Week 2: Curiosity

Week 2. Day 7. Make space

Your seventh day is a day of rest, a day or replenishment. Sometimes, too, it can be a day of creating space. With silence, with solitude. Or with preparation.

 

I have a friend who spends her Sunday evenings cooking batch meals for the week ahead. A big pot of tomato sauce that becomes the base for soup, for lasagne, or for shakshuka. She makes great quantities of dhal or hoummos. She says that her Sunday night prep sometimes feels a little onerous, but then she thinks about how her Wednesday self will feel when she looks in the fridge and sees an already cooked frittata.

 

Preparing ahead, allowing Sunday’s you to lay the groundwork for Wednesday’s you, this is a nurturing act of love.

 

So, later today, please take some time to create the space Wednesday you will thank you for.

 

Prepare some food ahead. (I’m not great at this, but a frittata and a good soup cooked on a Sunday night means that my lunchtimes are a little more nurturing). More than food, though, take a moment to prepare your workspace, even if that workspace is one notebook and a pillow. Have your notepad in your bag ready to go, or your files already loaded. Clear your desk if you have one. Put a bunch of flowers where you write. Even one step towards the workspace you would like your future self to have is a step in the right direction.

 

Having dealt with food and space you can prepare your time, too. Take a moment to imagine your week ahead. When will you be able to get creative? When will you be able to write? What might get in your way? What can you do to minimise the resistance?

 

Think of this mindful preparation for the week ahead not as a task but as an act of recreation, a gift to the brilliant creator that you are.

Your prompt for today:

When he woke, everything was different…

 

Week 2. Day 6. Improvisation

During this week of curiosity, we’ve pondered the magic of the phrase ‘what if’. There are two other phrases that have a creative power to them. (I’m sure there are scores, but these are my special two).

 

The first is the phrase beloved of TheatreSports performers and improvisers the world over. Yes and….

 

It’s the response that allows performers improvising on stage – in music, comedy or dramatic improvisation – to find something new. You’ve probably seen it in action but here’s a recap on how it works. Actor One says something like, “Hello Debra, welcome to the thinnest building in the world.” Debra runs with the suggestion offered by Actor One, breathing in, squeezing her body, and adding to the suggestion – “I’m thrilled to be here. I’ve brought my pet elephant…”

 

Okay. I’m not claiming an improv award. But you get the idea. The creative response is “yes… and…”

 

Not, no, I don’t like that idea. 

 

It’s a gold standard for creative play. Yes, and… makes everything possible. Try to use it in your own brainstorming, your own imagining. Your inner dialogue might run something like this:

“Okay, maybe my protagonist is on a train….”

“Yes, and… the train has stopped moving.”
“Yes and… it’s stalled on a bridge.”
“Yes and… the power has gone.”
“Yes and… it’s dark… and someone is crying…”
Welcome your creative ideas. Invite them in. Let them be disastrous, or wonderful.

 

And the other magical phrase for story is “So… but….”

 

So/but is simply a way of reminding yourself to notice complication and causality in storytelling. When my children were little, we played so/but on long journeys (of which there were many.) Generally, it degenerated fairly rapidly into stories about bodily functions, which never stop being hilarious.

 

“We wanted to go to the park, so we started walking…

But it started raining, so we had to run back for an umbrella but the door was stuck so we cut down a bit of tree for an umbrella but the tree had a monkey living in it so we asked the monkey to come for a walk but the monkey started throwing poo….

 

I’ll spare you further examples from our family archive (which always, eventually, involved poo) but you get the idea. Those little link words give an order to your play, and they are pure gold when it comes to nutting out the causality in a story.

 

The spirit of improvisation is one of playful curiosity. All of creative action is improvisation led by phrases such as ‘what if’, ‘what else?’, ‘yes/and’ and ‘so/but’.

 

This is my invitation to you today: take around ten to fifteen scraps of paper. I like to tear up sheets of A4 paper. Somehow the act of tearing the paper lets my creative subconscious know that I am only playing.

 

On each scrap of paper, jot down a life or plot event. If you have a project in mind, this is a moment to brainstorm (i.e. improvise) events in the story. Don’t overthink it. You’re not locking anything in at this point. You’re not writing a scene or chapter, just a sentence or phrase: Meeting on the beach/getting drunk at the club/punching the man on the street/stealing the money/husband’s death/stowing away on the boat….

 

In a memoir, you will be noting down real events. So, for Fury, my early list read something like: party in Sydney/bike crash/storm on boat/police/courtcase/hitch-hiking in the desert/sleeping with crocodiles….

