Rebooting, the Results

Many of you were asking me how my week long “reboot” experiment went.  In short, it was wonderful.   Hard and a bit scary at times?  Definitely.   Worth it?  Absolutely. This coincided with the first week of The Shed Project, which was perfect timing. I regretted not being able to dive right into the forums and post, but it was more beneficial to me to be starting the project during a week where I was mostly detached from technology. I was writing a lot during that week, so I’m going to share a little breakdown for you with bits of my stream-of-consciousness writing from each day.

When I got to work on the first day, my very first step was to go into my Google Reader and click “Mark All As Read.” It was such a simple thing, but I actually found my heart rate speeding up and my hand shaking a little bit! Why was this such a big deal? Instead of running away from my emotions about it, I wanted to really dwell in them and observe what was happening. Since my moratorium was on reading and not on writing, I immediately grabbed my journal and started writing it down:

I can’t believe that actually made me feel nervous. What do I think is going to happen if I miss out on some blog posts? Will the world stop turning if I’m not observing it? Will I be out of the loop, no longer one of the “cool internet kids” ? Why do I care? I don’t think I consciously realized before how important it has become for me to feel like I know what’s going on everywhere. Now it’s just me and my immediate surroundings. News from beyond my little circle will be delayed in getting to me. I wonder how it will feel to be back in “analog” … where important things reach me by word of mouth.

Day 1 felt shaky all around, and sort of like I was wandering in a haze. I didn’t really know what to do with myself. When I found myself accidentally reading a blog entry someone linked, I had to close out the browser quickly (and it WAS accidentally — I did it out of habit, without even thinking.) That made me step back and consider how often I am taking in information unconsciously, just reading whatever is in front of me, clicking whatever friends share, mindlessly absorbing it all. No wonder, as my friend John said in the comments, my “inputs were clogging up the outputs” !

That night I cooked a pretty good dinner, ate face to face with my partner-in-crime, and started working on a project around the house a little bit. It was so quiet. And nice, actually. I went to bed early, leaving the stack of books on my nightstand untouched.

More after the jump!

Photosynthesis

Sometimes you just need to change your space in order to change perspective.

As many of you know, I recently moved to a new house.   This new place is going to have a nice little office space for me, that I’ve just barely started working on.  There’s also a great big yard and a nice sunroom and most importantly, lots of natural light.

The old place was…well… a cave.   It was dark, and muted, and felt very small even though it is technically bigger than the place I’m in now.    There are many writers for whom a small, dark nook is exactly the right place for them to bang out their work, but I am not one of them.  I need space. I crave light.  It’s almost as though my writing is directly fueled by photosynthesis.

While living at the old place, I struggled mightily to write anything, much less a song.  Most of the songs I’ve written in the past two years have been started while I was elsewhere, either in a hotel room, at a conference, or on vacation.   I was sometimes able to finish a rewrite at home, but for the most part had to work very hard against the environment to do so.

I’ve only been in the new house full-time for a little more than a week, but I feel a change already.  I started working on a song this week, and was able to work on it for a few minutes at home.   Sitting in the sunroom for a few minutes with the cats, I catch a few ideas as they float by.   Standing out in the yard as the dogs run around joyfully, a turn of phrase occurs to me that I make a note to use later.  I take deep breaths of the air and close my eyes to feel the sun on my eyelids, and I can almost feel them converting something inside into words.

Despite the piles of stuff and stacks of boxes, despite not knowing where everything belongs just yet, my creative self is opening up and letting in the light.  Hallelujah.

making space, part the third

This last aspect of space I want to tackle in this series is at once the most important and the most difficult to write.

Once space in the schedule is made, and the physical space for writing is found, there is still a major hurdle to overcome in order to get to work.  This is the intangible and ever-changing psychological space needed in order to create.   One entry definitely won’t cover it.  In fact, this only touches on the main reason I wanted to create this blog in the first place.  Exploring the process, the psychological space of writing and learning through self-observation as I go along is one of my major goals here.  That said, let’s jump in a little.

The psychological space necessary for creative work is also called mindset, mood, or “the zone,” but I prefer the slang of headspace, because it’s actual meaning refers to the space between something in a container and its seal, i.e. that little bit of air in the jar between your favorite jam and the lid.   For me, being in the right headspace to work is the difference between the concept of a song and it being completed in a way that satisfies me.

