In this episode, we deep-dive into the topic of the creative process and the challenges it poses for writers like us. We expand on Gina’s Creativity Quest, introducing the next step in the process: the concept of “Releasing,” and its impact on our writing journeys.

Gina kicks off the discussion with a description of how the former step, “Carrying Inner Disquiet” (see episode 19) directly leads to “Releasing” in a healthy creative process.

One of the critical things we discuss is the struggle of releasing control, in particular, whether manifested as perfectionism or procrastination. As a discovery writer, I usually don’t work with a detailed plot outline for my stories. Instead, I thrive in exploring and unveiling the story as it unfolds. I tend to get over-excited about knowing the outcome in advance, but I’ve learned the hard way that it’s not the most successful approach for me. Instead, I’ve learned to trust my instincts as a writer and go with the flow.

Melody talks about a similar struggle. She often finds herself trying to force the storyline or character development, but midway through, she realizes her initial ideas don’t work. She has to step back, be flexible, and allow her story to evolve naturally.

We also touched upon the importance of scheduling our time. I’ve realized I need to let go of spontaneity to ensure I get enough writing time. While spontaneity is fantastic, it can be a hindrance when there’s a need for dedicated writing time. Melody echoed similar sentiments, stressing the need for scheduling downtime. Amid her demanding landscape design business, she emphasized the need to create space for relaxation and self-care to fuel creativity.

Finally, Gina brings up the ever-topical book “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield, a book that deals extensively with the concept of resistance. We all agree that it’s a powerful resource for anyone facing resistance in their creative journeys.

Resources:

War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Gina’s  Women’s Writing Retreats 

The Queen’s Aerie by K.C. York (on Ream – there are a few free chapters there, but you need a (free!) Ream login to read them)

Ep. 20: The Creativity Cycle – Releasing

Dave Hogan, Gina’s Pop
0:02
Welcome to Around the Writer’s Table, a podcast focusing on the crossroads of creativity, craft, and conscious living for writers of all ages and backgrounds. Your hosts are Gina, Melody, and KimBoo, three close friends and women of a certain age, who bring to the table their eclectic backgrounds and unique perspectives on the trials, tribulations, and the joys of writing. So pull up a chair and get comfortable here around the writer’s table.

KimBoo York
0:42
Hey, y’all, it’s KimBoo welcome back to  Around the Writer’s Table. This is Episode 20. We are coming back round to the creativity cycle. This is the next stage; it’s called Releasing. We’re going to go into a lot of detail on that. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, please go back to Episode 19 [Episode 18]. We go in a lot more detail over what the creativity cycle is. It’s a method that Gina has come up with and refined to help authors work their way through the cycles of creativity. So as I said, we’re going to be talking about the next stage in that, which is Releasing. 

I, of course, am KimBoo. I’m a romance novelist and former project manager who helps writers and solopreneurs find time, mojo, and motivation to create. I am here with my lovely co-hosts. We’re all awake, which is a triumph. It’s been a long week for all of us, I think. But, Gina, want to give yourself a little bit of a shout-out?

Gina Hogan Edwards
1:40
Sure. I’m Gina Edwards. Glad to have you, listeners, here with us today. I am passionate about supporting women in finding their voices, particularly on the page. I’m a creativity coach and editor.

KimBoo
1:54
And I’m also here, of course, with Melody, A Scout, who has been spending a lot of time outdoors lately going into summer. Melody, what’s up with you? Give us an intro.

Melody, A Scout
2:04
Hey, thank you all, listeners, for taking time out of your busy schedules to join us today. I’m Melody, A Scout, and I help my clients find their sense of home by restoring balance and harmony to their lives through plant spirit medicine and my book Soul of the Seasons. I’ve been outside this week because I’m also a landscape designer and it’s been busy.

KimBoo
2:28
Busy. Yeah, because we’re here in North Florida. And we’re starting to go into summer and things grow riotous around this time of year. Since, we are talking… Right, weeds, like all of it. Yeah, my dog. We just got out of what are called the briar season because the briars have been coming up and getting stuck in my dog’s very cottony fur. So I’m glad to see those grow away and my dog not stopping every three feet to gnaw on her paws. But okay, that’s enough about my dog. I could talk about her the whole time. We are here to talk about the creativity cycle, the next stage which is Release. So Gina, come on in and give us a little bit more about what this is and how it affects writers in our creative life.

Gina
3:15
So the creative cycle is something that is a result of the work that I have done both on myself and with my clients through editing and creativity coaching, and just sort of seeing the things that we experience as writers, the way that we navigate the creative process in both elegant and not so elegant ways. The trials and tribulations and all of that. We went into sort of an overview of the 10 what I call stages of the cycle. There are 10 stages, but they are not necessarily experienced by the creator or the writer in any particular order. There are certain stages that just naturally lead to others. And so that’s sort of the order that we’re speaking about them in. And so we did an overview of the cycle in Episode 18. And then, our last Episode 19, we did a discussion of Inner Disquiet. That’s the first stage.

KimBoo
4:30
I got that wrong on the intro. 

Gina
That’s okay. 

KimBoo
I said 19 was the overview. So yeah, 18 is the overview, 19 is Carrying Inner Disquiet. I stand corrected.

Gina
4:40
No problem, no problem. So on the Episode 18, where we talk about the overview, and also with each of these stages that we’re going to be talking about, there is a graphic that lists out all the stages. So if you want a little kind of follow along with us, you can download that image, and then each one of the stages is going to have its own worksheet. 

