Creative
adjective
krē-ˈā-tiv
1 resulting from originality of thought, expression, etc.; imaginative
See also:
The thing that eludes you when you want to be it.
As of today, it’s been nearly three years since I wrote anything. Well, that’s not true. I’ve written about air conditionings. And hinged plastic boxes. I’ve waxed poetic about fire pits and patios, explained tension bushings and how to clean out a koi pond in the spring. I’ve enticed people to install new security cameras in their homes and to get their furnaces serviced in fall.
I haven’t met a character count I can’t conquer for the sake of one of my marketing clients, and there’s a certain amount of creative satisfaction in coming up with yet another way to use an empty plastic box.
But I really really love words and writing them, and I would really really love to write more of them in the pursuit of my own creative passions.
It’s just that most days I don’t have a story to tell. Not one that I want to use many, many words for, anyway. Not ones that I feel are worthy of putting into the world. So it becomes sort of a downward spiral of nothingness. No creativity means no stories, no stories means no words, no words means no creativity. And the spiral perpetuates itself.
It’s what Netflix binges were made for.
But then I happened upon perhaps a not-entirely-brilliant plan, but one that I experimented with for the month of December 2021 (that godforsaken year that followed the godforsaken year of 2020), and it felt nice. It felt, if not exactly creative, at least the stirrings of it. A little bit of something in the nothing.
The plan was: come up with one word each day to think about.
I tried daily gratitude (witness my damnably long post from 2019, and that was just January). I tried daily affirmations. I tried daily reflections. But the one-word project turned out to be challenging and interesting and fun, in a way that I wanted to do more of.
Now here we are, about to start a new year, and maybe it will be more of the same (Covid, anyone?) but I’m going to take it one word at a time.
So as of January 1, this is my project.
It’s an ambitious project for someone who has written nothing of consequence in almost three years, but I’m ready for it.
Are you ready to hear about it?
If not, I suppose this is where you click off and go watch Netflix, but if you’re still here, the plan is this.
Every day, come up with a single word to think about, to reflect on, to ponder and contemplate and expound upon in whatever way that means on any given day.
There are no rules. The words don’t have to be anything special. They don’t have to be things I will do or be or figure out. They don’t have to be positive or productive or meaningful. They can be random words that sound interesting, or something I need to fix, or something I never heard of.
They can be a way to improve myself, or someone else (a pursuit generally pointless and futile, but that doesn’t stop me from trying).
They can be a thing I appreciate, or something I’ve learned that very day. They can be things I love or hate, things I feel or wish I felt.
It doesn’t matter.
What matters is the word, and how I choose to consider it on the day it’s chosen.
That’s all there is to it.
In the process, I will write about that word, why I’ve chosen it, and what it means or how it has affected my day, if it’s affected my day at all. Maybe the word will be gratitude. Or cupcake. Or excommunication, or go.
It’s meant to be fun, reflective, creative and just… words. Because I love them.
If you’re in the mood to join me, then come up with a word of your own, or use mine, or just read about them here. One way or another, 2022 has to be different than its two predecessors for the love of god, so maybe I can make that happen one word at a time.
Onward.
Photo: The 4th of July, 2021 from Harlinsdale Farm in Franklin, Tennessee.