My fingers are moving across the computer keyboard, my pen is gliding across the paper or my mind is working through a draft to see the places that need editing, but it’s not happening. Part of me checks the time on my computer to see how long I’ve been working and to see how much longer before I’m finished. I bounce around the writing piece looking for a place that grabs my attention. My focus is present but not fully engaged; there is still a restlessness to my energy. The threshold of creative engagement has not been passed. Strangely, this moment of engagement is only obvious in hindsight.

The sentence of prose becomes more interesting and various ideas for edits come to mind while a connection to an earlier paragraph eases into consciousness. The vibrancy of the words, letters, and paragraphs has intensified. There is a sense of timelessness. I don’t care how much time has passed, this paragraph has to sound right. Nothing exists but that winky-dink paragraph needing attention and editing.

The crossover from barely engaged attention to, “I can only see this creative work now,” is usually only recognizable in hindsight. The symptoms of this crossover are familiar: a sense of timelessness, an increased focus on what’s happening in front of me and some inner desire to get it done and with a sense of quality, too. The way to this creative engagement is to keep at it until it kicks in. Sustained focus on the creative work brings me to this place of engagement during my creative sessions and in my creative life.

I never know where I will journey while making a piece of art. It’s wonderful to be on a path of personal discovery and creative discovery. There is nothing like the moment when the piece reveals more of itself and causes me to see more of myself. It is the birth of a new perception of life. This journey of creative and personal discovery also gives me a sense of apprehension.

I never know how I will be changed by the creative process. I have started projects with an enthusiasm that turned into concern as the work brought me to conclusions which initiated a major change in my life. Leaving the door ajar is filled with the possibility of change and transformation beyond my control.

Change means being different and living a different life. It begins with the discovery of something unknown about myself or the world and affects every layer of my being. Change is unavoidable when the door is left ajar and we let ourselves be touched by life. Creativity is a means of leaving the door ajar and of embracing change. Creativity is also the way that we can release control and let our soul navigate, maybe even initiate, the changes we experience during the process.

Documented@Davos: Paulo Coehlo, Author from Michelle Laird on Vimeo.

Years ago when I was in the early days of a fast I took a bunch of seedless green grapes and started munching on them. They were good, sweet and juicy. I had eaten a few of the grapes before I remembered I was fasting. I uttered a few choice words which I shall not repeat here and realized I had a dilemma. What do I do now? I had broken my commitment to fast. I could not pretend otherwise. Do I act as if nothing had happened and continue my fast? Do I stop the fast because of this unconscious act of sweet juicy seedless green grape enjoyment. The question puzzled me.

I decided to continue my fast. I had eaten the grapes unconsciously. I became responsible the moment that I knew what I had done. I could make a decision. The same is true when we make a commitment to our creativity. We can break our commitment for many reasons. The question is, “What do we do when we become conscious of breaking our commitment?” I say return to the moment of making the commitment.

Commitments are hard to make and even harder to keep because I know that there is a possibility that I will not fulfill them – so why bother making them. I wonder what breaking my commitments means about me, my ability to keep my word to myself, my ability to stay with something until it manifests. There is no commitment greater than how we love and treat ourselves, even a creative one. I can let breaking my commitment be a moment and not a lifetime experience. I can acknowledge the moment, accept what I’ve done, and then choose whether I want to continue my commitment or let it go. Keeping our commitments to ourselves is important and being easy on ourselves when we don’t is also important. The best policy is to do whatever works and allows us to keep expressing our creativity.

“Pilgrimage to Elixir,” is taking place this Saturday, January 21, 2012. People will meet in the Starbucks parking lot at Crenshaw Blvd. & Coliseum (3722 Crenshaw Blvd.) Los Angeles at 3:30 PM and Pilgrimage to bless the mural, “The Elixir.” Big fun for sure: creative folks, snacks, spoken word. You can call the artist Patrick Johnson at (323) 348-7691 for more details.

I would usually paint in the morning. I would put in time on my chosen focus for that day and paint until my energy had dissipated or I had to leave the house to run an errand or go to work. I noticed that every painting session would include something I had mastered in a previous session and some new thing I had discovered. These discoveries were often the result of what I had considered a mistake when it happened.

I would use a color that seemed ideal only to have it clash with everything and have to repaint that section or attempt a wash and find that the paint had run the length of the canvas. These creative mistakes were constant companions of my creative work so that I found myself expecting them. My realization that yesterday’s mistake was a technique to be used in today’s session or a solution to a perplexing creative problem was a surprise to me. This idea of mistakes and errors leading to new creative processes has changed my opinion about mistakes in my life.

I find myself waiting a lot longer before I jump to conclusions about the meaning of something that is taking place in my life. I remember the unanticipated turns in my art and think that the same turns in life can be indicators of new processes in my personal life.

Maybe making art is a form of making life and so the lessons in one apply to the other. The questions, “Is art imitating life,” or, “Is life imitating art?” are probably irrelevant or at least less significant than the lesson that there is a wisdom in each that illuminates both. Remembering this helps me when I’m experiencing challenges in my creative life or personal life because I know I have a way of finding the wisdom to navigate through them, a wisdom based in successful mistakes.

Following my dreams is the same as following my creative voice, my muse. Following a deeper voice than my logical mind is how my life can be imagined into existence. Following my dreams is inspiration, guidance, insight, support and a whole lot easier than trying to logic a life into existence. Dreams create life, dreams work through imagination, dreams guide us to us. We have to explore the meaning of our dreams and then we will remember our life and it will be manifested.

It’s impossible to make not having enough time for my creativity produce having time for my creativity. It’s impossible to make not writing produce more writing. It’s impossible to make not being creative produce creativity. I am reminded of this simple but profound truth every time I think about the lemon tree in the backyard. The lemon tree started as a lemon tree seed. The apple tree starts as an apple tree seed. I would be shocked and confused if I planted an apple seed and got a lemon tree. The same principle is at work in my creative life.

I keep wanting to start somewhere else by waiting until I can get certain conditions right before I live my creative dreams. “If I just had more time I could start working on that project,” I think to myself. It never works. I will be waiting forever because I have my attention on something in the future and that will never allow me to express my creativity. I have to express my creativity right now. The scale of this creative expression is unimportant; five minutes a day is more than zero minutes a day.

There is something I can do right now this very day to live my creative dreams. It can be something so small that it seems insignificant, it’s not. The act of taking a creative step shifts the universe of my life and I am living my creative dreams – now.

I usually make a list of all the things I want to do during the year and then misplace it. The list vanishes right after it’s written. It makes guest appearances during the year and I am reminded of what I wrote. Then it disappears until the end of the year when I will read it to find that most of the list has been fulfilled. Don’t ask me how; I don’t know. My conversations with another friend around the subject of living our dreams has inspired me to take a different approach to my list this year.

What if I imagine that it’s New Year’s Eve of 2012 and write my list. What if I make a list of my fulfilled dreams, accomplishments, and successes during 2012. This is a minor but significant change of perspective.

Writing my list from the p.o.v. of what I’m going to do is different than writing about what I have already done. I am writing about fulfillment and not possibility when describing what has happened.
The tone is one of completion. The idea of thinking from the end point is not new but I have never used it at New Year’s before. Writing my list and reviewing it at the end of 2012 is exciting.

HAPPY NEW YEAR.

What’s on your list?