Into The Unknown

An intuitive exploration of my creative process and the illusive but not exclusive nature of inspiration and creativity.

Concept art for Frozen II, image courtesy of Walt Disney Animation Studios.

I am sat on a bed in the loft room at my mother’s house, occasionally glancing out of the window. I can see a few trees with crows fighting for purchase, but mostly rooftops, clouds closing in. It’s busy up here. I have no self-imposed deadlines today but I am choosing to write. I am taking this as a good sign.

I launched my Substack just over a week ago with meticulously planned posts. My calendar for the year is a colour coded wall of organisational pit stops but it felt right to let this one find its own way. To not interrogate, but enquire after my creativity. I often allow myself that space, to tune into my intuition - not that I’ve been ignoring it but just to give it some dedicated quality time to continue to build on our connection. To turn the volume up and make sure that that part of me knows it is one of the most important and valued relationships in my life. Like at the end of a long day of pottering, particularly those days where I’ve been trapped at my desk, my dog will seek me out on the sofa and lean her full weight against me. Apparently this is a display of her trust and is an opportunity to deepen our bond. It definitely feels like love. It also feels like she’s physically pinning me down so I can’t meander off to get on with anymore tasks that don’t include her. I can’t complain. She is right to help me instil rest.

What does it look like to not be writing on a deadline? Or as my friend describes it, with a gun to your head; when you are accountable to someone who doesn’t have compassion for the whims of your creative process, who doesn’t get that you can’t tend to ‘it’ if you’re not feeling inspired or are unsure how to solve that niggling third act? If you are the only person you are accountable to, does it look like less pressure or more? I actually think it can be whatever you want it to be. And as I am at the beginning of this journey, I have an opportunity to clear the cobwebs of my outdated modes of working and make room for something new. A Spring clean. Yes. I think perhaps for me, it is essential that it looks like work but feels like home.

This is likely going to be a post for next Thursday February 16th, it’s currently Friday February 10th. I say likely going to be, because there might be another whose energy takes hold of me over the course of the week and if it does I will trust it. This whole exercise - this post and starting a Substack - is sort of an experiment, though not in the traditional sense of a test, but testament to my relationship with my intuition. I want to see what happens if I spend a year fully surrendered to my intuitive guidance. Take a leap into the unknown. Either way I am giving myself way more time and space than I ever would have done in the past.

Sometimes I take myself on an intuitive walk. I don’t plan where I’m going. Sometimes I’ll even let my dog lead the way and it’s pretty amazing the things that end up happening when you loosen the reins of control. The chance meetings, the beautiful light you find, the empty field entirely yours to conquer. Something totally unplanned - I don’t do enough of that.

It feels good to do the same with my writing. Lots of writers encourage this practice as a way of nurturing creativity, most notably perhaps Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. Free writing, morning pages, streams of consciousness — not getting in your own way. I think it is precisely these kinds of practices which indicate to your subconscious that you are ready to receive - guidance, ideas, connection - and/or ready to create. I believe it is the ongoing connection with this part of myself that allows ideas to flow to me like water — less like a dripping tap and more like one of those pounding water spouts at a spa, that hammer your shoulders down so aggressively you think it might be trying to drown you. Interestingly enough though, since launching my Substack and showing up to my writing every day in a meaningful way, I have no fewer ideas but the forcefulness with which they present themselves to me has dissipated. It’s almost like now they arrive with a gentle knowing that they are being received and will be put to the use that they were intended.