 

And if you have no clear project in mind, BRILLIANT! That means you get to just dig around in that wild instinct and play. See what’s in there waiting to come out. Your list will be life or story events as they occur to you. They don’t need to connect. Just jot down ten or so momentous or significant life or story events: Being arrested/getting a tattoo of a scorpion/leaving a partner/taking a hot air balloon ride over the Nile/seeing a dead body/learning to drive….

 

Use the spirit of ‘what else’ with this bit of play, with a side order of ‘yes/and’. What else might happen? What else could I imagine? The yes/and is a reminder to shush that inner voice snorting “seeing a dead body? What is this? Midsomer Murders?” I am actually reporting on the bit of inner dialogue I had as I scribbled down my little list of random events. Yes/and reminds me to simply go with the first instinct, my first offering, and run with it.

 

When you have your list of ten or fifteen events, it’s time to step into ‘what if’. Shuffle the bits of paper. Throw them in the air and see where they land. Or put them in a hat and shake them up. The trick is to create a random order that invites you to ask ‘what if….”

 

Now, take one piece of paper out of your hat. Lay it on a table or desk or floor. Now reach into the bag. Take the next piece out and lay it next to the first and so on, until you have all the story points laid out in a random order. What if that was the order of the story? What if the dead body came before the tattoo but after the arrest?

 

Maintain the spirit of improv and move the plot points around again. See what new connections you make. Move them again. Keep the sense of possibility, of yes/and. The final phrase so/but is the one that, later, helps you build the connections between these random events, helps you find the steps between them, helps you go deeper, immersed in your own improvisational play. 

 

And play, my friend, is serious work. Or perhaps work is serious play.

Your prompt for today:

Write about a habit

 

Week 2. Day 5. Let your story be your guide

Twyla Tharp is an American dancer and choreographer who has made groundbreaking theatrical work for most of her life. At almost eighty, she continues to produce art, to create dance and spectacle and to reflect on creativity. In her book, The Creative Habit, Tharp muses on the importance of being curious about your own creative process – your creative habits. Ask what has always sparked your interest, she says, and you will find the template to help you keep creating. To demonstrate this, she runs through what she calls a ‘Creative Autobiography’ – asking questions of herself, her dancers and her collaborators.

 

Curiosity. Obsession. They can be similar. I remember telling my sister (a very practical nurse) over lunch that I had become obsessed with freediving, with everything about it. I couldn’t stop watching freediving videos, reading about blood shift, pinning images of deep dives on my walls, practising breathhold….

 

“You know,” I said, “How it is when you get obsessed with something.”

My dear sister looked at me for a long moment and then shook her head. No, she didn’t know about that kind of obsession. But to paraphrase Tharp, that kind of obsession (which led to my novel Storm and Grace) is the kind of focused curiosity that drives the creative habit.

 

Take some time today to reflect on your creative autobiography, the images and habits that drive you and which can sustain you if you trust them. I’m adapting and amending some of Twyla Tharp’s questions below. As with all these Immersion reflections, these are for your own self alone. They are private and a guide to reconnect you to your creative depth. So, take your time. Tell yourself the truth. There is no audience.

 

  1. What is your first memory of being inspired? Where were you? What happened? Try to think about the precise circumstances that surrounded you – where were you?
  2. What feeling did you have with that inspiration, in your body?
  3. What did you do with that inspiration afterwards, if anything?
  4. What is your first memory of being creatively curious? What happened before and after?
  5. What ideas, people, concepts or stories obsess you now or in the past?
  6. What artists do you admire most?
  7. Why are these particular people your role models?
  8. What do you and your role models have in common?
  9. What is the thing that most excites you?
  10. What is the thing that most brings you joy?
  11. What qualities can you not abide in other people?
  12. What do you most admire in yourself?
  13. What was the best idea you’ve ever had?
  14. What made it great?
  15. Did you bring that idea to life? How? Can you connect the dots that led you to the idea?
  16. What are three ideas you’ve had in the past that excited you?
  17. What are three ideas you abandoned? Why did you abandon them?
  18. What is your idea of creative mastery?
  19. What is your creative ambition?
  20. What are the obstacles to achieving this ambition?
  21. What are the vital steps to achieving this ambition?
  22. What are your daily habits? What patterns do you repeat?
  23. Does anyone in your life regularly inspire you?
  24. When you work, do you love the process or the result?
  25. What is your ideal creative activity?
  26. What is your greatest dream?

 

 Sit with your responses. Let your curiosity about your own creative habit guide you.

Your prompt for today:

Write a morning habit in a new place

Week 2. Day 4. What if?

