Tales from Burkeland: Tale five
When I told my husband I titled my blog and newsletter “Tales from Burkeland,” he raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips in the look I’ve learned means, “I have an opinion that’s probably going to make her mad, so I’m not going to say it.”
Cue 30 seconds of me dragging his thoughts out of him.
“It sounds like a seven-year-old climbed a hill, planted a flag, and declared, ‘This is Burkeland,” he said. “It’s a little silly.”
I blinked. “I’m not mad. I had the same thought when I wrote it.”
I understand why he thought he’d upset me. Usually, I’m a serious person. He figured I’d want a serious title. I admit seven-year-old atop a hill wasn’t quite the image I had in mind, but in this instance, “a little silly” is exactly what I wanted.
Here’s why: My seriousness often confines me. It’s the defining characteristic of my perfectionist side, and together they keep me from taking risks or experimenting out of fear of looking ridiculous.
Last year, they shut down my creativity completely.
Coming down from the high of a couple writing successes, I sat down to write a prequel novella set in The Heirs Saga world. Scenes played like a movie in my mind. The outline sat on my computer, ready to be transformed into the first draft like clay in a sculptor’s hands.
But I just stared at the blinking cursor on the blank document.
I wrote a sentence, then deleted it, the clicking of the backspace key like a hammer pounding into my thoughts. “No good. No good. No good.”
The thoughts spiraled.
Delete, delete, delete. Hammer, hammer, hammer.
This went on for days.
Thankfully, I had an appointment with my therapist. We talked about work-related stress I struggled to leave at the office. We talked about how I’d been highly creative for weeks. And then, in tears, I told her how I couldn’t put new words on the page.
Her response struck me like a slap. “You can’t be in creation when you’re in reaction.”
Until I could get my nervous system to calm down, she said, my creativity wouldn’t flow.
I stared at her, nervous system gearing up to fight. To prove her wrong. I knew how to write in stress. I’d been doing it just fine for as long as I could remember, with the credentials and awards to prove it.
But I wasn’t doing it joyfully. I didn’t take creative risks, fearing rejection. I pounded out projects because I had to meet a deadline, sticking to a tried-and-true formula, operating on a nervous system anything but relaxed and in flow.
The fun, playful writer in me that saved my first story to a floppy disk in the ’90s had long ago been hammered into silence.
That’s not how I want to be as an author.
To create fictional worlds that draw me and my readers in, I need to push limits. To give life to characters that feel like living, breathing people, I need to experiment. To write stories that will empower my readers to be their full, authentic selves, I must be my full, authentic self, too.
I have to unleash my creativity and myself.
That means embracing the humanness of imperfection. It means getting a little silly in creativity.
Did the serious perfectionist in me cringe when Tales from Burkeland whispered from my subconscious? Yup, sure did. But the title felt right in my core, so that side of me got told to chill. We were going to have fun with this.
Once my husband knew I meant to be playful in Burkeland, his pursed lips broke into a smile, and we had a good laugh at the image of seven-year-old Leann declaring herself queen of Burkeland.
I hope Burkeland makes you smile, too.
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What you missed in this month’s newsletter:
From the Drafts- First Entry to Writers of the Future: Check!
Remember You Shine- Directing My Energy: How I Set and Plan Goals
Myths and Magic- Celebrations of Spring
From My Shelf- The Myrtlewood Mysteries series by Iris Beglehole