Genie in a Bottle

Today, I reached the halfway mark in a book I began writing in early November 2022. I started the project after I came across notes I had written in December 2018 after meeting with a spiritual healer in Tucson. The healer was recommended by my veterinarian. We were in his clinic where he was performing acupuncture on Rocky, my German Shepherd mix. “Are you okay. You look worn out,” he said.

“I’m exhausted. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

 “I know this guy in Tucson,” he said. “Maybe he can help.”

 A week later I was sitting in a spiritual healer’s living room where I was warned if I didn’t write my story, I would be dead in six years.

 “Oh my God, that’s awful,” I said.

 “Write the book, and you won’t have anything to worry about,” he said.

 I left his home shaken but soon dismissed his warning until I was cleaning out a file cabinet this past August and found the notes I had taken while sitting in my truck in the spiritual healer’s driveway after our meeting. I was in between writing projects and thought, Maybe it’s a sign.

What I am writing about is not as important right now as how I am getting it done. Whether writing a book, painting a portrait, or making a rocking chair, the mind needs plenty of quiet, uninterrupted time to create. This is hard to do around work schedules, family obligations, and social commitments.

The topics I wanted to cover in the book swam around in my head for a few months before I began writing. I cleaned my office and set up a routine. I am much sharper early in the morning, so I started going to bed earlier and setting an alarm clock. By one o’clock in the afternoon I often need a nap. This is a vestige of chronic illness and is nonnegotiable. When I wake up, I can do physical work like clean the house, make a meal, or fold laundry, but I am unable to concentrate on details.

 I need the house quiet when I write. No music, no phone calls, and no screen time. I also require routine, so I wrote a list a few weeks before I started writing:

 1.     Feed the dogs and cats.

2.     Get dressed.

3.     Brush my teeth.

4.     Make a cup of tea.

5.     Organize my workspace.

6.     Read something inspiring/spiritual for ten to fifteen minutes. Reflect

7.     Get to work!

8.     Write for a MINIMUM of two hours.

 It sounds straightforward and even a little ridiculous to have a list containing such obvious instructions. Maybe so, but without it, I wouldn’t look forward to the cup of tea and the inspirational readings that calm my mind and body, allowing me time to enter a creative space. These things also signal to my husband and my animals that I am busy and should not be disturbed.

I have kept this schedule nearly every day since I began working on the book, even while grading last semester’s finals and holiday planning. I have been at it long enough that the story I am writing is with me all the time. So, now when I’m cleaning the house, or making a meal, I am thinking of the changes I want to make to what I wrote that morning and teasing out plot lines I think might work.

My routine allows for the creative being that dwells inside me to stretch each morning before she perches on the cat tree next to my desk, waiting for pauses in my thoughts to inspire and encourage me. This is the creative muse, the genie that demands only one thing in return: that I remain loyal to the process.

Hi there!

This is me at my desk, waiting for my genie to arrive.

Each day, after I finish writing, I take the dogs for a long walk. What my neighbors see from their living room windows or on their door cams is a middle-aged woman who may or may not have combed her hair wearing yoga pants, a hoodie, winter boots, and on cold days, a well-worn, red corduroy jacket mumbling to herself. What they don’t see is a writer whose story is evolving in her head. I’m in good company. Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, and Henry David Thoreau were known to take long walks after writing or when they hit a snag in a story line. Poet William Woodworth clocked thousands of miles on foot strolling down country roads picking up inspiration along the way.

Years ago, I was at a writing workshop in Tucson where Evelyn C. White spoke about her experiences writing Alice Walker’s, author of The Color Purple, biography called Alice Walker, A Life. She had been a reporter at a San Francisco newspaper before she accepted the job to interview Ms. Walker. Not long into the project, she realized what she believed would take a few months might take much longer as Ms. Walker was not an easy person to pin down. Ms. White had accepted a contract before starting the project assuming the money she would receive would be enough to cover expenses including things like rent, food, clothing, insurance, etc. Months into the project, she worried that she would run out of money before the book was published. And that’s exactly what happened. That day in Tucson she shared with the audience that while working on the project, she had to move because she couldn’t afford rent. She stopped meeting friends for dinner because she couldn’t afford to eat out. At one point she didn’t have enough money to buy new underwear. She also shared with us that once she began writing, nothing else mattered. “I was so involved in the research, I didn’t care that I didn’t have money. It doesn’t take money to write,” she said.

This is a luxury of the creative self. The ability to become so immersed in what it is you are creating, that it doesn’t matter what anyone may think of you. Evelyn C. White became a role model that day. I think of her often when I’m on those long walks looking like maybe I should rethink my wardrobe. And I simply don’t care because I have surrendered to my muse.

 As I write this, I can’t believe it’s the first week of February. We are five weeks into those damning New Year’s resolutions we made after social media, TV ads, and celebrities berated us for putting on a few pounds over the holidays and scolding us for simply being ourselves. We eat too much, drink too much, and spend too much time on our sofas. We owe it to ourselves and our celebrity friends to lose the weight, work on our abs and butts, and cut down on the carbs, sugar, and alcohol as though we were all horrible people living horrible lives in 2022.

Instead of paying for the gym membership or weight loss program, why not sit down and have a heart to heart with your creative muse? He or she is nestled somewhere inside you just waiting for a chance to shine. In the meantime, take the advice of comedian Tom Papa. “You’re Doing Great!”  We’re all doing great!

I’m done writing for today, so if you see me on the street walking the dogs and talking to myself, please join me. I would love to hear what it is you and your muse are working on.

Author Elizabeth Gilbert discusses the creative muse or genie here in her Ted Talk “Your Elusive Creative Genuis”

Bella: “Come on, Mom. Your two hours are up!”

Patches: “I’m ready, Mom. How about you?”

Jake: “My mom said we were going for a walk an hour ago.”