Bernadette Benda

“Twas the week before Christmas and all through the house, everyone was panicking, even the mouse”

(Actually I’m not panicking, just sort of like “Christmas….is…..NEXT WEEK???? WHAT??)

The holidays usually bring a rush and even with the weirdness of the pandemic, things are still busy, or maybe for you it has nothing to do with the holidays and instead has to do with COVID, or maybe it’s work *raises hand* or maybe it’s all three….and more.

And when things are busy, we sometimes forget about a little something called “creativity”.

Creativity is a little yellow monster with googly eyes. And he wants to be fed.

I could look at a stupid Buzzfeed article, or I could pick up a book, or I could sit outside, or I could read a less stupid article. There are choices.

It’s taking walks are sitting outside. Listening to music. Even napping.

Because here’s the thing: This blog post is coming late. I tried writing three different posts last night, and finally near 11 pm I called it quits. I’ve been busy, stressed, tried, whatever lately and haven’t been spending much time feeding that little yellow monster. Some of that is my fault, sometimes it isn’t.

That’s the thing about being a writer (or any kind of creative) you need Creativity to actually do anything. And you can’t expect to rush your way through life, never feeding Creativity, and at the end of the day churn out the next Great Novel.

Holidays are busy, but at the same time they are the time when things wind down, you might have some days off from work, the semester’s over, etc. It’s a good time to feed your little monster.

And here are some thoughts of some of Creativity’s favorite snacks:

OUTSIDE

Seriously. GO OUTSIDE. This is really just me just shouting at myself, but whatever.

It’s not just nature that’s inspiring. Its neighborhood, streets, sidewalks, cities. It’s how low the sun is slanted in the sky, or the smell of wet snow, or the way your neighborhood is particularly silent during a cold afternoon. It’s the dark and quiet of the night sky, maybe red with clouds, or pitch black with tiny stars.

There is of course a bunch of science of why fresh air is good for you, yada, yada, yada. But it’s more than fresh air and Vitamin D. It’s taking a moment to step outside your door and just think. Just think and feel everything around you.

READ

Obviously. I mean the two rules of writing are “write and read”. I mean there’s really no much more to say on this one.

We all like to read. Pick up a book.

WRITE

Like yes…write in order to feed your creativity to write. Like how you have to lift weights in order to lift weights *eye twitches*. You have to write in order to write.

But not just pounding out thousands of words (which I haven’t written in like days but I wrote 2k words this morning and I’m just like thank goodness). Maybe not working on your WIP. Maybe started something new for fun, letting a plot bunny kidnap you to a far off land, or just scratch out some weird poetry that after writing you’ll promptly shut your notebook and never look at again.

MUSIC

Just sometimes when you’re feeling down you just need to sit back and listen to like the last four songs of the Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack or blast the Dark Knight Suite from Hans Zimmer’s Live in Prague. You know…whatever restores your soul *everyone looks questionably at me*

Because when my brain is too busy to read, too busy to write, music is one of the best options to just settle down. (So basically, my brain sometimes is like a toddler right before bedtime running around screaming. Yeah. That’s it).

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That’s all I got for today. My own little Creativity is looking a little skinny, though he’s happy that it’s snowing, and that I wrote 2k words this morning. So we’re getting there. He’ll be nice and plump soon.

(And just to throw this out there…..the last episode of the Mandalorian S2 is this week. *screams into pillow that we have to wait a whole freaking year till S3*0