Digging up Rocks - Gloria Guest

 I want to start by saying that I'm very thankful for Vickie Stam's post yesterday, Something More. I felt that I had nothing to share on the subject of creative adaptability, although such a great topic. But Vickie's honest post helped to free me up to just be real. I don't really feel a great deal of creativity these days and I feel like my adaptability has been stretched about as far as it can go right now. This past year and right up to today, has been beyond stressful. I worry about sounding 'whiney' too as Vicky said, but 'it is what it is,' and I've always been a 'say it as it is,' kind of person. I call a spade a spade.

Heart shaped field rock 
that became something new

Speaking of spades they are also known as a rather useful digging tool. And with my spade I feel like I've dug deep for those creative juices to rise to the surface, like the bubbling water from a newly sprung spring. But time and time again my spade has instead struck and scraped against hard, unyielding rocks. Still I've dug. I'm stubborn that way. But with my writing life drying up like the cracked, thirsty ground around me I  decided to try my spade in a new spot. I wasn't so much adaptable as I was desperate and it wasn't what I'd expected. I wanted a gusher, a resounding creative idea to get me back into writing and perhaps even published. Something exciting. Instead I heard the clunk of another rock hit my spade. Bigger. But it budged and so I dug it up and brought it to the surface where I could look at it properly. Perhaps there was some potential here? Something I could do with it? It wasn't the 'water' of writing that I was looking for but when I turned it round and round in my hands and the thought of what it could mean to my writing, I came to an understanding. Perhaps this rock could even be something beautiful in my life.....with some effort...some creative adaptability on my part? 

And so with that in mind, in the past couple of years I've started taking editing classes, with the plan of obtaining my editing certificate. Even though I did a fair bit of editing in the past, on the side, when I worked as a newspaper reporter, it's not the direction that I thought I'd be going in. Yet here I am; daily attempting to climb the hard, granite walls of grammar and sentence structure. It's grueling and not as much fun as studying the art of writing. The learning curve has been steep and it feels like the summit of a certificate might be unattainable. Yet, I can sense that it's been good for the most part. It keeps me in the world of writing (albeit in a different way) and hones my skills as a writer too. I'm learning new strengths and weaknesses ( I think I may hate comma's even more than when I started). Perhaps it'll even lead to a new business venture someday. On the days when the going feels tiring and my footing unsure, I grip my fingers into the rock a little harder and set my slipping foot a little firmer, thinking of where it might lead me. Since I've left reporting, jobs have been as scarce as that gushing spring of water for me; it may be time to be a bit more adaptable in what I can bring to the table. 

I have spent much time in the hallway called 'waiting' in my life. I've even joked to my husband that my middle name should be 'waiting.' While there I have not been so  patient. I have tried kicking down many a door. They don't budge. But I'm stubborn and as I said, I believe in spades ;) and so I have found ways, while waiting, to instead dig up a rock or two. I've even tried painting on a couple :) 

So I am encouraging you who are struggling  with closed doors and long hallways, to also find that one rock to turn over and see something in a new way. Because that's really all creative adaptability is; taking what you already have and turning it around and letting the light shine on it in a new way for you. So when you get tired of kicking doors, as I have, try using that spade to turn a rock or two over. You might be surprised at what you find.  A
door may just crack open and a little light come shining through.

Gloria is a past newspaper reporter/columnist who now writes, blogs, studies editing, waits and digs up the occasional rock, in Caron, Sk.