On Refilling the Creative Well
You’ve probably noticed I’ve been bad about blogging lately. My last post was back on January 20th, and even prior to that, I’d been slacking hard on my “Blogs on Monday & Reviews on Friday” schedule. To be honest, it’s been hard for me to write much of anything this year, hard to find the motivation to make it feel like it’s worth writing at all or like anyone will care to read anything once I’ve written it. I’m finding myself very close to burn out, both on the writing side and on the emotional side.
I suppose it’s not surprising considering the political atmosphere in the U.S. right now with fear and conflict and vitriol coming at me at all sides even from people I thought were loved ones who’d care enough about me not to be cruel about what’s going on in the world. That sort of emotional barrage is hard to hold up under the onslaught of, and it’s exhausting and drains out my energy.
But I’m finding ways to recharge, to step away from the blank page and that terrible blinking cursor to refill the creative well with new and inspiring experiences.
This weekend was definitely one of those. I took my mother to a ballet as her belated Christmas present. Ballet Austin’s Belle Redux wasn’t anything I expected from a ballet. I sometimes think of pointe as something more traditional: elegant but a little staid, a little buttoned up. The Nutcracker this past season, for instance, was delightful, but nothing too exciting or new. It was beautifully done from the dancing and costumes to the music, but there weren’t any surprises.
Belle Redux, on the other hand, was utterly spectacular and nothing like I expected from a fairy tale retelling of a ballet. It was dark and eerie with a lush light-kink sensuality that had me captivated from start to finish. The costumes were intriguing and atmospheric, and the music fit the overall dance and theme perfectly from its haunting quality to its occasional dissonance.
I just loved it. Utterly loved it and spent most of the show getting chills from perfectly creepy feel.
I want to write stories that have that feel, that provocative sensuality mixed with just an edge of horror. I want to paint eerie scenes with my words and give my readers the same goosebumps I spent two hours of feeling during that ballet.
More than anything, I want to write.
That’s a gift I didn’t expect to gain from simply watching a performance, but one I’m definitely grateful for and hope to dive into with all my energy. I want to wallow in my words the way I did in the spectacle of Belle Redux, to enjoy myself as completely as I did at the ballet.
And I think I can. I think I will.
I mean hey: at the very least, I found the words for a blog post, and that’s more than I felt I managed last week. Every little bit of progress counts, right?