What if…? It’s one of the most adventurous and romantic phrases in the English language. It speaks of open-ended curiosity, of possibility and of willingness. What if… what if I put this yellow colour with that blue colour? What if I put the ice-cream inside the cake? What if I put the meat on the fire? What if I kayak to Hawaii?

 

‘What if’ leads to human invention. It’s curiosity leading to action.

 

I suspect that ‘what-if’ thinking often begins with boredom or unease. Not always, but often.

 

In a much-cited study from the University of Virginia a decade or so ago, researchers asked participants to sit quietly with their own thoughts. Most participants reported discomfort with that simple act (we’ll pick up on that next week!), but then the researchers took the study a step further. Firstly, they asked participants how they might feel about receiving a small to moderate electric shock. Unsurprisingly, every single person said, Umm, thank you, but I would never want to be shocked with electricity.

 

So far, so unsurprising. But then, participants were left alone in an unfurnished lab room for fifteen minutes. They had two choices: to sit quietly with your own thoughts, or to press a red button which will give you an electric shock.

 

More than two-thirds of the men, and a quarter of the women, elected to press the button and receive the shock.

 

The researchers concluded: “Most people seem to prefer to be doing something rather than nothing, even if that something is negative.”

 

Now, when I first saw this report in the New Scientist I was mystified. Fifteen minutes! That’s all they had to sit for. Why would you give yourself a shock? Oh my god, can’t people even sit with their own thoughts? What on earth is wrong with people? Etcetera etcetera.

 

When I get started, I do a very nice line in Being Affronted About the Failings of All Humanity.

 

Clearly for many people in that study, the very idea of being alone with one’s thoughts was terrifying.

 

But I’m not sure that’s the whole story. What if it’s also about curiosity?

 

What if people pushed that button because their curiosity was stronger than their fear? Who among us could ignore a pulsing red button in front of us, practically luminous with the question what might this feel like? Then imagine if the label on the button read: do not press.

 

Henry Thoreau famously spent two years at Walden Pond reflecting on his life, reporting that, “Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sun- rise till noon, rapt in a revery”.

 

He recommended the practice to others: “Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought…”

 

In his practice of reflecting inwardly, Thoreau was simply directing his natural curiosity. Our curiosity is built into us. Learning to direct that curiosity inwardly can do more than illuminate our lives.

 

Ronald Ridgeway spent 5 years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. He survived by creating an imaginary world in which he had a wife and children, owned a pick-up truck, and went fishing in his spare time. He reported that spending 3 days in his fantasy world occupied him for an entire day in his stark real world of imprisonment and deprivation. His ability to imagine may well have saved his life.

 

The ability to imagine is simply the ability to wonder. And wondering is built on curiosity.

 

So today, I invite you to follow Thoreau’s path and encounter new continents within you. Sometime today, sit quietly “in a revery”.

 

I suggest setting a timer for ten minutes or so. This is not quite the same as last week’s exercise of simply writing all your random thoughts. This is a little more focused.

 

Begin with the thought “I wonder…” And then, simply sit with your own thoughts. Welcome your own curiosity, and let it lead you where it wishes to go.

 

I wonder why I’m so uncomfortable? I wonder if everyone is uncomfortable in this sort of silence? I wonder if that man up the road has ever been silent…

 

If you like, make some notes after the timer goes off. This is not a meditation exercise, but a reminder that the things you wonder about are your particular imaginative gold.

 

So. Sit. Wonder. Ten minutes. No shocks required.

Your prompt for today:

The sun rose slowly….

Week 2. Day 3. What are your roles?

You’re a friend, a family member, a worker, a cook, a homemaker, a surfer, a runner, a breadwinner, a community member, a lobbyist, a volunteer….

 

And you’re a creator. An artist.

 

We all have many roles in our lives. And sometimes they can jostle for attention. A few years ago, one of my sisters was feeling overwhelmed and couldn’t see why. Now, my sister is an immensely capable person, the kind who juggles all the plates and then serves up a three-course meal on the unbroken, juggled crockery. So, admitting to overwhelm was rare. In the middle of our conversation, she said, “I wonder how many roles I have in my life?”

 

I wonder. That beautiful magic phrase that precedes every discovery or act of creation.

 

Together we sat down and made a list of her many roles (mother, grandmother, aunt, trainer, midwife, spouse, carer, coordinator, pet owner, homeowner, team member, landlord, traveller… you get the picture.) There were around fifteen categories on that list, each category with its own list of demands and responsibilities. To be honest, I felt exhausted just looking at it.

