Me: I’ve always admired you
MA: harrumph
Me: Well, I’ve actually never read any of your books, but I know about them and I truly admire your courage and confidence
MA: double harrumph (but intrigued at my audacity)
Me: I’ve got this novel inside me…
MA: yeah, you and about 6 billion other people
Me: I’m a busy working mum and the time I have for creativity is limited
MA: bullshit. Creativity seeps out of you, it finds the cracks in your daily trudge and tries to exit – you have to capture those moments
Me: wow, that’s so true! I’ve written bits and pieces of my novel here and there and the only struggle is putting it all together
MA: yeah, you and about 4 billion other people. Look, you’re wasting my time
Me: How do I make it all pour out and be written?
MA: you can’t make creativity happen, it just does when you’re ready and the time is right
Me: yeah that’s what it says in all the writing magazines and podcasts by authors about their inspirations… it just happens when it does and you have to be ready when that happens
MA: you’re not listening. It will happen when you are ready, not the other way round
Me: How do I know when I’m ready? (MA looks exasperated) Sorry, yes, it will start pouring out. Got it.
I look down at my shoes for a moment. When I look up she is gone. I search for her to re-engage her in another conversation, but she is now having a hypothetical conversation with another one of those 4-6 billion people she told me about.
So I went back to the notes I took when I read those writing magazines and heard those podcasts. I tried to synthesize something useful from them for myself and those 4-6 billion aspiring novelists out there. Here is what I came out with:
- Write your thoughts. If you have an idea, or if you play a conversation with Margaret Atwood in your head as you walk to work one morning, take five minutes as soon as possible to type it out. Save it in a folder called “OneDay”.
- Be observant. Understand mindfulness simply as stopping to smell the roses every now and again, or noticing how the light shines through the clouds over a landscape as you ride the train or drive to work. Practice this type of mindfulness to increase the number of moments you can actually describe. The more observant you are about your life and where you live it, the more likely you are to be creative.
- Believe in your future self. Derive strength from the dream that one day you will have time to sit there, open your OneDay folder, and read everything in it. Then you will have a choice. You will either use that material to write your book (fiction or otherwise), or you will decide to open a new folder called “TheDayIsNow” and start pouring out. Your new work will draw from all your experiences and mindful moments and result in a beautiful new creation that you could never have thought of when you were narrower in your scope and busier in your life.
Thank you Margaret Atwood.
I wonder what she will say if she ever reads this…?