Creative Muscle

One of the best things I did for myself when we moved to Tennessee was make myself check out a writers group. It was terrifying! But writing was important to me, so I made myself do it.

Like this, see? I had almost pulled my tongue back in. I had also PR’d my first half marathon with hills.

I don’t think people see me as a shy person. After decades of being onstage, both in acting and in fitness, you learn how to throw yourself in front of a room of strangers and make it look like you’re having the time of your life. Just like those finish line photos after a grueling marathon. Fling yourself toward the finish line, pull your tongue back inside your mouth (as best you can), fling one or both arms up into the air and paste on a smile for three to five strides until you’re past the cameras. Then you may commence with the agony. 

I looked around on MeetUp and found a few groups. I selected one that met at a time that didn’t conflict with work, I RSVP’d followed the directions and went. I was scared on a number of levels. Scared to be walking into a place I had never been (well, it was a Panera, so it’s not like I was totally going in blind), going to meet people I had never seen, and handing them five pages of a manuscript that I had been working on for a year. Not only that, I was expected to critique five pages of everyone else’s manuscript. As if I knew something!

I went. And I didn’t die. No one kicked me out or called me a fraud. And I learned some things. I kept going.

By the time the pandemic hit, I believe I could have been considered a ‘regular’. I had only missed one meeting since that first one (felled by a migraine) and we ported ourselves, very suddenly, online. The online group morphed and changed as the pandemic did. Many of the regulars wanted to start meeting outside as soon as restrictions were lifted, but myself and a group of four others were more comfortable staying online. Over time, we tailored the group to meet our needs and have all grown and changed with our pieces. 

The last time I remember making myself do something that I was terrified to do was when I started martial arts. It was something that I really wanted and something that I felt would benefit me from a self defense aspect. I had no idea that I would spend a decade seriously immersed in it and how it would affect the rest of my life. It was just something that I knew I wouldn’t regret, even though I was scared.

From that step into martial arts, I found competition. I found ways to push myself physically and mentally in a way I never had. I learned what I was capable of. I made fantastic friends. I traveled around the country and even outside of it for fights. I began teaching and transitioned out of office work into fitness as a full time dayjob. I taught fitness full time for almost ten years in Chicago. That never would have happened if I hadn’t made myself step into that martial arts building when I was in my twenties.

The writing group has changed my life also. Obviously my writing has improved by leaps and bounds. As a result, I’m almost completely rewriting the manuscript that I originally came to that first meeting with. I also feel like I’ve made some friends. That first year in Nashville, I had begun to kindle a few friendships, but I feel like the pandemic dampened them. The ones I have developed, individually, with the ladies in my writing group have only gotten stronger. I feel that all of us have had ups and downs in our writing and in general during the pandemic and we’ve been able to help each other through. Because of one of my writing group connections, I was able to switch to a new job in publishing that I enjoy and feel challenged by. 

Aang has been very helpful in providing writing inspiration.

This year has been exhausting in many ways. I feel like we’re starting to crawl out of it into something different, and yet recently, I still find myself exhausted. 

In my last writing group, we were going around and discussing the state of our submissions and what we were going to do during group time if no one had anything to submit. I told them that submissions would be hit or miss with me for a while. I have torn my manuscript up and am putting it back together, but they’ve seen the pieces so many times, I don’t want to resubmit, even a revision, unless it’s an entirely new scene. 

I mentioned that I feel creatively drained. This blog takes a lot of work and I am committed to writing it every week. The kitten reviews are fun and I want to keep doing them, but they also take more work than anticipated. I’m writing all of the copy for social media at work now, which is also fun and also takes a chunk of creative thinking. By the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is open my document and go through my story and try and make it better. 

I’ll get used to this. I told them. Eventually, I’ll get used to it all and I’ll be fine.

I later had a text message with one of the women in our group, thanking her something or other and mentioning that my work was just taking sooo looooong. In her reply, she said something that I’m going to quote directly, “I think it’s important to work when you don’t feel like it. That’s a marker of success. Probably just like working out. You do it even if you don’t feel like it because in the end it doesn’t matter how you felt, it’s whether you did it.”

And she’s right. Everything that I’ve done has been difficult. I didn’t compete in the Savate World Championships by only sparring when I felt like it. I NEVER feel like doing 25 push ups, but I do them every day. I’ve been running and weight training for so long, that it no longer feels like an option to not get up and do them.

Seeing the sunrise during my morning runs is one of my favorite things.

And I had started these habits. There was a period of time when I was writing every day, no matter what. It just slipped away somehow. But it’s up to me to get it back. Flashes of inspiration are fun and fantastic to act upon, but they’re the fabulous exception, not the norm. 

When people marvel at me for getting up at 5am to work out, I always tell them, “the hardest part is literally getting out of bed.” And it’s true. Once I’ve swung my feet to the floor and am sitting upright, the workout is happening.

The hardest part with writing is opening the file. Once I’ve opened it and am going through it, something is going to happen. Even if I only delete three paragraphs and change one word. So I’ve been opening it every day. And the changes have been largely small, but I’ve building the habit back. Just like rebuilding muscle. 

It’s scary. But I want it. And I think it will be good for me.