Staying Curious

lizshine74by lizshine74

In Inspiration, On writing.

Clouds

Last Tuesday, the word that landed in my inbox from Wordsmith was questionary. For reasons I can’t explain well, I began drafting this post. Very often, that’s how the ideas I write about here—about how to persist in cultivating your creative life—take form. I do have a list of topics I’d like to write about, but most of the time ideas just drop in on me. When this happens, the urge to write them down is fierce. I am recording these for myself as much as I am making offerings to you, dear readers.

There was just something about the word, how it evoked a quest, as well as questions for my own experience of having just sat down to hammer out another chapter of my novel. Trying to write that morning, I kept asking myself question after question after question, to come up with scenes that felt right. In essence, that’s what revision looks like: a list of questions (questionary) and the resiliency to keep answering them as skillfully and honestly as one can.

On the other hand, there is a whole list of questions that block us from the work that matters.

Will I ever be published?

Why do I even try, when there are plenty of writers in the world who can do this?

These questions that persist from fear and self-doubt present a universal struggle for the artist.

Why do I even do this work?

Is this just me giving in to “hustle culture”?

If I gave up now, I could take more naps?

Every time we encounter a challenge, these questions can roar louder if we let them.

But what if you answered back with more questions? Better questions, questions that assumed your worth, your goodness, your right to take up space?

Let’s try it.

Who cares?

So what if you are only doing this work for yourself, to get better at your craft. Isn’t that enough?

Do you remember how it felt the last time you created something you felt proud of? Take these posts for example. There are lots of times that I write these posts, and I don’t know whether or not they land. But then, getting changed before yoga class last night, a woman I know who I had forgotten reads these, says to me thank you (meaning for writing these posts). She followed it up by saying that she was “getting closer.” I didn’t push her to elaborate on that (though I was curious). Whatever she was getting closer to I knew that it involved making time. Next time I see her, I want to ask what it is she wants to make time for. The point is that she reminded me of what I am writing for. I am writing so that someone might read this and decide to take up the work of their heart. I’m also reminding myself why I keep taking up this work.

What if we all did that? What if every single person you knew took up the art that fascinates them? From time to time in education, people take up the call to change our education system to be more career-focused, instead of making kids take subjects they are not interested in or that don’t fit their future career goal. I find this idea terrifying. Are we not already divided enough in our narratives of us versus them? Shouldn’t every single person encounter ways of thinking and seeing that challenge and baffle them at first? Isn’t that one way to empathy? The idea that young people have enough experience to make narrow decisions like that is more than a little naive. The real conversation ought to be about how grading kills curiosity, not eliminating subjects which can potentially foster it.

What if we all made time for the work of our hearts, just because we could?

Where does all that effort lead? You’ll never know if you don’t try. Does it even matter where you go?

When will I master this? Hopefully never. Can you imagine how boring it would all be without the struggle, without the writing and rewriting, the shaping and reshaping? The idea of mastery is a false quest perpetuated by our education system in order to provide some measurement for grading. The very idea of mastery can stunt your growth. What happens after mastery?

Why not? All the reasons you can conjure up as reasons you shouldn’t make time for your art are fundamentally unsound. You do have time, no matter your skill level. Praise for your art is nice, but it’s not the point. There are not enough artists in the world, not nearly enough. We need art filling up public spaces and the public imagination more than ever.

How might I make this work for me? There is no one way. No singular path, and no rules. You get to design and redesign your life and your spaces to accommodate what your practice looks like now. And just as your yoga teacher might remind you to take each pose in the present moment and consider what your body needs now (not what it needed yesterday), you should do the same for your creative work, and be open to adjusting and readjusting your practice.

The next time you get stopped in your tracks by a fear-driven question, talk right back with a better question.

I also work as a writing coach and love helping writers gain confidence, set goals, and develop their work. For more information on coaching, email me at eatyourwords.lizshine@gmail.com.

lizshine74

lizshine74

Liz Shine teaches high school English, writes, edits, and coaches other writers from her home in Olympia, WA. When she begins to feel overwhelmed by it all, she simply looks up at Mount Rainier in the distance and gets back to work. If that fails, she heads to the ocean. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press. Her Substack Make Time is her gift to writers, like her, trying to magic time in this crazy, busy world. All of those posts are cross-posted on the blog here. You can see more of her writing at lizshine.com and find her on Instagram {@lizshine.writer} cooking, traveling, and in other ways seeking moments of awe. She has been an active participant in communities of writers since the early 1990s. She’s learned that two things feel truly purpose-driven in life: writing and coaching other writers. In the in between (because one cannot be driving for a purpose every moment), she enjoys looking for wonder and connection. She is a lifelong yoga student, an enthusiastic walker along streets and trails, and an amateur gardener and vegetarian cook. She lives in Olympia, WA. She believes in the power of practice and has been practicing writing since some time in the early 90s when she became an adult in the rain-soaked city of Aberdeen. Writing began with journaling, as a way to understand a confusing, sometimes violent coming-of-age. She writes mostly fiction, some nonfiction, and poetry, and holds an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writers Workshop. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press.