Grief's remarkable power to provide clarity and express itself in creativity
How loss cuts through perfectionism and connects us with the things that make us feel truly alive again
Hello friends. If you follow me on socials, you’ll have seen that my January hasn’t gone to plan.
In between the rewrites of my fantasy novel, the reinvention of my income streams and my attempt to curb my post-Christmas habits so I didn’t accidentally hibernate till Spring, one of my oldest family friends’ health deteriorated and sadly she passed away.
In the thick fog of grief, big tears and frequent scrolls through our two and half decades of photos together, I’ve been struck by how desperate I’ve been to write again. Dump all of my feelings onto the page, both for myself and my book characters.
Naturally, my productivity has obviously been at an all time low these past few weeks, as I reprioritised the time to spend looking after my loved one - which will forever be time well spent.
But as I pushed back each task, crammed before any immovable deadlines and delayed any chats about new work, I found that all I actually wanted to do was write.
Words were spilling out of me at any given moment, major plot points I’d struggled with were resolving in my mind and I found myself fixing a pen permanently in my hair, with a notebook glued to my hand to try and capture these brief moments of creative clarity.
While I’ve been in awe of grief’s ability to cut through my self-doubt and insecurity and immerse me back into a creative state of being, it’s definitely not the first time it’s happened.
This isn’t revolutionary either, as creativity has always been a beautiful and cathartic outlet for grief, whether that’s through painting, drawing, writing, dance. Dan Levy’s new Netflix film, Good Grief, is a perfect snapshot of this experience.
About a year after losing my dad, my first book idea came to me on a holiday in the Lake District. At that point in time, my grief still manifested itself as internal rage, which, it turned out, was a very fruitful foundation for a young adult fantasy heroine.
That was eight years ago.
The initial seeds of the ideas were solid and remain the basis of the book I’m sending out to agents later this year. But the actual words I’ve written of that book, all 60,000 of them to date, are pretty terrible.
Prior to this very unexpected loss, I thought I wouldn’t be able to rewrite this book.
I’d low key convinced myself that I simply could not do it, I would fail and be unsuccessful at making it any good so why should I try? Of course, it then became a self fulfilling prophecy as I stopped writing it altogether.
What I’ve been reminded of is that the good stuff comes in the rewrite. That process of re-reading, re-learning, editing and amending our own work is where the self-awareness comes in and the ability to grow, learn and improve at what we’re trying to do.
Most of my life as a freelancer is a process of trial and error, one which I’m forever tinkering with to get the balance write as I wrote about earlier in the month.
Yet, sometimes we’re weighed down by the thought of getting things right or perfect the first time that we don’t give ourselves room to fail or do bad work, so opt to do no work at all.
For me, this perfectionism tends to stifle my creativity entirely, as I’m too conscious of what I’m saying, how it sounds and whether it’s any good that the words simply won’t come out. With all that pressure weighing on those words, who can blame them too?
It’s only when I’m in a state of grief or any overwhelming emotion that grounds me back into the big picture of life that I’m able to write freely again.
These past two weeks, I’ve read and written more than I have in months.
I’ve had more clarity about what I do and don’t want from my life and I’ve also consumed more lemon drizzle cake (my brother’s signature bake) and air fryer dinners than I care to admit, because life is about balance.
It’s times like this - when life is coming at me and it demands that I’m wholly immersed in it, that I don’t have time to assess whether I’m any good at what I do, so I’m just able to do it. The quality of my creativity becomes the least important aspect of it, as I simply need to release it in order to feel alive.
While I obviously would not want to live in this instinctive, all-consuming way continuously, in the short-term it' has blocked out most of the limiting beliefs that were holding me back from actually doing any writing at all.
Reading back over what I’ve done, I know that it isn’t perfect, but it’s a baseline to build on top of and more than that, it’s been extremely fulfilling and surprising.
In creative writing it’s often said that the first draft of a novel is just you telling yourself the story, it’s no where near ready to be placed onto a shelf or into the Amazon basket of the masses, but a strong starting point.
What if we approached every aspect of our creativity and work that way? That our first try doesn’t have to be perfect, let alone good, it just has to happen in order for us to improve on it later.
Whether you’re someone who looks for silver linings or like me has simply learnt to embrace life’s unexpected events and the new directions it takes us on, try to remember that creativity and work isn’t about aiming for perfection.
Instead, try to find something fulfilling that feels almost instinctual to you to do, and do it often without judgement or criticism.
After all, making it good, comes later. For now, focus on doing the thing, to improve at it and enjoy it.
On the bookshelf:
Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You by Ali Abdaal
What I’m watching:
I’m am hooked on season 2 of The Traitors. You can catch up with all of season one and two on BBC iPlayer now
At the weekend I watched Mean Girls this weekend and it left me cringing to my very core - read my full review on Letterboxd here.
I’m desperate to see The Holdovers this week after my film friends raved about it at the London Film Festival. It’s in cinemas now.
What I’m listening to:
I’m obsessed with Alexis’ podcast, Do You F*cking Mind? at the moment, and this is one of my all time favourite episodes about the power of discipline.
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