Filling the Well in 2016

February 23, 2016 Josephine Moon

To keep myself accountable to my unicorn for providing her with input from which to draw inspiration for new work, this year, I am keeping a list of everything I’m feeding her. She’s a hungry magical being–an insatiable appetite for creativity–and does tend to get stroppy if I neglect her.

I’m excited about what’s on there already, and looking forward to seeing this grow. If you have any awesome events you know of in the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane or southeast Queensland area, I’m keen to hear them. 🙂

So far, I have:

Books Read (completed, or at least half way, not including the hundreds I read to my toddler). Don’t be alarmed by the brevity of this list. As I’ve said many times, I’m a very slow reader.

Hester & Harriet, by Hilary Spiers
Fall of the Beasts (Spirit Animals), Immortal Guardians, by Eliot Schaefer
Diamond Spirit, by Karen Wood

Theatre Productions/Music

Australia Day (Noosa Arts Theatre), February
2016 Season of One Act Plays (BATS, Buderim), April
Educating Rita (The Events Centre), April

Speakers

Elizabeth Gilbert, February

Workshops/Courses

Cheesemaking, Brisbane, March

Travel (research, inspiration)

Melbourne, April
Writing Retreat, June
Burdekin Writers Festival, July
Bundaberg Writers Festival, October
Tuscany, September

Movies

Under the Tuscan Sun

Reclaiming Your Inner Artist

May 13, 2014May 14, 2014 Josephine Moon

Me, in the middle in blue, participating in a public drumming performance, roughly ten years ago.

Ever had that moment when you suddenly think, ‘Far out! What happened to me?’

You’re wondering where your ‘life’ went. You’re wondering where the real YOU went?

I’ve had those moments, many times, such as when I realised I couldn’t lead the life in the corporate world any more. And most recently, when I declared to my husband across the kitchen sink, ‘I’m an artist without any art!’ like it was a national crisis.

A tad melodramatic, sure. But this is what our inner artists do. We ALL have an inner artist and if we don’t pay attention to them, they will start shouting at us louder and louder until we listen to them and do what they want… which is to feed, nurture and love them. (Think of your inner artist as a toddler or a dog and you’re pretty much on the money.) To the inner artist, having no art in my life WAS a crisis, akin to a lack of oxygen. My husband (quite used to me by now) merely said, ‘Well you need to go out and find some.’

So I did. I reclaimed a part of myself that’s been sad for more than 9 years, which was when I stopped going to African drumming classes. The reasons I stopped going were all very logical–we moved inland to ‘the bush’ and I simply had no access to a drumming circle. Then we moved to the Sunshine Coast last year (for the very reason of accessing artistic and lifestyle goodness) but now having a toddler and big, conflicting work schedules for both my husband and me, it just didn’t happen.

But finally, it has. And it felt GOOOOOD. Oh man, my soul (my inner artist) was so, so happy and has been all day today and especially so while I was working on my latest manuscript.

It is the central tenant of being an artist that we must

FILL THE WELL BEFORE WE DRAW FROM IT.

In other words, we cannot make art (in my case, novels) if we aren’t first nourishing ourselves with the sights, sounds and experiences we need to then be able to draw from.

Our inner artists are constantly telling us what they want; it’s just that we don’t always listen. That moment when you think, where did my life go, is just a call to action to change something, to make a minor adjustment in the course this ship is sailing.

What’s yours saying?

Creative Breakthroughs: My Writing Room

February 13, 2014 Josephine Moon

I had a huge breakthrough this weekend and for me it’s so important that I’m going to continue posting about this topic every so often over the course of the year. It started like this.

Recently, I was invited to submit a photograph and some words about ‘my writing room’ to a UK website. I’ve harboured dreams of a magical, inspiring, nourishing writing room for years. And you may know that I’ve written about my intention to create a wonderful writing room for the past two new year’s resolutions. But I keep failing to achieve my dream.

