Block & Flow

What a strange strange energy week! I've been up and down and backwards and forwards and then blocked with no words or ideas that came out with any sort of grace or interest of thought for two days, and then suddenly released with three perfect words all with "s" popping into my head while I chewed on my breakfast at a local restaurant this morning completely minding my own business and enjoying perfectly done eggs over easy on buttered toast.

Inspiration does indeed work in strange ways. I bow down before it.

But boy it put me through the ringer this week!

One of the hardest things about being a creative writer and marketing and p.r. person is that it's a lot of responsibility . That whole identity of being a "rainmaker," the idea person who brings creativity to the table to focus and hone a client's products and company into an understandable and engaging vision, someone who puts it all together with a flourish and snap so that customers say happily, "oh I get it" and hopefully, "let's go there!" and "let's go there again!" On some days, this is a job that feels very heavy indeed.

On Monday I was up early, out to the local news-rack to pick up the paper to see if what I'd been advised was true - and it was, my client was on the front page of our local daily paper's business section, with a lovely mention at the top of the front page. Walking back to my apartment I cried. No, it's not The L.A. Times (which I'm focusing on next), but it was big and bold and in video as well as print and I made it happen. I cried with happiness and relief that it actually came through, and then in my total strange humanity I cried with a sense of grief and anticlimax.

I am, you see, a recovering "waiting for the party but forever disappointed with its arrival" type of girl. The sort of person who's always looking forward to some sort of event, in the throws of the creating of it, and then when it arrives, I have thought so many times, "oh that's it?" and "That's all!"

I'm getting better, I am, I focus so much more on the process now than any set moment or date because now I realize there really is nothing more than the process anyway, we never actually arrive anywhere.

But none the less, certain activities take more out of us than others, and making sure this particular process with this particular piece of media came about sort of took it out of me. By Thursday I had to face the fact that I couldn't string two interesting thoughts together, figure out how to organize new website pages, or interact with new media in an engaging manner. I was just worn out. I had no good ideas.

So I gave in and went to the book store where I proceeded to find not the Garth Nix book with the last short story on the Abhorsen trilogy I was looking for but "City of Bones" by Cassandra Clare, with a sequel waiting if I enjoyed the first.

I have found that when I'm tired and out of sorts nothing refreshes me more than a rousing tale of well written young adult science fiction fantasy. Apparently my angst and the teen's angst mesh well. Oh, and they're cheaper than adult fiction books both in paperback and hardcover. Sweet. A couple of months ago I discovered Holly Black and now all I have to do is discover some other new writers (okay many many) while I wait patiently for these two ladies (friends too) to complete their sequels.

Two days of minimal work and tons of reading later I awoke happy and refreshed, ran my errands and in the middle of breakfast the way to approach an upcoming business mixer and a new article popped into my head. I breathed such a sigh of relief and reminded myself yet again that it isn't my job to be a rainmaker 24/7. My job is instead to be open to the inspiration as it comes. My job is to be here now.