Creating

Creating  by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD

The page is blank and I’m wondering how to begin. I’ve been walking around for days thinking about what to write, and then it dawned on me this is the very thing that needed to be said: that the page is blank and I know that the doing of the thing is literally the doing of it. Staring at the page and hoping that something gets written is useless. And so I write this.

Wondering what and how to say it is a common as muck problem for all people who engage in creative acts. There is always a blank page, or canvas, or raw materials.  The tools of the artist-writer, of brush, palette knife, pencil, pen,  pastels, paint, chisel, keyboard can be in tip-top shape (and they are intrinsically lovely, I think), but they’re useless until a mark is made.

We had a game as children where one of us made a mark on a piece of paper and then another of us had to draw something that the mark evoked, and then the next person had to draw something that the mark and the other person’s drawing evoked in them, and so, very soon the whole paper was a mass of drawings. The complete effect was beautiful. It is in the doing that a thing is made.

The creative act depends a lot on being alive and open to possibilities, which is the meaning of receptivity. To hold oneself alive to whatever comes along is not waiting for something random to grab one’s attention; it’s  surrounding oneself with various materials, people, ideas and contexts that nurture and stimulate interaction and a desire to participate in a seed of an idea. Receptivity doesn’t depend on a time frame, but permits access to a creation at any and all points of our engagement. 

This last statement is a crucial one, as it implies that any beginning is a useful one. Any mark on the page is the start of a creation. 

Of course, this is not to say that there are not other factors that get in the way of creating something. The stories we’ve been told about ourselves, the difficulties that we’ve had growing up, the traumas we’ve experienced, and so on have a huge bearing on the making of something new (all of which may be successfully addressed in counselling and hypnotherapy).  I’ve known this rather well in my own life, but over the last month have experienced these apparent barriers more keenly. 

Nearly a month ago I began a 30-day challenge to write for 10 minutes a day and post it on an internet site designed just for this: to get writers writing.  Just doing the thing has thrown up a barrage of resistances. Many days have passed when I’ve left the writing till nearly midnight, but then when actually  writing it hasn’t been hard. So, what is all that about? Why the dragging of feet?

Writing has quite a history for me. I started out a terrible writer in all ways.  My handwriting was practically unreadable and because even I couldn’t read it, my written expression was garbled.  I had been taught to write with my right hand, but I was (am) left-handed, so I actually couldn’t control my pen for a very long time.  It was embarrassing and I didn’t want to do anything with a pen. That changed when I was sixteen and starting to prepare for my matriculation exams in order to get into university. Until then I really was un-grabbed (if that’s a word) by the essay questions given to us.  Here,  suddenly was a question that set me on fire. It was an English Literature question on the poetic uses of language in everyday life. I wrote and wrote and wrote all night and submitted it the next day. My teacher was surprised, for until that point, I was a mediocre student. She gave me a distinction, but said she wanted to tutor me and teach me to handwrite again. So began intensive training both in handwriting and essay construction, a learning process that continues today.

The greater control of my right hand paralleled the greater control of composition and a greater ease of expression. I’m extremely grateful for this help I received. It changed everything. I was finally free to pursue the learning I wanted. That’s my story.  I realize there are many other accounts of difficulties that get in the way of present day creativity.

Resistance to creativity can be broken through  simply by making a mark on the paper and elaborating on it.  Combining this with such tools as journaling and counseling eases up the creator’s block. It’s powerful stuff, just this doing business.