of those illuminating couple months where I’ve had my head down in laser -focus-goal-mode for so long that the second I pick my head up from obsessive writing and creating for a quick breath of air, boom, I’m hit with revelatory clarity without me even looking for it. I realize that I’m at the age and stage where I'm actually cherishing things. Appreciating the view from where I’m standing. Allowing myself to bask in the goodness of what's to come, the meaningfulness of my friendships, the potential for my creative side to thrive, an eventual space that will water me in all the ways I need to be watered and sheltered and kept safe.

Photo by Michael Adeyeye

Take a look at the world around us. Full on foolishness left and right. It’s hard to ignore how topsy turvy and uncertain things are, how many new barriers are being erected: from work to family to faith to relationships to personal joy to stability to creativity to rest. Things are hard and seemingly will remain hard, in doses. But largely, mercifully, we're working our way through it. Myself, my family and friends, and—as I let my pen roam freely to explore them—my characters.

Against all odds, people are getting closer to the things that will break them out of this ugly, gray space we're all collectively experiencing.

Getting that brain-blast idea that shows a path forward that has been right there all along, just waiting on things to click for you. For you to finally feel something.

Finding genuine enjoyment in passion projects, and having faith that if it's meant to generate profit (or at least financial stability), it will.

Decentering and aggressively deprioritizing what capitalism has deemed (and is continually trying to deem) important to sustain a happy, worthwhile life.

Leaning into soft acts of care for ourselves.

Tapping into the flow state of active being and creating.

And I think I'm finally there. Or a lot closer, at least.

_The Words, The Work_

I know I've already said I have a novel in progress, a literary pursuit I've been working on for a number of years, but I've hit the point where it actually feels like it. I can see the book I can create if I keep showing up, chipping away at the simultaneous Scrivener and Google Docs files (because my paranoia will not allow me not put all trust in one platform).

In meeting with three different writing comrades at least 5x a month between them all — friends with whom we've made deliberate choices to prioritize our literary identities and get something DONE — I've combed through numerous versions of my story. Poking holes where I did not consider there were any. Asking questions that unraveled entire character journeys. Interrogating who is introduced as a "villain" and why. Giving more intention and decisive actions to characters. Scrapping old narrative structures while erecting new ones. Talking about and thinking about and praising and criticizing my characters with others out loud and by name, as if they already exist and walk among us in the real world. By the way, Dawn and Maxi say hello. 😉

Baby, this was (and still is!!) painful work. Letting go and releasing the act of being precious with what I toiled over. But at the end of this patient excavation they've done with me, I'm blown away at all the new ways forward that have presented themselves and that I'm itching to follow. I have internally aligned with most of the beginnings and endings and big AHA! moments that anchor the story I want to write. Now I get to let my 'fro down and frolic about to work out the many middles, not being too precious or prescriptive about the twists and turns that will get us (the characters, the readers and even me, the writer) there.

These days, when I sit to write, there is genuine excitement. I let myself write linearly, and also I let myself bounce around to different sections, "chapters," plot points, points of view, and even tenses. Whatever comes to me, because I know generally where it's supposed to go.

I go in with curiosity as to how my mind and my pen and these characters will walk into a situation, struggle in it, then find their way out of it. Only this time I actually have a hazy but functional north star to work with. And words are coming out every-ish day, mostly useful words. Not plot and outline and strategy words, but story words. Dialogue words (which, I won't lie, are not my favorite things to write). Damnit, I wrote a preface for my book by accident! I have a working title I love! (Sure, I know these things maybe change once you involve larger entities, but it feels nice to be grounded by something, running towards something imbued with meaning that I actually believe in).

And I go easy on myself, honoring the natural stop points that come when I've reached the end of that creative burst. I give myself grace to go to sleep, go back to work, get off the train, go to the gym, go out with my friends, instead of making writing time a bout of desk-shackled imprisonment.

I'm at that sandy plane just before the flow state. I feel way more confident about getting to that long-awaited #DirtyFirstDraft. (Another thing I have brewing for the writers. More to come very soon.)

So much of writing is imagining the act and fantasizing about what could be until you make sense of it all in a tangible way. Sometimes you sit with something so long that you get stuck and minimal forward movement happens.

What a blessing it is for my village and I to be propelling forward in honor of ourselves. In joy, love, purpose and community, ready to encourage and support one another at every juncture.

Everybody's wheels are moving fully greased. All my people are creating brands and businesses and platforms and community-building groups and opportunities for social commentary and engagement and mentorship mechanisms and new ways of expressing ourselves and showcasing our talents and working and learning and living. I swear I could cry. We are our own self-sustaining ecosystem, watering each other and the dreams we're allowing ourselves to plant and pursue. What a beautiful time.

This, my friends, is where the fun part begins.