STOP!
Put your pencil down.
Step away from the computer. (But not so far away that you can’t read this).
There will be no word-crafting today. I repeat: there will be no word-crafting today!
Sorry.
Photo by kellinahandbasket
Last week, my roommate dragged me to a local art studio. She wanted to paint a piece for her father’s birthday and didn’t want to go alone.
As we painted, I whimpered, wishing the paint to go only where I desired it and not where I mistakenly put my paint brush. I wished the strokes to all travel in the same direction. I wished the colors not to mix, the lines to be crisp, and the shades to be consistent.
Perfection
I wished for perfection. Since I couldn’t reach it, I felt like a failure.
All the way through, the studio owner encouraged us. She told us to make a mess, spill paint, smear colors together.
I couldn’t do it.
I learned a valuable lesson in the art studio with uncooperative paint brushes: you can’t expect perfection the first time around.
What separates writing from other crafts is the opportunity for a do-over in the form of revision. As writers, we get to take a first stab at our art, decide it's awful, and try again.
Passion
After we finished, the studio owner told us about how children come in excited to paint, to use the clay wheel, and to craft. They’re eager to jump right in with high expectations. A four-year-old was gleeful about making a teapot on the wheel.
It’s the adults who hesitate. The adults who think they’re going to break it. The adults who worry about the outcome. We’re the ones too scared to touch the wheel.
Just like working with clay, sometimes writing takes a little more passion, more risk that us cautious, responsible adults are willing to put in.
True writing takes time, precision, and attention to detail. But writing takes creativity, whimsy, and carelessness. You have to start somewhere. You have to dive in.
PRACTICE
Create.
Not with pencil and paper but with your hands, your crayons. Break out those paint brushes. Find an art studio near you and throw clay on the wheel, blow a glass vase, get paper mache in your hair, splatter paint on the floor, or tie dye that t-shirt.
Today, choose an alternative medium. Let your mind run wild. I foresee some good writing, some good crafting.
Share about your experience in the comments.
No paintbrush today, today went wild in the kitchen: cooking, cooking and more cooking for the upcoming holiday 🙂
Oooh! Fun! Cooking stresses me out (more than painting), but I’m glad it’s an opportunity to be creative for you.
I love to color with my 3 yr old. Even drawing on her Magna Doodle or fingerpainting is a blast! Then I try to apply that to different areas. Like “painting” with phrasing on the guitar or “painting” with words when I write a story or a poem.
Good for you, Jim! Great father-daughter bonding too.
right then off to my canvas – it is called “silence – through the” and is approx 31/2 rulers by 21/2 rulers
and so far has a canvas and size on it
Good for you, Suzie! It’s a start 🙂
yea, more than a start now!
Wonderful post. Thank you.
Thanks, Pilar
I think a lot of us “creative types” have more than one creative outlet. I like to sketch, arrange flowers, and cook and bake. While cooking for my family has become a chore, I still enjoy baking as an art, and I made a simple cake on Monday, something I haven’t done in a while. My writing took an immediate turn for the better, and I never related the two events until I read this post. Switching media is a great way to release our inner creative juices. Thanks for the tip!
I’m glad to put into words something you found true in real-life too.
This prompt came at the perfect time. I haven’t written in weeks. Today, I decided to get back to The Write Practice and there’s the instruction not to write! I was almost relieved. For someone who has the desire to write, I haven’t written for almost a month.
Years ago, I bought myself a 64-count box of Crayolas. I told my kids not to touch them. As the school year started and my kids began digging through the school supply cabinet, they unearthed my box of crayons. My 11-year old asked if she could have them. I told her, “No. They’re mine!”
“But you don’t ever use them!” she said, admiring the pointy tops of each crayon in the box.
Today, with your instruction, I pulled out the crayons and a blank piece of printer paper. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I was going to do SOMETHING! Lynyrd Skynyrd played Simple Man in the background and I wrote on the center of my paper in blue: All You Need is in Your Soul.
The next half hour I used my crayons and colored off those pointy tips. I colored all over that paper around my soul. I made points, rain drops, spirals, arrows, shady boxes and any other doodle that made its way out of me. I colored with every crayon in the box.
