Weathering the Cycles
Trusting the rhythm
“There will be periods when you are highly active and creative, but there may also be times when everything seems stagnant, when it seems that you are not getting anywhere, not achieving anything. A cycle can last for anything from a few hours to a few years…”
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
He’s not kidding.
Trusting the flow of my creative cycles is a little like leaving a massive inheritance in the hands of a fair-weather friend, and that fair-weather friend is me. I’ve spent more time ignoring creative rhythms and dismissing the craft than honoring my calling and observing the ebb and flow.
I've been writing since I was 8 years old. Frankly, it’s a little embarrassing to admit I’ve been at it this long and I’m still not Stephen King. I wrote through study halls, math class (which explains the grades), car rides. Anywhere, all the time. For years I never sat in front of the TV without a notebook in my lap, and I impressed my college creative writing class with the sheer volume of excerpts from terrible books I planned to write. Writing, no matter how good or terrible, was in my blood.
As I got older, it was also the first thing to go.
Even when creative inclination dissolved into background noise, I always set up a pretty little desk with all my pretty little notes and pretty little pictures to keep me inspired and collect dust. Over time I graduated from garage sale typewriters to a floppy disk computer, to shitty laptops, to slightly-less shitty laptops, until present day and my quirky HP. I still carry notebooks everywhere, travel with a computer, and keep a flash drive in my purse containing the culmination of almost 30 years of work (you know, in case of fire). There’s nothing in the world I love more than the stories that bounce around my head, and the inclination to write them down.
So why am I afraid to trust the flow?
Because for a long time, and not that long ago, I lost everything. The years when I should’ve been taking my craft seriously I shut down completely, barely turning my computer on and only cranking out a sentence or two every six months. I spun my wheels in a cycle of grief, bad relationships, food addiction, and alcohol dependency, until I forgot who I was and what I loved, completely consumed by all the things I used to distract myself from how far I’d fallen.
I never want to go back there. And I don't trust myself not to return.
“The compulsion to do, and the tendency to derive your sense of self-worth and identity from external factors such as achievement, is an inevitable illusion as long as you are identified with the mind. This makes it hard or impossible for you to accept the low cycles and allow them to be.”
Things are different now but the shadow of the past remains (Eckhart Tolle has a few things to say about THAT too). It takes time to rebuild trust when you’ve lost it—especially with yourself. In the past I couldn’t trust myself to choose creation, but that cycle is over. Instead of fearing that the creative spark won’t return—or if it does, that I’ll ignore it—I should honor the present; treasure the days when the juices flow and the characters walk from my fingers to the page. Even the smaller cycles are easier to recognize now. Like Johnny 5 (Short Circuit anyone?) sometimes I need input. Lots and lots of input. I’m a sponge soaking up books, documentaries, podcasts—anything that inspires or propels me forward. Then, usually after I’m filled to the brim, I need rest, and settle into the most profound stillness just sitting in my backyard listening to the doves and watching my pupp roll around. Still other times—my favorite and most fleeting—the words flow. I lose whole days to other worlds, and rush to get as much down as I can, knowing that when the cycle is over it might be another few weeks before I hear the call to write again.
My most recent creative burst has come and gone, leaving me battered and bruised, anxiously awaiting the next round. In the meantime I’ll rest. I’ll read. I’ll (probably) clean my house—always with one eye on the keyboard for a sign that it’s coming back. When it does, I’ll be ready this time.