Now, I’ve dithered about this photo task for weeks (I’ve lost count of how many). And the reason is this: my room isn’t what I want it to be. It’s not finished. I still have an unpainted wall and door, broken and missing glass in the French doors, unpolished floorboards covered by a rug, and the cheapest curtains (for want of a word) I could find as a temporary stop until ‘the real curtains’ arrive. It’s not pretty enough. I don’t have everything just as I want it. I cannot begin to tell you how much time I’ve spent lying awake, stressed about this task!

I’ve been writing seriously now since 1999 and I still don’t have my dream writing room. But, over that time my writing space has improved. I actually wrote an entire memoir on my laptop in bed at one point because I didn’t have any space just of my own. And this time last year, I had just one corner of a room that was also shared by our senior cat and her kitty litter (so lots of smell and grit underfoot), her frequent deposits of cold vomit on the floor, the baby’s change table and the nappy bin (more smell), and the dirty clothes basket. Life in my writing room has, absolutely, improved.

But I’m still not where I want to be—somewhere in the gypsy cave with silks and lanterns and fairy lights, a desk made of gnarled wood taken from an enchanted forest and carved by elves, magical doorways, couches, cushions, a music player, candles, perfect lighting for day and night, perfect temperature control and aromatherapy. Somewhere peaceful with beautiful scenery. Oh, and somewhere my toddler can’t find me.

And what I’m really saying is my room is not perfect. No wonder I think I keep failing to achieve my dream.

*** And this, my friends, was my breakthrough. ***

Perfection—the deadly word for all creative types. Perfection, the unreachable, the unattainable. The tortuous quest to find the worst in ourselves (not the best).

The excuse to stop.

The excuse to not finish.

The excuse to not enjoy ourselves.

The excuse to hide our creativity from the world.

The excuse to fail.

From one recovering perfectionist to another, let me be clear:

PERFECTIONISM IS AN EXCUSE.

But it’s not ready. It’s not finished. It’s not good enough. It’s not what I want it to be!

Excuses. All of them.

Oh, they may be well founded in core beliefs, inherited expectations, fears that pretend to protect us from shame, punishment or embarrassment. But they’re still excuses. And they can sneak up on you and sidle into your mind very quietly and sit there for weeks, months, or years. Just as they did with me, provoking anxiety over my writing room.

But after years of stressing about it, I’ve found freedom.

I now know the reality is this: Creating and decorating my writing room is limited by the structure and size of the room; the fact that we’re still renovating a 113-year-old house and the rest of the house isn’t ‘finished’ yet either; and finances and priorities like, you know, essential plumbing, seven horses to feed and food and bills. There are limits to what I can do and that’s okay. That’s life. In fact, we need limits or we’d lose our minds. It doesn’t mean I have to stop, or have to hide what I’ve done. It’s a work in progress. Nothing in life is ever finished. Nothing. It just changes from one thing to another.

And the lesson here is that this applies to every creative aspect of our life. Everything that seems big and overwhelming can be done by breaking it down into its components. If you want to be an author, you’re going to have to write a book. (Better yet, you’re going to have to write a page, and then another page, and another.) If you want to be an opera singer, you’re going to need to take a lesson. Want a holiday but can’t afford one? Go to the beach for the day. Want a horse but don’t have land? Go to a riding centre and ride for a day. Want to change the colour of the walls in your bedroom? You might first need to de-clutter the room so you can actually reach the walls.

And if you want the perfect writing room? Start with the perfect potted plant… which I did, this weekend, by the way. Isn’t it lovely? And I bought a lamp, too. Just two things for my writing-room-in-progress. And I can’t tell you how much joy that fern and that lamp bring me when I walk into the room. The whole space suddenly feels welcoming and nurturing and I want to spend time there.

So, loud and proud, I’m sharing this with you. This is my writing room. Not finished. A work in progress. And it will probably always be a work in progress for the rest of my life. I accept that now. And I am amending my new year’s resolutions from ‘create my perfect writing room’ or ‘fix my writing room’ to ‘continue to nurture my writing room’.

Because nurturing—of ourselves, our family, our careers, our creativity, and our living spaces—is a daily necessity. I will nurture my writing room and in return, my writing room will nurture me.