Inspiring Creative Connections

In my senior seminar class, students study the creative process, then create an artifact to help them to remember how they want to live their lives. One of my students designed a poster, and this is what it said:

Promises I Swear To Keep To My Creative Self

1) I promise that I will do something creative every single day to feed my inner artist. Be that an artist date, a creative project, or enjoying the creativity of another person, I will always feed my creative mind in healthy, whole ways.

2) I promise I will always remember that I am introverted, task oriented yet flexible, friendly and outgoing, a golden retriever who moonlights as an otter, a feeler who can walk in another's shoes, an emotional soul who believes emotions are the colors of life, a words of affirmation / physical touch [love] recipient and giver, and that I am perfect just the way I am.

3) I promise I will never ever EVER let the negative voices, the negative influences, the negative people, the negative circumstances stifle my joy for living or my creative work. If there is anything that sets me apart, it is my joy and my hope. As James M. Barrie once said, "Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves."

4) I promise that I will embrace my imperfection, learning to laugh at myself with great care and affection because it is only in embracing my imperfection that I will do what is required of me to the best of my ability in whatever circumstance I am in.

5) I promise I will always remind myself that the difference between the novice writer and an expert writer is experience, not talent, and this is the same reasoning behind other areas of creativity as well. I will not let the fear of rejection destroy my hopes to share my creative gifts with the world.

6) I promise that I will always invest wholeheartedly, genuinely, and fully in the lives of other people because other people need me. Yes, they need me, as much as I need them, because it is in the fellowship of other human beings that we experience life to the fullest.

7) I promise that I will find a creative domain that is accessible to me and I will run after it with all my strength. The door will open only if I have the courage and the opportunity to pull the handle.

8) I  promise that I will celebrate my accomplishments and take pride in the things I excel in and the things I work hard for. I will not feed my pride with vanity and an bloated sense of self-worth, but rather I will glorify the Giver of the gifts bestowed upon me that is my responsibility to share with the world.

9) I promise that I will do something crazy once a week in order to see sides of the world I did not know existed. I will go out on a limb, get out of my comfort zone, and discover new worlds, people, and ideas that I would not have known if I had stayed in the same place.

10) I promise that I will never ever allow myself to become bored with my creative life, nor any other area of my life. Should I come to view anything as boring, then I promise to read these things that I have listed and remember the creative gifts that I have been given.

When do you know that you are --really-- a writer?

When you see a picture of your book on Amazon?

When you win a writing award?

When you actually hold your first published article in your actual hand?

When you get your first fan letter?

When wikipedia decides that you are "notable"

When you read a glowing review of your book?

When you pull out a special pen and sign your first autograph?

When you are asked to give a keynote address at a writers' award ceremony?

When you see people sitting around reading something you wrote?

When Oprah picks your book for the book club?

I'm thinking that it's possible to have all that going for you and still have doubts. 'Because each one of those things depends on someone else deciding who you are on the inside. And if somebody can give you that identity, then someone else can take it away. If a good review makes you a good writer, what happens when the review is bad? If an agreeable publisher or a happy fan or an enthusiastic radio interviewer can define you, what happens when things are disagreeable, unhappy, and bland? So how about this instead:

If you can lose yourself for an hour or more writing and rewriting a single paragraph, you are a writer.

If your day feels fuzzy and your brain feels foggy until you've had a chance to write, you are a writer.

If you don't know what you think until you see what you wrote, you are a writer.

If office supplies make your eyes sparkle, and a sharpened pencil and a fresh pad of paper give you a thrill, you are a writer.

If you have ever hugged your moleskin journal and sighed contentedly, you are a writer.

If you have little scraps of paper and a very odd assortment of pens squirreled away in every corner of your house, you are a writer.

If you find yourself staying up way past your bedtime because the muse won't let you go, you are a writer.

If you have ever rudely interrupted a friend by saying, "Wait. Just a minute. If I don't write this down now, I will lose it," you are a writer.

Or this: If you know what it means to push words around on a piece of paper until (ah!) something clicks into place and settles in your soul, you are a writer.

I teach a required general studies course called Introduction to Literature. It's a standard course at most universities. When I teach it, we spend the first seven weeks looking at poetry. I have a step-by-step method of analysis that I teach them: I take all the usual stuff like metaphor and rhythm patterns and onomatopoetic language and put them in a simple sequence to help students know what to do when they are trying to make heads or tails of a new poem.

It's a great course, and I have great students. Our final activity for our poetry unit is this: I ask students to bring a copy of a poem that impacted their life in some way, and share it with the class. I sit in the back of the classroom. One by one, they stand and talk about their real lives: loss and confusion and loneliness, death and pain, the splintering of their hopes and fading of their dreams. I hold my breath. They tell me that a poem helped them make it through their brother's funeral, a song gave them courage when they wanted to quit, a chorus repeated through their head again and again and helped them put their feet back on the floor.

It is for me one of the greatest privileges of my life: that my students lift the veil and let me catch a glimpse of the shadow-part of their daily lives. For one hour, we are not a class in a classroom. We are ordinary people, doing the best we can as we try to make sense of our lives. And it is absolutely certain to all of us in that sacred space that poetry really means something.

I do not participate on that day. It is their class, and they take us to unexpected places of joy and tears. But this morning, as I woke up and thought about what they taught me  just yesterday, I realized that if I were called upon to share a story, this is what I would say.

In the early 1990's,  I got a job offer from a little school in southern Missouri. At the time,  I couldn't have told you where Missouri was on the map. But it was a season of "retrenchment," and my own job was next on the line, so I moved.

It was a ghastly time of transition. I didn't know a soul. I'd drive around in my car going nowhere in particular. I'd put on my favorite James Taylor's album, "New Moon Shine," and I'd crank the volume. High.

There was one song I'd play over and over and over. It's called "Like Everyone She Knows." The chorus goes like this:

Hold tight to your heart's desire
Never ever let it go
Let nobody fool you into giving it up too soon
Tend your own fire
Lay low and be strong
Wait awhile
Wait it out
Wait it on out
Wait it out
It'll come along

That time in Missouri turned out to be one of the best times in my life with some of the best best people I have ever known. But at first, I was just miserable. It was so hard to hang in there, holding tight, waiting it out. If I could share a word with my students, that's what I would tell them. "Hold tight to your heart's desire. Never ever let it go. Let nobody fool you into giving it up too soon. Wait it out. It'll come along."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xTWWN7iPrc

From the news page of The Marion E. Wade Center

Talk by Dr. Diana Glyer at the Wade Center:
"C.S. Lewis’s Fingerprints on the Map of Middle-earth”
Wednesday, October 20, 4:00 p.m.

Diana Pavlac Glyer, Ph.D. will present a talk based on her investigation of collaboration among the Inklings at the Marion E. Wade Center. The lecture, "C.S.Lewis’s Fingerprints on the Map of Middle-earth," will be held at the Wade Center (351 E. Lincoln Avenue in Wheaton) on Wednesday, October 20 at 4:00 p.m. Copies of Dr. Glyer’s book, The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community will be available for sale at the event at a 20% discount. This event is free and open to the public. Parking will be available in the Edman Chapel lot, east of the Wade Center.

http://www.wheaton.edu/wadecenter/news/news.html