On Process

Creativity and Kleptomania by Alicia Kenworthy

Welcome Alicia Kenworthy who writes Catalectic. Let’s hear her lovely writing voice:

On Process

I’ve never gotten my money’s worth from a Moleskine.

Moleskine by Daria Doroshenkova on Unsplash

Place me in Aisle 17 of a local Target and I’ll gravitate toward the $24 leather-bound journals like stinkbugs to a windowsill. But anything meant to serve as permanent record of half-baked thoughts — well, I always need distance from rough draft versions of myself. I’ll write something fleeting on a notebook’s pages, decide the phrasing awkward or my choice of ink, inadequate. Scratch it out, throw out all 240 college-lined pages two pages in and, ergo, take a break from my writing practice writ large.

I once took a writing course that focused on process. Step one: celebrate your craft with a shopping spree. Buy a fancy notebook(s) and an entirely new set of pens. Peruse the aisles of your local grocery store for tea that you will brew when — and only when — you sit down to write.

Don’t even get me started on tea.

“The most important thing to remember about making tea,” my friend K. tells me, “is the leaves must come in contact with the water.” K. won a Pulitzer Prize for his journalism and no doubt has a tea habit to thank. Still, my own tea — especially if I’ve burdened it with the task of inspiration — falls flat.

The leaves don’t tingle tingle, or zing.

The only writing advice I’ve found halfway useful — at least when it comes to the messy inspiration aspect of it all — is to steal. Capture random thoughts as they appear away from your writing desk, and go from there. Go to a restaurant, eavesdrop on the conversation at a table adjacent, and recreate it on the back of a paper napkin. Think about how you’d describe the cashier at CVS, and draft a novel-length profile on the back of your receipt. Anything to get rough draft words onto paper — though, preferably, paper you can throw away guilt-free and never look at again.

And maybe: do something with your hands. Get yourself into a sensory and embodied space by, say, baking a cake.

monika-grabkowska on Unsplash

I do think there’s something to embodied writing. I imagine it’s not dissimilar from dancing. It’s easy to build up  tangled knots of words when staring at a blank screen; busy hands help to unwind. Put on Spotify while you bake, and when you sit back down to write, notice the musical rhythm of your sentences. Follow that rhythm until you hit a vulnerable place that almost feels too raw — somewhere beyond words itself — throw out everything that came before it, and write from there. Be honest re: whether you actually feel moved. If what you’ve written isn’t moving you, how do you expect it to move anyone else? Don’t be afraid to figure things out as you go. Ever notice how overly didactic writing is uninspired?

Then again, what I just wrote is a bit didactic, and I’ve always had two left feet.

My point is: per my own experience, to get past writer’s block, kleptomania and embodiment usually do the trick. But even when they don’t,

you’ll have cake.

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Alicia

Wanna do a guest post for me? Write me at marytabor@substack.com

I’m focused on ageless (any age) creativity. Hope you are too.

Love from me and Alicia,