The Art of not being Boring

There’s one thing that could be said about my life: it’s creative. In many aspects. For example, I am now a confirmed PhD candidate at the University of Newcastle Australia (UON), and my research is “Rhythmic Dialogues: Latin Dance as a Practice of Connection, Belonging & Community”. Yes, I will be a Doctor of Philosophy in… Latin Dance?! My discipline is actually human geography. It took me about a year to read 100 books and articles to understand what that meant, something to do with researching the relationships between humans and the places where they are, and how they feel and are affected by these places and spaces.

Then, as part of my scholarship pathway, I had to complete an “industry internship”, with future employment after the PhD being the main goal of this requirement. I had a few prospects, I did a few interviews before making a choice.

Funny enough, I wasn’t excited by the ballet organisation or the dance journal options, as prestigious and interesting as they were. But when I ended up in a coffee shop talking to Katherine McLean, the director of Hunter Writers’ Centre, she told me about this new pilot program and instantly I was at the edge of my seat, almost salivating, saying, ‘Yes! I will work hard for free for you! Just let me be involved in this!’ And the CrossLit Pilot Program was born.

I am facilitating a session in CrossLit, which gives me the opportunity to be as creative as possible, bringing writing into conversation with other artforms and embodied practices:

Cross-train
Borrow methods from other genres and artforms. Move between poetry and prose, fiction and essay, text and image, or try montage from film, repetition from music, and collage from visual art. Each session takes a compositional idea from somewhere else and pushes it through language. Break habitual patterns, make hybrid forms and find structures, rhythms and ways of making meaning that live outside your usual form.

For writers who want to take creative risks and discover new ways of shaping language and meaning. I am becoming the full time creative that the last 23 years in Australia have been about!

I knew that CrossLit had to be created, I am happy to be involved in bringing it to life! I can’t wait to see how many writers will get involved, how much writing, and the creativity that will abound from it!

How do you eat a Universe?

How do you eat a Universe that contains 50k words + 2 podcasts + a new job + a website + a workshop + a writing mastery mentoring package? One bite of 1667 words at a time.

I have just released my Creative Space Mastery Podcasts in English and Brazilian Portuguese, with my new website: creativespacemastery.com

Somehow, I have also completed the Nanowrimo.org writing marathon, writing fifty thousand words in November.

Finally, I started at a new job. How? I asked myself. It’s a focus strategy, where I prioritised the tasks to secure the new job, got the words for the day (1667 words per day), got through a couple of tasks for the podcasts each day. Following inspiration, always. A phrase from one of the books from my collection of mini books is at the bottom of the principle I follow:

“Sit down to write what you have thought, and not to think what you shall write.”

William Cobbett

I use it and expand it… where I follow inspiration for guidance rather than trying to force its hand.

This year was manic-depressive, the old word for bipolar. It was fret with highs and lows, with moments of ecstatic joy, such as my sister and brother-in-law’s wedding, travelling with my parents, and having time for my creativity with a maturity to use it, as I didn’t have in 2010 when I took a sabbatical year for writing (back then, my time was filled with anxiety, while this year was full of joy). On the other hand, I call this year bipolar because if I had some great moments I also had the death of important people around me, uncertainty, dejection and other challenges.

This year, on one of the many occasions when I didn’t get a job, I also decided to stop the suffering and instead of working harder, I decided to work lighter. I concluded that if I spent my savings and finished with no job and just stress to amount for the time I had spent, it wasn’t worth it. But if I had advanced my creative projects, I would have spent it well.

From then on, I would spend half a day job searching and the rest of the day, creating. For guidance, the very next day, I walked the twelve kilometres of the Narrabeen Lagoon by myself, meditating on what was the starting point for my creative projects, where my inspiration wished me to go. What did heart and logic say? 

They said that Point Zero was the Podcasts, they were my heart poured out. 

They were something that I had been working to create for a while, I had been to Toastmasters to learn more about public speaking, I had been writing the content, and they would kick start the other projects. As I walked, and danced by myself, around the lagoon, among cockatoos and ducks, trees, flowers, flies and bees, the plan was set. When I sat down that week, a one-day-workshop for Creative space mastery came out. Fully structured and organised. 

I follow inspiration, faithfully, so I gave it all my dedication and love and the ideas I had been compiling and throwing in a folder gained form, gained order, shape, movement and logic. It is beautiful to see a narrative “become”. And just like that I had the content perfectly set and organised for my podcasts. And as a bonus, a day-workshop was created.

When November came about, a flood of inspiration came through. I had the scripts for the first episodes of the podcasts ready, the content for the related website, and the book about creative writing that is in its second draft was the perfect material for the writing marathon.

