I go back time and again to the love story. Why? That is the most basic level on which humanity exists. Without love who are we? How can we empower ourselves and uplift ourselves from spiritual poverty? No matter how old you are love will always speak to you. It is much more than a chemical or a physical reaction. We want people in our lives who will transform us, transfigure us into the dazzling creatures we believe ourselves to be. Life goes on but if we aren’t fortunate to love then we are never going to be whole or honest.

What was important to us as children was books, literature and reading from a very young age. It became part of our habitat, our coping mechanisms as children, our achieving and competitive natures. And in a child’s world all the secrets that you have are as fragile as smoke. It is the poet who is numb. The poet who can’t feel a thing when she grows up not to be a mother and a wife but to become an artist. In art everything is a battle. Poetry and art, both are spiritual, both are commodities, both are our connections to other human beings.

Children are selfless. They can be cold and composed when it comes to the playing fields of bullies. I found myself in a big, cold empty house as I grew up, grew into a young woman. I only felt withdrawn, sad emotions veering unstable to exhaustion and enthusiasm. I can’t remember what the word pleasure means although I try and put what I already know into astute perspective. Children of abuse always have a fear of sexual intimacy. When I went away physically but not physically in a dream like a protagonist in a short story I felt such liberation, such personal freedom.

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I was recently in an email conversation with a friend and we were reminiscing about how in the old days, we could look up movies in the newspaper, had to stay in one place when we talked to someone on the phone at home (because the phone was attached to the wall), and how reading maps and giving and following directions was an art. We compared our zeal for research in the bowels of universities, finding journals and scanning microfiche for the articles that would support our theses. In this Age of Information, where technology has lodged itself so firmly in our lives, we wondered, were we better off twenty years ago?

Regardless of the pros and cons I’ve settled on here, there are many rewards to completing a series. It seems to force me to write more tightly, to be sure that the details are consistent, the descriptions are the same, and that my voice varies little throughout each of the books. If the first book has been well received by those who have read it, and they’re clamoring for book two, it can stressful and exciting for the writer.

We are surrounded by change, even as we fight against it. There is comfort in routine. Sometimes creativity craves routine, and other times, the Muse wants novelty. I invite you to change. Alter what you wear when you play guitar, cut up vegetables, or mold clay. Change the time of day you write your poetry, or change the type of poetry you write from rhyming to free verse or haiku.

Like everything in life, creativity has seasons. I’ve noticed that my ideas for writing certainly ebb and flow. Perhaps it’s related to the phases of the moon, or the seasons, or to events in our lives that are unrelated to whatever artistic project we’re working on. If we work a full-time job, maybe there are times when the work load is extra heavy, or there are family issues that demand more of our attention and energy, and therefore there just isn’t enough left over to indulge in that which brings a little joy. And when this happens, we have two choices: we can roll with it, or we can fight against it.

Whenever I go to a new city, I always stand in the middle of the road and take a picture. I love to see the tall buildings or the quaint cottages that line the streets. Restaurants, bars, shops, and public parking garages all offer something in terms of setting. Every structure tells a story. What tale will the houses on your street, the buildings in your neighborhood, tell you?

You could carry a notebook or journal with you and jot down a sentence about something that becomes ensnared in your senses. If you paint, sculpt, sketch, or shoot pictures, ‘make’ what you wrote about. Either literally, a black plastic ashtray with a cigarette in it, or some rendition. If you compose music or dance, take your one sentence beginning, and use it as a basis for a song, or move your body the way the smoke would dance on an unfelt air current.

The Muse, many artists believe, is the gatekeeper to our imagination. The joy that is available when we create that which pushes itself at us, through us, and then is brought into being by our hands, is what often drives artists to do what they do. When we are in the moment, and when we lower the veil of our subconscious mind, then our Muse shows us wonderful, incredible ideas.

Oftentimes, a writing prompt or a spark of creativity comes to us as something unique that catches our eye in our environment, and it tends to be tied to a sense of pleasure. The scent of roses or baking bread, the vibrant colors of an ocean sunset or fall day in an oak tree grove, the sounds of a favorite song or voice of a friend are generally what many artists gravitate towards when it comes to their creativity.