by Steve Corton
I just noticed a stain on the carpet. Just over there. I’ve sat here to type various scripts hundreds of times and I’ve never noticed it before. No-one else comes in here. I can’t see a leak from the ceiling. Maybe a cat got in and …yuk…I’d prefer to think it was a leak from above…I say ‘scripts’ but that’s a catch-all for blogs, and short stories and poems, and the occasional letter to rant about an injustice, like when I didn’t get a refund for those squidgy peaches…and the staff there were so rude, I spent more on the bus getting there than the peaches were worth anyway, and the state of that bus! Don’t they bother to clean them anymore? And with the posse up top rapping along with Drake I nearly missed my stop….
I digress!
The aim of this workshop was to nudge us, gently, into a more disciplined approach to our creativity for the coming year. January is, traditionally, a time for resolutions. Often these are about conjuring a renewed enthusiasm for self-improvement (or slowing the pace of personal decline). So it was seasonally apt that the BWs turned their attention this month to ideas for creative regimens that might help us, individually, to better organise our written outputs. There is nothing, absolutely nothing wrong in the slightest with whimsical, laissez-faire musings or daylight fantasies about serendipitous discovery by an awe-struck publisher or impresario. Not at all. Dreams offer hope and hope can be inspiring. For a while. But dreams need to be mobilised into action if they are to become anything other than just reverie. Personal energy needs to shift from the potential, to the kinetic. In short, and metaphorically speaking, one must get up off one’s creative arse if one wants to get anywhere with it.
And so this session encouraged us not to be afraid of Thinking Big, but to set some tangible goals for the coming year. And then to break these down into more specific objectives - maybe by the quarter, or by the month. We were asked to think carefully about what stops us from getting organised? Getting to know our own self-defeating tactics for avoidance, delay, procrastination…which reminds me - that stain can’t be allowed to sit there. I’ll need to clean it with something. Another trip to the shops and probably hours spent pacing the shelves to find something that will remove the stain without bleaching the carpet…
But, as well as understanding what stops us, what is it that gets us going, and keeps us going - even when it’s so very tempting to chain-drink tea? We looked at ideas and tips for sending our work to publications, keeping track of them - for example in a simple table or spreadsheet - so we know what has been sent in and when, logging closing dates for submissions and the anticipated time it will take to hear back? Or for actively searching for potential spoken word opportunities locally - like Open Mics. We almost created a new mantra between us - “Be a PRO!” PLAN, RESEARCH, ORGANISE.
And so, having absorbed these useful prompts and tips, today I will - determinedly - look to send off my poem to an array of lucky recipients:
I’ve got a stain on my carpet
I need to go to the market
I’ll avoid the stuff that bleaches
And I won’t be buying peaches.