Every writer’s productive headspace will be a little different.  One of the first things I need is privacy.  This serves multiple purposes for me.

First of all, the ‘process’ of a song is not a pretty thing, and no one should have to be exposed to the very first draft of any of my songs, ever.  There are lots of stumbles, extremely silly lyrics, and great potential for cursing.  It’s best that I am completely alone for that experience.  Believe me, it’s for your own good.

Secondly, privacy allows me the freedom to play, to makeup the silly lyrics when I can’t think of one that fits right off, to be terrible.  It basically gives me permission to have a really crap first draft without worrying about what anyone else thinks about it.  This is a huge deal.  Feeling that I have the permission to be awful immediately relieves any pressure to be brilliant in the first round.  The ultimately important part of this is that it removes the power from my Internal Editor.  An editor is a lovely thing to have when you are at the point of refining and perfecting a piece, but when you’re just getting started, the Internal Editor (let’s call mine Steve) does nothing except tell you NOT to create.

“That idea has been done before.”

“That is stupid.”

“Don’t write that, it’s idiotic, and no one will get that reference.”

Steve clogs up valuable headspace with all that negative chatter, so the only solution is to find a way to tie him up to a chair and stuff him in a closet of your subconscious until he can make himself useful.  When other people are around, Steve flat out refuses to go to his closet.

“I bet they can hear you in the other room.  They heard you just f*ck up that chord royally.   Right now they are wondering how you can even call yourself a songwriter with a trite line like that.  You should be glad they ever come to your shows.  They probably just do it out of pity.” and so on and so forth.   Having privacy gives Steve one less thing to pick on, and makes it much easier for me to get him out of my way.

My other needs all go together.  The first is  relaxation.  Clearing the schedule helps with that, but so does clearing my thoughts of anything that’s bugging me.  I often make tea or coffee before settling down to write.  The ritual of it is soothing and so is the warm cup.  It helps me get a handle on my intentions.  (One of the main reasons I choose Octane for my editing and blogging sessions is that they serve a nice variety of loose leaf teas by the potful!)  Some songwriters write much better when they are experiencing emotional turmoil or some sort of extreme emotion, but this is not so with me.  I need focus, and focus only comes with relaxation and intention.

Once I’ve got all those things going on at once, the writing seems to be a lot more effortless.  This is not to say I don’t sometimes get stuck and stop for awhile, or that I always come out with something I love.  It just makes it easier for me to fall back into a project at will instead of “waiting for inspiration to strike.”  Inspiration is Out There at any given time, but having privacy, permission to be awful, relaxation, focus, and intent make it possible for me to tap into the right headspace.

Question for my Readers:

Where’s your head at?   I’d love to hear how some of you prepare psychologically for a writing session!

making space, part two

In the first post of this series I talked about having chronological space available for writing, and how I’ve been trying to make that happen.  So now that I’ve learned to prioritize my time and delegate tasks, what is the next step to getting back on the horse…er…in the saddle… wait, why are all of these idioms related to cowboys?  Are there no perseverance-related sayings just for writers?   Maybe not.    Maybe there should be.

Anyway,  I have these small gifts of time now, but I have an environmental problem.   My house is full of pets, and laundry, and really fun video games, and all sorts of other stuff I could be doing.  Given the opportunity, I will probably do anything else before sitting down to work.   In order to actually work I have to eliminate those other options.

There isn’t a specific place in the house that is just for my writing.   Yes, I have an office, with a very foreboding looking oak desk and a window, and yes, I have a laptop with wireless that I can use anywhere with a connection.  Those are great for when I’m sitting down and just working on lyrics or editing a song that’s already mostly written.   When I’m writing the music for a song, though, and playing with melodies and chords and really just getting started, I need a place where I can let go of my inhibitions and fears and just…well… play.
My favorite spot used to be the kitchen.  I’d lean up on the counter, play my guitar, maybe pace up and down the galley layout a few times as I sang.    Lately, though, I have a new spot in the house.