It was one of the most relaxing half hours I’ve had in a long time. Although my responsibilities tug at my brain every moment of every day, for this half hour it was just me and my crayons. My writing soul thanks you!
I LOVE this, Trish. What a great testimony to the power of crayola and Skynyrd. 🙂
Thanks, Joe! The power of music and color. YES.
This is great, Trish! I want to go find my own crayons and color!
However, I do have some special instructions for you: as soon as the clock hits midnight, you need to put down your crayons and pick up your pen.
See you tomorrow! 🙂
WILL DO! I loved the crayons so much, I introduced them to my journal. Fun stuff!
When I first introduced markers to my journal, I thought the world was going to cave in. Good news: it didn’t.
The line “you can’t expect perfection the first time around,” is interesting. I would argue, you can’t expect perfection ever.
There’s no such thing as perfection when you think about it. I’ve read some amazing stories, but none of them have ever been perfect.
Perfection is for insects, I say. Ants are perfect. They have a perfect system that perfectly takes care of them. But we’re humans, we’re supposed to mess up. That’s one of the things that makes us human.
You can’t write a perfect story. You can write an “Oh my god this is amazing!” story, but never a perfect story. I’ve tried.
I edit and edit and edit and on and on and on. Eventually, you just have to say, “Screw it. This is good.”
Yeah, screw perfection, just aim for great.
And this, Jack, is a great comment! 🙂
That won’t stop me from striving for perfection, unfortunately. 🙁
You can strive for constant improvement, though. Someone once said practice makes improvement. 🙂
Ha ha, that’s quotable, Jack!
I actually learned the power of revision through drawing.
Starting with a light, rough, pencil and then working up to confident pen strokes and finally taking the whole thing into Photoshop to add color, lighting, and texture. It wasn’t until I brought this multi-step mindset into my writing that I started to see dramatic improvements as a writer. You definitely cannot expect to get it right the first time around. Regardless of medium.
This is a really excellent exercise for artists. I have always treasured the lessons I’ve learned while working in other mediums.
That’s great, Jeff! I love it!
Sometimes it is better to color outside the lines than it is inside the lines.
Truth, though a hard one for me to grasp. 🙂
Good reminder, Katie. My personal motto is when all else fails, dance. I guess I should be more intentional in following that through…
PS. Welcome – great having your posts!!!
Dance!
Thanks, Zoe!
This is great Katie. I’m really terrible at painting, but regardless of that I do enjoy playing with it once in a while. It’s so interesting when doing another creative task inspires you to your true creativity outlet. For me, it’s photography and playing flute.
Oooh, I like those too, Sophie
Love this concept! I’m learning how to be creative in the kitchen which is such a wonderful outlet for me.
Good for you, Ana.
I have a lovely friend who is quite well-known in art circles here, one Mz Liz Sutherland. She always saw the correlation between my writing and my art. She encouraged me to join her oil painting class, in order to ‘learn how to be bold’. I found that years of her classes changed the brush of entire palette, right across the board, all my creative outlets increased in volume.
Yes, I totally believe that, Yvette. Shoot, I want to get my oil painting on now.
This is exactly what I’m talking about! Love it!
I’ve been learning German. I’m not sure how creative it is, but I enjoy doing it. But maybe the point is to have a break from language?
I think learning a different language probably uses different aspects of the brain so we’ll count it. 🙂 My English has improved since learning Spanish and ASL.
It’s hard for me to go wild with other things – painting, particularly – because I have this image of perfection in my head which I can’t create because:
a) I only paint once every few months, which obviously means I don’t have enough skill. And I usually give up halfway through because…(look at reason B)
b) my paints aren’t perfect. Whenever I go painting, I take out half-empty jars of washable craft paint. By the way, they never contain just one color. Over the years, I’ve made seven jars of rainbow paint 😀
I’m trying to get rid of this perfectionist within me. (I have named her Little Miss Perfect.) Thanks for the post!
I once made my parents a little clay dog for Christmas. Looked like an unknown sub-species of lizard run over by a tricycle.
I loved this post! I’m going to break out the art supplies with my kids tomorrow afternoon for some “alternative” writing practice. 🙂