What do we need to creatively return?

I think we start with being our own dream scenario teachers.

I have promised myself 10 days to write. I’ve marked it in my calendar, so it’s real. My calendar says: WRITING CHALLENGE. It’s marked in ‘grape’ from April 23 – May 2, a shade of purple that feels motivating enough for this ten day block. I need all the motivation I can get because, obviously, I’m a little scared.

Pierre Bonnard. Young Woman Writing (Jeune femme écrivant), 1908.

This isn’t the kind of free-flowing writing time that happens in my everyday life. (I mean ‘everyday’ as in normal, not every day). This is project writing in the ‘moving it along’ stage. Project writing can be free-flowing writing too, of course, but that’s not the stage I’m at now. This project has had its fair share of meandering at this point.

I’m returning to an essay I’ve been circling for about two years, or twenty. It’s about jobs we feel obliged to do, desires we think we have no choice but to push down, the half a childhood I spent living in a caravan with my Dad, and the three days of conversations I had with Bill Dilworth, caretaker at The New York Earth Room, talking about creative work. I sat across from him at his desk on the eve of his retirement, and asked him everything you’d want to ask a contemplative and wise-seeming 69 year-old. I watched him rake the same earth he tended from 1989–2024.

There’s a bunch of material already. More than I need, really. My work over these 10 days is to cleave clean passages from it, and to remain steadfast in this task, even when I feel I can’t! I’ve written this story so many times; now it’s time to let myself bring it into the world.

When I’m deep in this work, everything feels right. Sometimes I sweat while writing. When my fingers are on the keyboard, I think: this is exactly where I am meant to be. We all know how special this kind of conviction is. Special because it can be fleeting.

But blocking time in the calendar isn’t quite enough to ensure success. Not for me! I must go further! I’ve invited a bunch of people to join me to do the same thing, to stay on track together. I’ve given it a name: RETURNING. When you name something, it becomes real. When we do it together it becomes real.

You have to ask: what are the personal conditions that will help me to get this thing done? And I think this is mine. RETURNING is an experiment: I am wrapping my work inside a challenge, and creating a Slack channel for a supportive online community of people doing the same thing. This feels a) crafty! and b) like perfectly effective (and fun!) conditions to fill my boots for ten days.

I’ve been writing mini essay-prompts as part of my preparation – to email to the community daily through the challenge. I’ll be sharing voicenotes too, to keep our motivation levels up. You know, just fun things which, right now, are helping me to coax myself closer to my project, and each day will act as a morsel for beginning.

This week I wrote about ‘delicious restrictions’. The essay-prompts contain techniques, questions and advice from authors I love. In this case, the mini essay is about how rigorous writing rules for style and form can free us, with juiciness from works by Heidi Julavits, Ray Johnson, Amy Ching-Yan Lam and Georges Perec. Whatever creative thing we’re pursuing, I think we have to become our own dream teacher. What are the creative conditions and guidance your dream teacher would give?

For one thing, I’m hungry for source material that will unravel my writing – and my doubt. My dream teacher would feed me with manifestos about stealing, working with nature’s patterns, and writing as composting. Dream topics! So, I’ll be getting into those in my daily mini essay-prompts.

I’ll be honest: I am daunted about returning to my writing project. It exists safely and perfectly in my head. The work of translating it into real words on a page… is forever humbling. The perfection refuses to budge. It clings to the knotty pink brain and refuses to let go. Yet I’m also longing to dive back into this world I’m (slowly) building, and try. I have to try.

So, I will be writing daily, 23 April – 2 May. I will be writing alone at home, but in the good company of others. If there’s something you’re dying to return: a draft, a book proposal, a thesis, a chapter or a DIY pamphlet, I’d love you to come join us. Let’s make this the month we RETURN. For real!