Hello! It has been a long time since I’ve posted here and some changes are happening! I’m self-publishing my YA dystopian novel later this year and am so relieved that it will finally be out in the world.
I’ve also started blogging over at Substack. Miners is a newsletter for tired creatives. Check it out over at https://minersbyelisabethpike.substack.com/ . Read on for a sample newsletter.
How to Figure Out Where You’re Heading…
So, we’re halfway through January already and I have only just got around to one of my favourite New Year tasks – which much more life-altering in my view than making a string of resolutions that are hard to keep. I take a chunk of time (preferably 2-3 hours, in bed, with a cuppa) and I read back over my journals from the last year. I relive all the good bits, the bad bits, and the sad bits.
It is so valuable to me to look back over my life, and the distance helps me to pick out the gems. There may be a quote that helped me live through a certain season, there may be a lesson that I learned, or a sadness I didn’t know what to do with, but even just seeing it written there shows me that I survived it.
I love my journals. The weight of one in my hand is the weight of a life lived, that is the thing. And most of it is the froth of life, the rage and joy. It is all the things that I don’t want to forget. I even write the things I do want to forget. I cast the bad things all into the choppy waves of the journal, and then I close it and walk away.
My journals feel miraculous. I find it incredible to see the birth of a dream and my journal shows me many. This past week, as I was looking through, I found the first inklings of thought about Murmuration, my YA novel on 1st May 2019 (Murmuration is coming out later this year). It shows that on 28th April 2021, I first dreamed of Miners. It has taken me 2 years and 9 months to get around to doing it, but that is ok. The time in between is such an important time. It is distilling/sifting time. My brain constantly throws up ideas of things that I could do, but I know that I can’t possibly do them all, so I write them down, and time sifts them for me. I push doors and try things out and the bad ideas fall away, and the true ideas stay the test of time – they get shifted from one to-do list to another until finally, they actually get done!
So, here is the Miners way of moving into the New Year.
1) Read back (or think back if you don’t keep a journal) over the past year and note down what you were proud of and what was hard. If something was hard, try to see what you learned from this. I got to a second interview and then got turned down for a job that I really wanted this year, and after weeks of stewing over it, I read about a Japanese concept called ‘Shogani’ (which means ‘It cannot be helped’). It helped me to see that I needed to let go and move on. I had a hard year in many ways. My writing group edged me out and I had many, many rejections for my writing, but, being pushed out of one group made me realise where my true friends are. The rejections for my novel have prompted me to forge ahead with self-publishing. It was also a beautiful year and I found a new writing group and finally got to take my family to Greece after 20 years of dreaming. But all these things, the good and the bad can teach us if we let them.
2) Time audit – Look at how you spend your time. Write down all the different things you do in a week and how much time you give to each of those. Do these time bands reflect your priorities? Does anything feel ill-fitting? Do you need to give anything up? Living as a creative is all about balance – we need time enough to dream and work but we also need to pay the bills and it is an ongoing challenge to get the balance right. Things change as we shift and grow so even if you have it right for one year, it may change for the next. I trust in feelings and intuition. If something feels wrong, it probably is. If you feel this too, write into it and see what emerges.
3) Think ahead. Where are you heading next? What are your goals for this coming year? When setting goals, look for things that you can achieve. Getting an agent may be a dream but is not a great goal as it is outside of your control. Make your goals the things that you can achieve – write the next draft of your book, take a course, travel. The writing life is hard enough without us always aiming for things that are outside of our control and for our well-being, we need to make our goals achievable.
4) Look after your well-being. The world is harsh and the creative life harsher. Last year I attended a wonderful workshop on Happiness for Writers run by the TLC and it was so thought-provoking. In it, we wrote an energy audit, looking at what drains and gives us energy. We also looked at what made us feel happy and powerful and by contrast, what makes us feel sad. From that, we crafted roadmaps to success. I honed mine down to the following. It is so useful to come back to when I am in a tizz, to remind myself of what my goals are, where I am heading and just to keep plodding on towards that.
This is the roadmap for success that I wrote for myself last year:
1) Set your goals and work faithfully towards them
2) Find a community that values you
3) Make space to grow in quietness and reflection
4) Move more!
5) Value rest over striving
6) Go where the stream takes you – accept the journey of your work and life
7) Allow yourself time to rest and to play.
This roadmap really helped me to stay in my lane and get done what I wanted to (instead of freaking out at everyone else’s success around me!)
Finally, I came across these Creative Beatitudes in my year review this week and felt like I wanted to share them. I wrote these Creative Beatitudes for my husband this year, for he knows as well as I do how painful the creative life is – it feels close to everything – the pain and the absolute joy and I wanted him to see the gold in what he was doing. Take them for yourself this year if you want.
Beatitudes for Creatives
Blessed are those who choose to hear, for they will be stilled.
Blessed are the lonely, for they are learning to follow one voice alone.
Blessed are those who weep, for weeping softens the ground.
Blessed are those who dream, for they live and breathe the future.
Blessed are those who are broken, for love will seep out through the cracks.
Blessed are those who are spent, for they will be filled to the measure of their giving.
Blessed are those for whom the path seems always uphill,
for they will be made strong in the journey.
Blessed are those who are still searching,
for those who seek and seek and do not give up will find what they are looking for.
Still thinking about where we are headed next, I’m rounding up this week with Frederick Buechner, one of my favourite writers:
‘We should go with our lives where we are most needed. Where we most need to go. Maybe that means that the voice we should listen to most as we choose a vocation is the voice that we might think we should listen to least and that is the voice of our own gladness. What can we do that makes us gladdest and what can we do that leaves us with the strongest sense of sailing true north and of peace, which is much of what gladness is? I believe that if it is a thing that makes us truly glad then it is a good thing and it is our thing and it is the calling voice we were made to answer with our lives.’ Secrets in the Dark, Frederick Buechner.
The part I love most about all of this is the crumb gathering. We gather clues about ourselves, when we first started dreaming, or when a seed was planted for this or for that. All we can do is make our plans and work towards them. We do not know what else life will throw our way this year.
So, creatives, if you embark on this soul decluttering this January, I wish you clarity, to see what really makes you glad, and to push all of the ‘shoulds’ out of the way to make way to listen to the heart, for the heart knows what it truly wants.
Thanks for reading! If you think this newsletter could be good for you, sign up over at https://minersbyelisabethpike.substack.com/
Elisabeth
elisabeth pike 