We’ve been renovating the enclosed balcony for awhile, but now it’s almost finished.  It’s a “room”, but I can see outside, and I can close myself off from the rest of the house (read: cats) who might interrupt.  The hardwood floors make me feel cozy and comfortable, but also lend some nice acoustics to the space.  Also, if I can’t see anyone else around, it’s much easier for me to let go and act as if I can’t be overheard.

For someone who regularly performs on stage in front of others, it’s surprising to me how terrified I am of having someone listen in when I’m just starting with a song.  This definitely relates to the next post in the series, so I won’t go too deeply into it now, but the first draft of a song is an intensely private experience for me. Any hint that I’m being listened to, and my creativity takes a hike.

The sunroom still needs some finishing touches.  When I imagine how it will ultimately look, I think of a moroccan lounge or a classic library room.

Somewhere in between the two would be perfect.

I’ve bought some paint that looks like the inside of a butternut squash (isn’t orange supposed to inspire creativity?) which should go up on the walls soon.

A big comfy chair, a bookshelf full of  my favorite books, and a couple of nice lamps… and definitely a small table, big enough only for a no

tebook and a glass of wine.  Once those are in place, I’m confident I’ll have a physical space in which I can be happy and productive.

making space, part one.

Last year, I was busy.

Working at my “day job” (which I actually love), going to school part-time, doing some work as a labor and postpartum doula, moving into a house, adopting animals, repeatedly resolving to go to the gym (and sometimes going!) — I was really, really busy.   As a result of being so busy living a “normal” life, I let some very important things fall by the wayside, namely my regular writing schedule.

“But I just don’t have time!” is so easy to say with regard to writing, or any kind of artistic discipline.  Sometimes, especially when it’s not our full-time way of making a living, our creative work is the first thing to go when things get hectic.  I’ve learned that in order to have the time to write, I need to make the time to write.   Extra hours will not spontaneously appear in my day as a gift from the gods, nor will any new songs spring, fully-formed, from my pen while I’m sleeping. It’s really pretty simple, but easy to overlook in favor of excuses –

If I want to be a songwriter, I need to write songs.

I need to have an “appointment with myself” every day in which my only assignment is to write.  With a schedule like mine, that seems nearly impossible at first glance.

So how do I recover from my lapse in writing discipline?

The first step is to unstick myself from the mire of my over-scheduled days.  I need to re-evaluate how much I should be doing, what I can and can’t volunteer for, what time I actually have versus the time I’m promising for others.  When I was writing every day, my schedule was much more loose and free.  I could walk down to the coffee shop in my neighborhood and sit with my notebook for a couple of hours.   Given that I now have more responsibilities and a full-time job, that sort of setup just can’t happen anymore.  So how do I create more space in my schedule?

A fun thing I only recently discovered is delegating. It honestly did not occur to me until a short time ago that I don’t have to do everything myself.

This is a big one for me.  I’ve always been very independent (and just love slapping “independent” in front of “singer/songwriter” when telling people about my music) so it’s actually pretty hard for me to come to grips with the idea that I can ask someone else, someone equally or more capable, to help me with a project or take on a certain aspect of it that I’d normally want to do on my own.

A great example is my friend Emily.   She and my friend Wes (now her husband) did the artwork for my album “How To Take The Fall”.  It’s great artwork, I love it and get complimented on it all the time.    Emily has since been helping me with a lot of my poster/artwork needs for promotional stuff.   I am teaching myself how to use photo manipulation software, because I’d like to be able to do it myself if she’s not available, but in the meantime, why not delegate these tasks to my extremely creative and talented friend?    Once I told myself (and Emily told me) that it was OK to rely on her for these things, a big portion of my stress went *POOF*.

I think a lot of us in America are raised to be independent, do-it-yourselfers.  This can-do spirit is fantastic for innovation and motivation, but honestly, most of us get burned out on it at one time or another.  I know I did.   Learning that just because I am capable of doing a project doesn’t automatically mean I am obligated to do it was the first, and one of the most important, steps in getting my writing back.

Something amazing happens when you learn to delegate and take on less.   Time appears.  A half hour here, two hours over there.  Like a gift from the gods.

Yesterday, I drank a cup of English breakfast tea and worked on a song.  I felt guilty for a moment about delaying making chili for a church function tonight, but then realized it could wait, because I had more important things to attend to.