We’ve been living on The Big Island of Hawaii for three years now, and we’re still settling in, still making the house and yard ours. I had given myself a year’s sabbatical to devote to settling in, but it wasn’t enough. You know the old saying about making God laugh by telling her your plans, welp, she’s still laughing. Real life didn’t care about my plans, and as it turns out, neither did I.
It also turns out that wherever you go, you’re still there.
I’d been dealing with a crisis of faith in my writing career since before we moved here. Getting dumped by my publisher hurt, but I powered through to self-publish the next book in the series anyway. You’d have thunk that when that book won the prestigious Diamond Heart contest, the validation would have taken away some of the sting. But it only amplified the what-ifs and if-onlys nattering away at the back of my mind.
I’ve tried to get back to writing, but I can’t get into a routine that sticks. Since we moved here, I’ve written some short stories, plotted a couple of books, and written parts of a writing course including a workbook designed to make fiction writing a fill-in-the-blank breeze. So, it’s not like I haven’t been writing. I have. The problem is that I haven’t been loving it. I’ve lost my writing groove, and I’ve been doing my best to power through, all the while judging myself harshly for my lack of motivation.
Procrastination and avoidance (not just of writing but of everything—checking emails, following up on commitments, taking care of the business of life) have only pushed my ever-growing to-do list farther down the road. It’s an enormous boulder now, and I can only hope it doesn’t start rolling backward. If it does, I won’t have the strength to move out of the way, because I’m perpetually exhausted from all the things I’m NOT doing.
Finally, I did the only thing I could think of: I gave myself permission to give up.
So what if I never finish writing the next book in the series? So what if I never get around to polishing and publishing the books I’ve written that don’t fit neatly into a series? So what if I spend my days working in the yard and ignoring everything else?
I decided to find out, and here’s what happened:
- Okay, yes, I wrecked my shoulder and my elbow from using the pickaxe.
- And there’s no denying that my fingertips are peeling from wearing wet gardening gloves for hours every day.
- But the yard! The yard is responding to my efforts.
- And so am I.
The other day, I noticed that a mass of orchids had multiplied on the tree where I’d tied a small, spindly orchid that wasn’t thriving on the lanai. If I hadn’t moved the orchid from its lanai planter, it would surely be even more spindly and diseased if not dried up and dead by now. But I had compassion for that sad little orchid, released my expectations for it to grace our lanai with its beauty, and gave it a chance to rest and recover in a more nurturing environment.
Why did it take me three years to extend that same compassion to myself?
Giving myself permission to do whatever I feel like doing has loosened something. I’m beginning to feel the subterranean pull of creative energy returning. And I’m remembering other times in my life when I’d felt stuck, unsure of what to work on or where to put my focus. Each of those times, I struggled and tried to keep moving in whatever direction I’d been going. I didn’t realize I’d been pushing my overloaded cart up the wrong hill until I allowed myself to stop, take a breath, and look up.
I’ve stopped. I’m breathing. I’m looking up.
So far, I’m only seeing glimmers of sunlight shimmering behind the clouds, so I don’t yet know which direction I need to be heading. That means it’s fine for me to be right where I am, doing whatever I feel like doing until the path forward becomes clear.
If anyone needs me, they can find me (me and my crappy shoulder, wonky elbow, and peeling fingertips) out in the yard, trashing yet another pair of gardening gloves. I finally understand that while I’m busy creating the garden of my dreams, some subconscious part of my mind is busy percolating on a new and different creative project I haven’t yet begun to imagine.
This time away from old projects is a necessary gestation period for a creative rebirth, and that timing can’t be dictated. It will take as long as it takes.
Of course, it makes perfect sense that I blasted past my stupid arbitrary self-imposed deadline on the return of my creative spark. Thinking that I had a say in the matter only caused me further suffering. I’ve been both the unreasonable irate boss and the aimless floundering worker, and neither of us has been happy. But after both firing myself and taking a much-needed leave of absence, I’ve realized that my creativity isn’t a minimum-wage worker who can tolerate being prodded into action. It’s an eager kindergartener who responds better to a soft voice, a kind word, a gentle touch.
There are plenty of times when I can commit to achieving a high word count and knocking out a mammoth to-do list, but this is not one of those times. For a little while at least, I’m committing to treating myself and my creativity like a precious child who has something important to share, but only when they’re ready.
