I went to a great meeting hosted by the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain, called Writing: what do you need, and what can you share?
It used the Open Spaces format, which allows any attendee to suggest a discussion topic, and then everybody chooses which sessions they want to attend. You can move in and out of sessions and they tend to break up and form organically.
A few things stuck with me and I think they apply to any creative endeavour, so here are my highlights.
Protecting your creative time
As creatives we need a space to create, if you work at home then you can use a ritual to start your working day. Here are some that other people use or suggested that I liked.
Walk to work: go outside your house for a 15 minute walk and then return, ready to go.
Put your shoes on: one creative’s relative works in the basement, and he puts his shoes on to go down and work.
Set an end time: not just a start time. When that time is up you have to stop, so if you didn’t use your time well you can’t cheat and drag it on forever.
Bonus Story Time: Stone Soup
This story came up and I found another interpretation of it very entertaining.
Stone Soup is a very old story. A traveller comes to a market place and announces he wants to make stone soup. He pulls out a stone and puts it in a pot of boiling water. Everybody crowds round to see what stone soup is like.
“This could do with a carrot, does anybody have a carrot?” he asks. Somebody gives him one and he drops that in. He goes on like this, adding stock and other vegetables provided by different villagers.. Until finally he has a huge soup that he shares out between everybody.
The usual interpretation of this is that you can do anything with co-operation, but I like to think that maybe all the villagers are just part of you. Sometimes you sit down to create and all you have is a stone. So you just have to boil that water and start making stone soup. Later on you’ll find the carrots and other tasty ingredients.
It’s OK to start with just a stone.
I am running £5 Storytelling workshops near Waterloo on Tuesday evenings. Open yourself up to your impulses, and learn how to weave them into stories.
Check here for more details.
Pebbles in the pool 