Create a Container: How Short-Term Experiments Support Our Writing Life
// container // anything that contains or can contain something
There are physical containers: a ceramic bowl, the cement square of a neighborhood pool, the four walls of our bedroom.
But the ones I’ve been most interested in lately are time-bound: nature’s seasons, trying something new (like the 8-week pottery class I took one summer), and attempting The Artist’s Way.
Infinite does not work for me right now.
The purpose of the pottery class was to learn the basics and usher you into open studio time. I declined.
The purpose of The Artist’s Way (one of them, at least) is to establish a habit of daily morning journaling. It didn’t last. But that’s also fine!
Anytime we’re on the brink of a new season, like a summer schedule when children are home from school, or maybe a trip beckons on the horizon, it can feel good to let loose creatively. One of the reasons for this, I think, is because it’s temporary. We can put a container of time around something—anything—and see how it goes.
A few ideas for filling these next ten or twelve weeks with whatever you like, big or small…
Writing one haiku a day
Reading a specific genre or author
Revising a short story
Working on an outline
Drafting something entirely new
A weekly coffee shop date to work on whatever you decide
Letting a manuscript breathe
Printing out some poems and marking them up
Swaying in the hammock
Keeping a notebook nearby for stray ideas
This is all part of my now-established annual practice of embracing white space. Nature expands and contracts, and so do we. Let’s offer more spaciousness, really check-in to see what we might need in this particular moment, and create a container around our creativity that feels just right for the season we’re in.
