Creative Fire - it warms me like nothing else. Different each time,
from sparks that lead to new projects, to an intense inner drive to bring
work to completion, out into the world. I'm grateful for this inner fire.
Writer Blogs, Creativity Blog.

DECEMBER 14, 2006

BURNING WITH CREATIVE FIRE - FINISHING FIRE, THIS TIME

I find it hard to stop. I don't want to take the time to eat, sleep. I want to keep going. I can tear myself away - I have to go to the bathroom, feed the cats and dogs, let the dogs outside. I let days go by without taking the dogs for a walk. They don't need my company, but my body does need the walks. Once I do get outside, I love the fresh air, and also moving my body instead of sitting at a computer screen.

Cooking - I just hunt for something that's ready, or very quick.

I know all about moderation. But I am not feeling moderate.

I don't have any recipe. I know all about been stalled, stuck, uninspired.

Not now. I do get stuck, I do have a hard time making decisions, I do latch onto details and work at them, over and over, instead of moving on - though I know, as a reader, how little time I spend on any few words. But with my own work, sometimes I am fixed to one place.

But even there, the work continues on and on, and with enough hours - or finally at night, with enough tiredness - or after some sleep, with enough of a clearer perspective - everything gets done and I can move on.

This creative fire. I welcome it. I wouldn't mind if it burned just a bit less brightly - it's not always easy to be so driven, so hooked on whatever I'm doing.

****

I know this fire. We're old friends. It's often not around. I've longed for it, sat stuck at blank paper, or at page after page that didn't feel right. I've lost it, at times, so that I've wondered if it hadn't just disappeared forever from my life. It's been gone for years.

I've also been gripped by it, over and over again. Each time, it's different. A dozen years ago, I began waking up with songs / word pieces in my head. A month later a friend almost laughed herself off her chair, when I complained about this new thing happening in my life, this weird creative direction something inside me was taking. It just wouldn't stop. At the start, I'd just written down the words in my head, sure there wouldn't be a lot of pieces. But after a month, there were nineteen - and I could feel that more were on their way.

There have been hundreds.

I know why my friend laughed, of course - what was there to complain about? The big thing is writer's block. Not this bounty. But this bounty can be quite disruptive. And then there I am, left to do massive work, all coming from some inner spark.

****

This time, like every time, it's different. It's a finishing fire - I long to finish projects, get them to where they need to be. Out in the world. I'm still doing some writing - these blogs for one thing - plus the idea pieces, and the loveline pieces. But with the Idea Emporium and Dr Zee's Loveline, i once again feel caught by finishing energy. All those ideas about Stupid Opinions, I've had them for years, have expressed them here and there. Now, with my finishing fire, I've written down a couple, and my inner agenda tells me I have at least another half dozen that need to get onto web pages.

Finishing fire. My father felt something like that in his sixties. He had time, lots of time, for the first time in his adult life, and he spent months, years even, organizing poetry and writings. In his case, it wasn't to get things out into the world, but to leave things in a form so that someone else could bring them to the world. In his last year, he went over his folders, and reorganized - and lost some work. He was losing his way.

All along, he could not edit his work (I know what torture that can be). He also could not send it out (and again I know how tough that can be, and how much rejection one must be able to face). I have sent many of my pieces out through conventional routes - submissions to magazines, to granting agencies - and have not gotten much back. Not many readers, not much success.

As a child, I did best with my own skipping rope - and this site is my skipping rope to get my creativity out into the world. And then I will make a home for my father's works as well.

****

If any of you are stuck, maybe have some web pages but not many visitors, here's the tool I've used to get web visibility. Amazing, how much I've learned in half a year.

Excellent site, excellent tools and service, excellent resource

Learning the way of the web has taken fire, drive, energy, persistence. I'm not a techie. I found every one of the steps daunting. But the drive to get this together massive creativity site has been stronger than the mountains of frustration I've had to get through. Not easy, learning web skills. Not natural. Not flowing. Not like the original creative flow. But I've needed the skills - like someone who longs to skate creatively needs to learn how to skate. Skills - so many were missing - in terms of web visibility, and web page design.

I will learn this, has been my attitude. Part of the creative finishing energy.

It isn't an attitude I decided to have. It's come from deep inside. Okay, so that's the hurdle, some inside force has said. In that case, how does one get over?

How does this fire happen? I just know it does - this fire, this drive, this hunger.

I know some of the reasons. I've loved creativity all my life. I've also tried hard, over and over. I haven't given up, though I've let go, gone on to other things when my inner well ran dry.

It isn't dry now.

So, no despair today. I have skills as unimaginable to me a year ago, as flying a jet plane. But where I am - that isn't unimaginable. I just have not known how to get here.

****

I am still far from where I long to be.

Where am I?

Okay, if I were a mountain climber, where would I be?

First, I wouldn't be a climber facing just one mountain. The challenge: six dozen mountains of varying heights, all with major difficulties, to be climbed as I wish - one after the other, simultaneously, however. That choice is mine.

I have not reached any of the peaks in this climbing. I have beheld amazing views, glimpsed vistas. On mountain after mountain, I am climbing. On some, I have studs stuck in the mountainside, and am pulling myself up, one handhold after the other. On others, I am taking a break, gear parked in my tent. On a few, I have company. On others, I am alone. I have food along to keep me going - food, water, warm clothes, shelter. I have a backpack of creative works that need to be taken along, or the climb has been a waste of my time. I'm not doing it for the exercise, or for the views along the way. These are part of it, but a huge goal is getting the works where they belong - though I don't know just where that is.

Right now, on all the mountains, I am taking a tiny break - taking stock. It hasn't been a long breather. There was a technical challenge I faced yesterday and this morning - as hard to get through as a door in the wall of a mountain, a door one needs to enter, but that won't open. I thought I had the magic words. I didn't. I found them eventually, though they were hidden.

But through it all, through every try that didn't work, I knew my inner fire was burning bright. I would do this, and I would go on, on and on.

****

I don't know how it is that I was born with a strong creative drive. I used to think all people were. I am grateful that my father was too, valued my love for all things creative. I don't know why the journey has been so hard. Part of my father's legacy, I suppose.

Things have changed somehow, though. I am on a path that seems to be leading where something in me ever so deeply longs to be.

And the inner fire makes me take on so many humdrum things - and makes doing them rewarding. They are part of what needs to be done.

I have no idea what it would be like, to live without a creative fire, an inner quest to create, express, and reach others.

I am grateful to those I've met along the way who have given a hand.

And now I think it's time to go on - with more mundane tasks that it feels good to do, while looking up and out the window at the wide open view outside.

As always, welcome into my world.

Elsa
creating, connecting, exchanging -
or anyway, trying to

DECEMBER 14, 2006

copyright © Elsa Schieder 2006, 2011
publishing house - FlufferDuff Impressions 2006, 2011

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