 

We all have multiple roles in our lives. And those roles may change from month to month or year to year, taking up more or less space. It can be easy to relegate the role of ‘Writer’ or ‘Creator’ to the bottom of the pile.

 

Today, I invite you to take some time to reflect on the roles you have in your life – mother, father, sister, brother, worker, employer, employee, gardener, support person, coach, business owner, artist, writer, promoter, cheer squad.

 

Begin, as always, with curiosity. Get curious about what roles you play in your life. Make a list. Or a graph or a picture, if that floats your boat. Then, see if you can consolidate some of the roles (perhaps the role of sister, aunt, daughter could become one role: family; or the role of cook, cleaner, decorator, project manager could become ‘homemaker’).

 

So maybe now you have six roles, or ten. Step your curiosity up a notch. Can you list these roles in order of priority? Perhaps some of your roles might take the lead this week or this month, while others will step up later in the year.

 

But where is ‘writer’ or ‘creator’ on that list? What would take up the most space if you were to create a pie chart made of these roles (and, you know what, why not do that? With coloured marker pens if you have them. And glitter.)

 

Is there anything you can you do, to allow that creative role to take up a little more space?

 

Then, looking just at that role of writer or creator, ask yourself what your intention is over the next three months. Think forward, imagine the you of the future (just three months in the future, we don’t need to get too ahead of ourselves right now!) – how do you want to be as a writer? What do you want to be doing as a creator? And then, what do you want to have?

 

You know what writers are really good at? Imagining. This is our superpower, and it’s one we can use when we think about harnessing our own selves. We can use it for comfort, for solace, for possibility. In this context, I’m suggesting that in the same way you imagine yourself into the skin of a fictional character, you can also imagine yourself into your own future. You can create a future memory.

 

Think of the creator you are. Three months from now. Write in present tense, as though you are there, already, living it:

 

Three months from now…

 

(Be) I am restored in my creative instinct, replenished and connected with my own vision; I am immersed in my novel and excited to be at the page each day. I am part of a community of writers.

 

(Do) I write each morning in my journal and spend half an hour editing my novel each evening. I read each evening.

 

(Have) I have ten thousand words written. I have edited a chapter.

 

And then you might want to find one focus goal for your writing role. Just one.

 

Maybe it’s connected to that first question: what can you do to make that role take up more space? Maybe it’s a direct outcome. Or perhaps it’s more of an intention, a direction you want to be heading in.

Some examples: 

  • In three months, I have written a very rough draft of my novel.
  • I show up every day to write.
  • I’m part of a writing community

 

 Choose one ‘writing life’ goal to focus on for the next three months. Write it on a card and keep it somewhere you can see it regularly.

Allow your present self to honour your commitment to your future self. You’ll both be glad you did.

Your prompt for today:

I am drawing a line…

 

Week 2. Day 2. Begin with memory

When I was in kindergarten, there were boxes of cards in the classroom, and each card contained a story.

 

The stories were colour-coded to indicate difficulty or ease, and some of the stories contained on those cards have stayed with me for my entire life. The story of the man who had arranged to meet his childhood friend on a particular street twenty years into the future. And now that man is a policeman. But the friend is a criminal! And so, they meet – I can recall the description of the match lighting up his friend’s face as he steps out of an alcove – and an arrest takes place. I believed this to be a factual recording of an actual encounter, and I’m pretty sure it’s why I don’t have any friends in the police force.

 

Those cards are one of my earliest memories of reading. My mouth waters when I think of them.

 

A little later, there were boxes of old hardbacks, stories of boarding schools and determined japesters. To paraphrase the play FanGirls – when I remember, I don’t remember the books as much as how they made me feel.

 

Memory is a kind of curiosity, if you let it unfurl. To remember is to set yourself wondering. It’s a musing, a ‘what was that like?’ and a ‘how did it feel?’

Memory is a rich door to the sensory world. After all, we remember through the body, not through the intellect – that’s why the smell of a certain cake, or a particular flower can throw you back so instantly to a moment in time.

 

As writers, as creators, we want to harness the power of memory, to revel in the recollection of a particular sensory world, and so to recreate it. What an outrageous pleasure, to be able to bring things back! More than a pleasure, a divine superpower!

 

It’s also a way of creating sensory depth in writing the present, or the fantastical. To remember the sounds of a particular afternoon, the smell of a meadow… we can use this sensory memory to inform whatever world we are writing.

 

But really, accessing memory gives us clues to our own emotional, creative and sensory make up. What excites us? What engages us? You already know: it’s in your memory.

 

Do you remember what made you fall in love with story?

