Creative timelines
In the good way and the less-good way
Today, think about an early creative experience that felt a little intense. Maybe your mind goes to the first time you were praised for doing whatever art you do, or maybe it’s more complicated than that and you go right to the first time you felt embarrassed about receiving less-then-ideal attention for your creative work.
Trace that feeling forward in your life. Where did you recreate that? Where have you continued to flinch from that wound or shine from that praise? Keep writing, tracing this feeling forward in time until you reach your present life. Where has this single event continued to echo around your life?
What I love about this exercise is that it almost always seems like a no-big-deal little task and you begin writing and BOOM, suddenly there’s this memory and when you poke at it, suddenly it unfurls across your entire life. Write until you give yourself that holy shit moment. See what snaps into view creatively after that.
Let’s write.
