Fresh Step Forward

I always enjoy this time of year. Granted, it comes earlier here in Florida, but back-to-school time is ripe with fresh starts. As a kid I loved buying new clothes and school supplies. As a writing instructor I stocked up on pens, pencils, markers, highlighters, and paper for my own use as well as to offer to my students who needed them. As a freelance writer I find uses for quirky and unusual office supplies.

More important than these things is the mindset for a fresh start. This year I prepared by refilling my creative well during a week during which I “retreated” from social media and distractions. My intent was to give myself time to create new routines, but I now realize it allowed me to take a fresh step forward.

Like a true retreat, my aim was to quiet my mind so I could make decisions on which direction to take my coaching/teaching business as well as my writing career. To quiet my mind and refill my creative well, I spent time:

Devour books!

Reading. Not only did I devour books from one of my favorite services, Book Bub, but I discovered Overdrive, the service my local library system uses for ebook borrowing. I read so much there were a few days I only ate, slept, and read. When the stories began to merge together, I knew I needed to slow down–and work on some of my other goals for the week.

A coloring page from my Weekly Bloom e-mail.

Reorganizing & Planning. This was another key goal for my “retreat” and an important step toward creating new routines. (Not to mention releasing the clutter so I could make decisions to move forward, which I blogged about earlier.) I also returned to diligently using my planner. This year I bought it from May You  Bloom and love the quotes and petals on the “life wheel.”

Fun with watercolors.

Tapping into my inner child. I love the May You Bloom site and weekly Blooms I receive by email. One of the best parts about this site is the “permission to be playful” and do something for ourselves every day. So, I embraced that idea and pulled out paints, colored pencils, and markers. I colored as if I were still a kid. Then I painted quick and simple quirky angels to place around my office. They inspire me.

Meditating and relaxing. You can’t “retreat” without tapping into the quiet. One of my favorite guided meditation coaches is Max Highstein. I love the Healing Waterfalls and others, which I used during my downtime. It helped me find calm center from which to make these important decisions and to work toward goals.

Two weeks later I’ve maintained a balance of work and relaxation that is both creative and energizing. Though I’ve cut back on all my teaching (dropped the college level altogether), I still keep my hand in through local workshops. So, technically, I’m not facing a new school year. Still, it’s gratifying to to put a fresh foot forward toward new goals. And my “retreat” helped make it happen. What are you doing to create a #freshforward this autumn?

Settling in to Create

I like that Maya Angelo sometimes worked from the floor.

I find this interesting:  While I was working on reclaiming my writing sanctuary and simply de-cluttering my condo, I saw quite a few desk and office photos posted on Twitter and other social media. I recall thinking how messy some of the spaces were. For others, I could relate. They had that “organized piles” look I thoroughly understand. (I mean honestly, I didn’t take photos of the stacks of books and files under my desk or in other parts of my condo to share with my last post.) I get it. Creative people have their own methods that work for them (or they don’t last long in this business. Be messy if you need to be, but please make your deadlines).

It got me thinking, though, about famous creative people. I wonder what Michelangelo’s work space looked like. Did Leonardo Da Vinci fire the housekeeper for organizing his notes and sketches into neater piles? Beethoven did. According to Lee Silber, in Time Management for the Creative Person, because Beethoven didn’t trust them (and was a slob) he “spent enormous amounts of time hiring and firing housekeepers.” But what about famous authors? What were their spaces like?

I do recall a beautiful book published in the late 1990s of writers’ offices, The Writer’s Desk by Jill Krementz and John Updike. I was relieved and reassured by the variety of clutter and mess I saw within the pages (along with neat and ordered, too, of course). Obviously, I’m not the first to wonder. There are recent blogs and articles sharing the workspaces of highly creative people  or the desks of famous authors or–and I find these most fascinating–the
inspiring work places of the famously creative.

I like to see variety and degrees of neat and orderly balanced with stacks and piles along with a few who are the extreme of “disordered mess.”

Twain used a desk AND other areas in his home.

Twain’s billiards table spread with papers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But I was most surprised when I sought out photos of some of my favorites: Mark Twain, Rudyard Ripling, Isaac Asimov, and Ernest Hemingway. Numerous images exist of Hemingway’s office but it depended on where and when he was writing.

At Hemingway’s home in Havana, Cuba. His office just as he left it.

I like my objects but Asimov has sooo many.