The Creative Journey by Jackie Biggs

For my first contribution to Brit Writers I want to outline a little of the story of how I got here – and about the creative process that is taking me forwards in my life.

It is just about three months since I gave up my day job as a reporter on the local paper here in Cardigan and the beautiful Teifi Valley in west Wales.

Time to take stock a little – actually a lot!

The decision to stop being a wage-slave was just about the best decision I ever made. I guess I will come down off the ceiling one day, but I am still up there for now.

Enough commercial writing-related work is coming in to keep me going and I have a great part time job working in the open air with dogs that helps me keep fit and provides a good contrast to the rest of my work.  So the balance of life is good.

I am reminded of this quotation from Linda Naiman: ‘ When we engage in what we are naturally suited to do, our work takes on the quality of play and it is play that stimulates creativity.’

She is right -- I have been surprised, no amazed (a much overused word these days, but correct in this case) by the creative work that I have done in the last three months,  and by the writing I plan to do.

Allowing oneself the space and time to be creative is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves.  As soon as I stopped working in the full time job the ideas started coming – and they weren’t the ones I had expected.

I did not plan to write about my journey on the awful lonesome road that followed the death of my life-partner and soulmate early in 2009. But I am writing that story in a mix of poetry, short stories and flash fiction and a collection of work is beginning to come together.

I have been greatly encouraged by the positive reactions to this work so far from my many widow and widower friends, who identify with what I write. And there has been a lot of support and encouragement from good friends who are writers, poets, singers….

One of the surprising things that has happened in the last few weeks is that I have an idea for a novel. When I finished working full time many people said to me, ‘Oh, you’ll write the novel now of course.’  I didn’t expect I would. I write poetry, prose, short stories, flash fiction, not novels.

But on a trip earlier this summer I stumbled on an idea I wanted to write about. I am now researching to see if I can make the idea work and the project continues to develop. Now I have started thinking about it, it seems to roll along under its own momentum. So, there will be a novel.

I am at my happiest at this very moment, because I am writing about how things are. I am sitting in a field writing this – I am actually in the sun outside the beer tent at the CardiFest music and arts festival just outside Cardigan. I am enjoying being free to sit here and write while I drink a pint of cider and watch other people enjoy their day. In today’s world there are many writers who are prevented from writing in public. I am fortunate that I can choose to do this and I live in a country where I am allowed to write freely (so far).

Giving myself the chance to do this is the best thing I ever did for myself – life is for the living. I find that it really is amazing where your creative journey can take you, if you let it.

You can find me and some of my work at: www.jackie-news.blogspot.co.uk

Links:

http://britwriters.blogspot.co.uk/