It was easy from there. Full creative flow. Never have I experienced so much of it. When you go through a lot of rejection of your abilities and gifts it is easy to forget to see these gifts, these abilities. That’s why having psychological help is invaluable. 

I have 3 angels, I show up for support sessions I set and the help I need, and the people who help me showed me the gift of having a hiatus from work at the prime of one’s life. With gratitude in my heart, creative Muse was generous and this month, it is all being born at creativespacemastery.com.

Como você devora um Universo?

Como você devora um Universo que contém 50 mil palavras + 2 podcasts + um novo emprego + um site + um workshop + um programa de mentoria em conquista do espaço criativo? Com uma bocada de 1667 palavras de cada vez.


Acabei de lançar meus podcasts Creative Space Mastery em inglês e português, com meu novo site: creativespacemastery.com

De alguma forma, também concluí a maratona de escrita do Nanowrimo.org, escrevendo cinquenta mil palavras em novembro.

Finalmente, comecei em um novo emprego. Como? Me perguntei. É uma estratégia de foco, onde priorizei as tarefas para garantir o novo emprego, me dediquei à escrita das palavras para o dia (1667 palavras), e a completar alguns objetivos para os podcasts todos os dias. Seguindo a inspiração, sempre. Uma frase de um dos livros da minha coleção de mini livros está no âmago dos princípios que sigo:

“Senta para escrever o que você pensou, e não para pensar no que você vai escrever.”

William Cobbett

Eu o uso e o expando… onde sigo a inspiração para orientação, em vez de tentar forçar sua mão.

Este ano foi maníaco-depressivo, a antiga palavra para bipolar. Foi repleto de altos e baixos, com momentos de alegria extasiante, como o casamento de minha irmã e cunhado, viajar com meus pais e ter tempo para minha criatividade com uma maturidade para usá-la, como não tive em 2010 quando tirei um ano sabático para escrever (naquela época, meu tempo foi cheio de ansiedade, enquanto este ano foi cheio de alegria). Por outro lado, chamo este ano de bipolar porque, se tive alguns momentos maravilhosos, também enfrentei a morte de pessoas importantes ao meu redor, incertezas, desalento e outros desafios.

Neste ano, em uma das muitas ocasiões em que não consegui um emprego, também decidi parar de sofrer e, em vez de trabalhar mais, decidi trabalhar de forma mais leve. Concluí que se gastasse minhas economias e terminasse sem emprego e apenas com estresse para justificar o tempo que gastei, não teria valido a pena. Mas se eu tivesse avançado nos meus projetos criativos, teria sido tempo bem gasto.

A partir de então, passei a gastar metade do dia procurando emprego e o restante do dia, criando. Para me iluminar, no dia seguinte, caminhei os doze quilômetros da Lagoa Narrabeen sozinha, meditando sobre qual era o ponto de partida para meus projetos criativos, para onde minha inspiração desejava que eu fosse. O que diziam o coração e a lógica?

Eles disseram que o Ponto Zero era os Podcasts, eles eram meu coração se derramando. 

Eram algo que eu vinha trabalhando para criar há algum tempo, tinha ido ao Toastmasters para aprender mais sobre falar em público, estava escrevendo o conteúdo, e eles dariam início aos outros projetos. Enquanto eu caminhava, e dançava sozinha, ao redor da lagoa, entre cracatoas e patos, árvores, flores, moscas e abelhas, o plano se definiu. Quando me sentei para escrever naquela semana, um workshop de um dia para a Conquista do Espaço Criativo saiu. Totalmente estruturado e organizado.

Sigo a inspiração, fielmente, então dei a ela toda a minha dedicação e amor, e as ideias que eu vinha compilando e jogando em uma pasta ganharam forma, ordem, movimento e lógica. É lindo ver uma narrativa “virar“. E assim, o conteúdo ficou perfeitamente definido e organizado para meus podcasts. E como bônus, um workshop de um dia foi criado.

Quando chegou novembro, uma enxurrada de inspiração veio. Eu tinha os roteiros dos primeiros episódios dos podcasts prontos, o conteúdo para o site relacionado, e o livro sobre escrita criativa que está em seu segundo rascunho era o material perfeito para a maratona de escrita.

Foi fácil a partir daí. Fluxo criativo total. Nunca experimentei tanto disso. Quando você enfrenta muita rejeição de suas habilidades e dons, é fácil esquecer de ver esses dons, essas habilidades. É por isso que ter ajuda psicológica é inestimável.

Tenho 3 anjos, compareço às sessões e à ajuda de que preciso, e eles me mostraram o presente de ter um hiato do trabalho no auge da vida. Com gratidão no meu coração, a Musa Criativa foi generosa e neste mês, tudo está nascendo em creativespacemastery.com.