 

Today, take some time to call up your first memories of reading, or of being read to. Try to think about the physical space, the smells, the sounds, the feel of the pages (or in my case, the glossy card. Oh, the smell and feel of that card!).

 

Perhaps your first memory of story is on television. Again, try to recall and note down the smells, the tastes, the feeling of being immersed in the imaginative world.

 

 Then, take some time to remember your first creative act. Or the first you can remember. Bashing on the piano? Making a play with your pre-school buddies? A day-long game in which you all pretended to be ghosts? Robber stew on the back porch? When we are young we tend to inhabit creativity more fulsomely. Try to recall that early experience of being creative. Recall the way you felt, and what you did or did not do to enter that state. Was there an audience? Did you care about the audience? Or was the creative act just for you?

 

 Creativity is not a chore. It’s not homework. And it isn’t a test. It’s a deep and natural pleasure. You have always had it by your side, and you have always been under its spell.  

 

Remember it now. Return to it.

Your prompt for today:

Write about something forgotten…

 

Week 2. Day 1. Make like a child

A few days ago, I was walking to the train station when I heard a delighted shout. It sounded like, “It’s the same size as my head!”.

 

Startled, I looked about until I saw the source of the shouting. A pre-school child had discovered that the squares built into the wall of their garden were, indeed, exactly the right size for a child-sized head to poke through.

The delight didn’t end there though.

 

There was turning upside down to look at the wall from a different angle. Then there was a test to see if any other body parts could make it through (arms, yes; whole body, no).

 

It reminded me of watching a girl once twirl her way down a shopping centre corridor by resting the crown of her head against the wall and twisting the rest of her body, clearly curious to see how long she could move in that way. The only purpose was play, and curiosity.

 

Do you remember what it felt like, to be a child and be driven by curiosity?

I remember spending days climbing under houses to see what was there, always excited by the possibility that I might find something new. Much later I watched my own children explore paths and tiny bodies of water with the same fascinated curiosity that a Nobel Prize-winning scientist might apply to their investigations.

 

What made you curious as a child? What made you wonder?

 

This attitude of curious play, which children tend to inhabit with ease, is a state of creative suspension. Play is always a state of willing curiosity, led by a simple ‘what-if’.

 

What if I stick my head through this window? What if I put my arm through?
What if I walk without taking the crown of my head off the wall?

 

What if I put this character in a boat beneath the sea? What if these two people have a fight on a street corner?

 

What if I said yes to my own curiosity?

 

And so, today, I invite you to make a like a child, and re-enter the curious state of creative play. Every moment in the day provides opportunities to explore that simple curiosity: the shifting light patterns on a patio (can I mimic them in paint? In movement?). Walking on a path, catching a train, getting takeaway coffee. It’s with us endlessly.

 

(I had often wondered what would happen if I gave a really silly name to a barista for my coffee order. And then, in a town up the coast, when asked the name for my order, I replied: Pants. They called out my new name – Pants! Pants! – when my coffee was ready, and it kept me laughing for days. Mature? No. Curious? Yes.)

 

There’s a stand-up routine by Anjelah Johnson, a Latina comedian, which culminates in her using Duolingo Spanish sentences as the basis for a beat-box rhythm. It’s a genius comedy moment, the kind of moment one reaches only by means of curiosity and play.

 

When you open the kitchen cupboard door and notice that it makes a pleasing click, play with it. Make a sound over the top of it. Dance to it.

 

When you take a shower and notice that your voice sounds different under the water, let out a bellow. What is it like to let the water trail down your face? Open the door to curiosity today.

 

Let your writing be silly, playful and curious. Let nonsense in, give rationality a back seat for now.

 

You may have seen the videos of babies leading  professional dancers in warmup routines. The nappied-up wide-stanced babies rock back and forth on their feet, twirl, roll on the ground, and the dancers follow in warmups which use the whole body, the whole floor. In choreography, there is often talk of using different ‘levels’ – high, middle, floor – but the babies don’t need theory. The baby dancer is simply playing with the space and with the body. It’s a concept that James Corden borrowed with Jennifer Lopez and others, in a set of routines called ‘Toddlerography’. There’s a natural curiosity that creates a wild use of space, a wild use of the body. Babies have that curiosity. It’s how they learn to crawl, to scoot, to rock and to talk.

 

If you have a child in your life, observe them, let their play lead you. Whether alone or with a child, I wonder what would happen today, if you let yourself really play? What would happen if you followed the playful or curious thought in your writing? No answers, only possibilities.

 

Today, let your guiding question be ‘what if?’

Your prompt for today:

Drumbeats in the street