If we’re standing on a cliff but the valley below is where worthwhile action is happening, we need a means by which to work our way down there in one piece, ready to dig in.

This blog is going to follow that descent, my journey of getting down into the weeds of writing, an activity/art I didn’t count worthwhile for a long time. As a kid, I loved daydreaming. An active imagination was at least a useful skill and acceptable activity for the purpose of school writing assignments . . . as long as I actually put words on a page. And I loved reading. But writing anything like what I read didn’t seem like an attainable let alone realistic sort of pursuit. Authors were like fairies, as far as I was concerned, mystical, elusive creatures, never to be encountered in real life.

Over the years, I’ve come across the idea that an active imagination is fueled by space to think. Now, being able to look back to where it was true in my life, I believe it. I’ve also come across so many stories of creative space getting veiled in unpleasant forms: being sick, feeling abandoned by family or friends, unemployment. I also believe it, because unpleasant space is where my writing over the past few years has happened.

But let’s take a pleasant example of creative space: as a kid, I sometimes wasn’t allowed to come indoors until dinner. So I struck out to find meaning in mud and overgrown forest trails and pond streams. Later, I cycled the 3km to school alone and composed songs and learned the Greek alphabet from a printed piece of paper flapping on one handlebar. Lots of space for imagination and daydreaming.

The creativity in that space stayed safely private and, in fact, became a habit for my creative expression in general: for example, playing piano and creative writing. I eventually gave up on writing altogether out of despair at ever meeting the standards of what I was reading at the time: Sir Walter Scott, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, JRR Tolkien, HG Wells, CS Lewis. Why even try? 

To even think of writing like them seemed akin to walking off a cliff’s edge. Perhaps I could just stay aloof, admiring the view of others’ amazing writing from above and avoiding the discouragement of not adding what felt like impoverished attempts.

Get this: I decided becoming an astronaut like Canadian Armed Forces pilot Chris Hadfield was more attainable than becoming a good writer (the story is more complex than that, but the simplicity is satisfying). After all, so much outdoors time and biking had got me fit. And if it’s one thing I never wanted to do, it was work in a cubicle.

So I joined the air force and kept a copy of the Canadian Space Association astronaut application in a drawer to remind me what I was aiming for. I lost sight not only of the value of writing but also of reading fiction and being in nature and savouring art. Anything involving imagination. Instead, I leapt into intense levels of physical activity to prove I could keep up with the guys (whose competitive speed and strength infuriated me as a woman) and reach my goal.

And here I am, no longer in the Forces, incapable of intense physical activity, writing, satisfying my appetite on the view above the computers screen of the forest on the edge of our lawn, and reading voraciously.

Irony. A reversal of fortunes, as it turns out story characters have to encounter for a satisfying reading/viewing experience. If you’re an intense reader, you can look back through the above paragraphs and suspect my character flaws that played into the “protagonist’s” failure to reach the goal. Here are some more flaws:

In all those years of devaluing art and nature, I struggled to think pleasant thoughts. Or perhaps I couldn’t value art and nature with all those unpleasant thoughts. In fact, I disliked imagining anything because it could turn unpleasant. My own Dark Ages. 

Ever-worsening health issues culminated in leaving military service. The investigation of what happened is still ongoing, but I’ve learned something of the psycho-social/emotional/relational/nutritional/environmental influences on physical health. Very real stuff. More on that another time.

But … it’s all gold for writing. 

Being sick, often in bed, gave me time to—no, not to write yet—to think. This was the kind of sick made worse by reading or looking at a screen. I journaled lightly, as encouraged by an artist friend (artists know to process messy life in search of beauty and meaning). After some beautifully healing experiences, I began to dream at night again. Then to daydream/vision again, like when I was a kid. 

My imagination was coming back online. 

One day, listening to someone speak on emotional masks (how “faking it” isn’t the solution) morphed into an imagined scene in my mind. Then a story idea. I took a solo retreat and sat down to write, expecting maybe 1500 words. Five thousand words later, I realized: this is a novel, not a short story. 

Two years later with a 100,000-word second draft, a love of purposeful daydreaming has fully re-emerged. Can you believe people get paid to daydream up stories! What a job. It obviously takes skill and time to capture in words a story that satiates—dare I say, ministers to—the reader, but I’m remembering what attracted me about writing as a kid: it’s delightful entertainment.

And with an intent to let the writing get external, the story has opportunity to take on others-minded purpose rather than being self-minded fantasizing.

So the story took on its own life: I would imagine things about the world and characters I was creating just as I was falling asleep, or waking up, or driving, or reading a book, or scanning an online article, or doing schoolwork. Another writer mentioned to me how they sometimes had to ignore the internal suggestions when ideas invaded time and space meant for other things. Like sleep. A very good point.

Imagining my story world began to motivate getting up in the morning in order to add fresh iterations and find out where the story and characters would go next. I do struggle to write when I’m feeling unwell, even giving up for a day, or days, or a week. But as soon as I feel well enough, the story boomerangs to grab me and argue its merit to get written. 

There’s a sort of healing in this: recovering personal purpose and vision and mission not driven by others; meditating on beautiful things in this story’s prose and poetry; and looking forward to when I can share it for others to enjoy. 

So I look back and see the cliff’s edge I didn’t know how to address: how to write. How to even learn how to write well. Despite walking away from the cliff’s edge in despair, the staircase down was getting built nonetheless, one step at a time:

• gaining life experience that fueled imagination (write not just what you know but what you can imagine well, they say); 
• being forced to stop everything;
• the reboot and healing to my imagination; 
• understanding factors affecting my health to regain physical and emotional stability; 
• and the healing activity of writing freely while entirely forgetting to compare to Sir Walter Scott and Jane Austen. 

So, this blog: it’s my journey of having taken a step off the cliff to write, discovering each stair that’s been built, peering down to see where it goes.

…actually, I’m not entirely sure where it goes.

You up for an adventure? Intrigued by either the writing or healing journey? Welcome to the process. Thanks for your presence.

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Holy Spirit, heal our imaginations to overflow with fruit that ministers to our own and others’ souls.