The Call

Do you remember when you were a kid playing in the woods?  You and your pals were in the middle of making a fort out of sticks and stones when all of a sudden you hear the faint call of your mother.  Without hesitation, you stop; listen once more to make sure it was your mother summoning you.  Once confirmed, you take off running toward home, barely saying goodbye to your pals. Does your creativity ever feel like the distant call of your mother?  It stops you in your tracks and without hesitation you’re off running toward curiosity.  This is what I experience when an idea for a story suddenly calls to me.  It’s a faint whisper, but it stops me in my tracks.

I wish I could tell you I drop everything and start running toward my creative voice every time it calls to me, but I don’t.  Why don’t I?  Exhaustion, questioning am I the right person to tell this story, fear…Perhaps.  Sometimes, I put my hand up and turn away from my desire to be creative because of an already 60-hour workweek that pays the bills.  Sometimes, I have nothing else to give.  So, I retreat.  I need absolute respite from life even as my creativity looms like a helicopter hovering above me; requesting me to engage and be present if only for a few minutes. I find myself pleading with my own creativity saying, “I’m doing the best I can.  Please be patient.  I value you, but I need a moment to catch my breath.  I trust you understand.”  So, my creativity sighs, chooses the nearest corner to wait.  At times, the wait is too long and the passion of an idea fades away.  Yet, at other times, it patiently waits for me. 

You see, for some odd reason, I’m haunted by my creativity.  Don’t misunderstand, I love being creative, but my creativity comes at a cost.  The cost is: as I type away, chase a lead, or research facts to support a story, I see all my friends enjoying connection, having fun and living life.  When I’m deep within a project, I feel disconnected, lonely, and full of self-doubt and fear I’m wasting all the unrestricted time in my life.  I want to be free of this need to create which I do so half-ass.  The nagging of fear that tends to cripple me to my core.  All I want is for the universe to conspire on my behalf and make this easy, but it doesn’t.  It is an epic battle of will between a desire to create and having confidence in my own ability to accomplish the quest.  And the quest is to just fucking finish.  I don’t care how long it takes me.  I don’t care if it is even good.  I don’t care that my research flat lines, I just pray for the endurance to complete what I set out to achieve even though I’m distracted by my daily obligations. 

The question is: why do I desire to continue to create when time is limited, resources are limited, willpower to keep moving forward is, at times, lacking and my self-confidence is questionable?  My answer is because I have no choice.  It’s not an option for me.  It is the thing that awakens me from a deep dark place; creating something quiets the destructive voices inside my head.  When I answer the call, when I’m fully engaged and feel connected with my ideas, characters and storylines, this is when I feel complete.  I’m not trying to be original or tell an exceptional story.  I don’t feel special or gifted.  I’m just a regular person that is compelled to tell a story that picked me, and entrusted to me to give it a voice.  I feel responsible.  At times, this journey can be a burden.  It can be so frustrating.  It can be a painstaking labor.  I struggle.  One day at a time, sometimes one word at a time.

So, when I hear the distant call of creativity, I answer it with some reservations.  I stop in my tracks to glance toward the faint call of wonder knowing the sacrifice it will cost me. Yet, it is when I follow my curiosity, when a story starts taking shape, when my characters begin to breathe and come alive, when I write a conclusion; this is when I feel completely free and healthy.  I feel that I’ve finally found my way home.  It is the journey, the adventure, of producing something from nothing that brings me peace and keeps me answering the call. 

So, those of you who tend to battle with your own creative voice, like me, don’t give up.  Your story needs to be told and it’s the story that you alone can only tell.