Creative Pressures

Friday 24th September 2021

Creative Pressures

Are you affected by things going on around you? If you are a writer or other artist the answer is likely to be yes. I’m thinking of things like the abortive exit from Afghanistan, the constant repetition of Covid illness and death, climate change; most recently the huge, promised rise in fuel costs, loss of Universal Credit £20 and so on. There seems to be so much going wrong. Then there’s the constant pressure of trying to earn money in a sector which is only just beginning to open up.

I can’t speak for you, but just possibly reflect what you may be thinking. I find it weighs down on creativity. It is increasingly hard to empty my mind to open up the free-wheeling unconscious creativity.  

It would be possible, of course, to explicitly reflect these issues in writing. But do people really want to read or see work about Covid, or the toughness of life for an artist? I believe (and you may or may not agree, that it is better to reflect these issues by implication. I suspect it is impossible for an artist not to reflect these things, unless burying their head in the sand.)

So, I find myself working harder and harder to open up that creative freedom. The trick is to open it up without enabling the effort to close it down. Need to avoid that unproductive, vicious circle at all costs.  Good luck.

Featured Poem

This month it’s Graham and Me. It aims to raise a smile. The poet is a storyteller. He reveals the nature of love, which is never quite as simple as you might think. The point is driven home by the surprise rhymes at the end – like the sun coming out.  The poem came out of an exercise I did with a poetry writing workshop I was running.  The poem appears in my book of Drama Verse Monologues.https://www.smithscripts.co.uk/product/on-my-own-by-rod-dungate/

Reading

I finished War and Peace which I found stupendous; a brilliant novel. Completed the second in a most enjoyable series of detective type novels by a modern Russian writer, Boris Acunin. And have just completed The Road to Wigan Pier an absorbing political and philosophical work by George Orwell.

Current Work

I’ve been writing poems for the most part. Mostly, at this time, works in progress. Topics include how memories work, two very different poems about oak trees, a dark monologue called Transfiguration, and a poem about a raven.

Final Thoughts

Don’t forget the Tuesday poems on Twitter (some explicit about current events) and the weekly writing tip on Instagram.

Thanks.