So the last time, we talked about Inner Disquiet, and this episode, we’re going to go into the next stage, which I call Releasing. And in a nutshell, it is basically a willingness to do something about the Inner Disquiet. But in order to give some reference point for our, maybe for our new listeners and a reminder for those of you who did hear the last episode, want to talk a little bit about Inner Disquiet. 

So, that stage comes from an unsatisfied creative longing. So it’s this urge to create that hasn’t been answered, and it can show up in several ways. So we talked in the last episode about feeling the disquiet, but not necessarily being fully aware of the source. And I told a little story in Episode 19, about my husband recognizing it before I did. So you can go back and listen to that if you’d like. 

Another way that the Inner Disquiet shows up is when we have maybe an idea or a specific project that we want to work on, but life won’t let it happen. And so we know that we want to create, but we can’t. There might be, you know, a death in the family, a birth, a new job. So the Inner Disquiet can show up in those two ways. But there’s actually a third variety of discomfort, and that’s when we know consciously that we have this unfulfilled creative urge, and we have a project or an idea, and we could do something about it. But we don’t. And we might even use life in air quotes, as our excuse not to. So that particular variety of discomfort is when the Releasing stage can be the most helpful. 

So what does releasing mean? Releasing is, like I said, a willingness to do something about the discomfort. It can be a releasing of resistance, which is a big thing in that third scenario I mentioned, where we’ve got the project and we know we want to do it, but we don’t. So resistance. It might be releasing clutter, distractions of all manner. I say it’s also a releasing of nouns: people, places, things. And that can look different for different people. It can be anything from reorganizing your office to beginning a new project and everything that’s in between. 

Sometimes this stage can be something like opening the cap, opening the bottle of a soda, you know, that’s been shaken. And just, you know, because all of these memories and experiences and the wealth of things that we have to draw on when we’re writing can come to the surface, because we’re letting go of the things that have been hindering us. And some, we may still have a lot of craft left to be learned, but there’s this excitement about all the possibility. And sometimes it can be a really heady stage, especially if you’re a new writer, and all these things are coming up for you. And even if you’re an experienced author, the excitement of a new project. So it can be… this, this stage can feel a lot like falling in love sometimes. If the person hasn’t… 

KimBoo
8:47
That’s kind of a neat way to put it. Yeah.

Gina
8:51
It’s really a very heady stage. It can be when we are not—this is a little ironic-–when we’re not resistant to the Releasing. If the person has been in this creative process before, sometimes this stage might get skipped. And I’m not going to say a whole lot about that yet. It’ll probably come up organically in the rest of our conversation. So I want to find out from each of you, ladies, who’re co-hosting with me, now that you’ve sort of heard the definition of Releasing, I’d just like to kind of talk a little bit about how that might show up for you and I don’t think we can talk about it without also thinking about how Inner Disquiet shows up for us. So just how does Releasing show up for you when you are ready for that stage? Melody, you want to go first?

Melody
9:55
Sure. Releasing is, to me, coincides with the season of Fall, which is a season of letting go, and we’re going to talk about that more in Episode 21, but that I can, I don’t have, as far as my writing craft goes, I don’t have a problem revising, letting go of passages, letting go. Some people find that difficult to let go of any part of what they have written; it becomes precious. And I understand that. It’s hard won. Writing doesn’t, you know, come easy. The craft. So, but I don’t have a problem with that. What I would have more problem of is releasing my resistance to welcoming in the next phase. So Releasing a particular part of the writing process. And that is that fun, in love stage for me, which is like the first draft and everything’s popping off and going great. It’s hard to let go of. That is so much fun for me and a lot of other writers too. It’s all our creativity, and everything’s firing on all cylinders. And then it feels like we have to go back into drudgery when we start the revision process. So maybe letting go of those little endorphin hits about popping off all these things is, is part of what challenges me in Releasing into the next phase or season of my writing process.

Gina
11:41
So it sounds like you are describing me.

Melody
11:49
We are not alone.

KimBoo
11:50
Yeah, right. No one else relates to this. Like, you’re in a, you’re in a vacuum completely,

Gina
11:56
There’s a definite headiness to starting a new project. And that headiness can often keep us from finishing, you know, because it’s like, oh, it’s squirrel syndrome, you know. It’s the shiny object thing. There’s something new. There’s something that’s maybe more exciting than the thing that now I have maybe drafted and have to do the hard work of revision on. Let’s just move on to this next new project, and let me stay in that sort of heady state and not finish.

Melody
12:30
All shiny and pretty and…

KimBoo
12:33
I know, new ideas, new ideas, I’m sure Gina has no experience with that right now. I’m calling her out a little bit. For me, so I was thinking as you were talking about, you know, what the release is, and when I come in through the Inner Disquiet where I have an idea I want to get out and I want to share. The release really comes from, for me, releasing control, because I’m a discovery writer, and it’s very tempting for me to just try to create an outline or try to decide what’s going to happen in advance, I usually have a general concept. And oftentimes when I write, I do write according to beats, such as, you know, the hero’s journey, or save the cat or whatever fits for that particular story. But I get so excited about it, I want to know what happens, right? And so I’m like, “Well, if I can just figure out what happens and then I can write it,” that’s really not a good way for me to go. I have to release the idea that I can completely, I don’t want to say ‘control’ the story because we’re writers, you know. We do control the story. But I have to let release the idea that I can control the creative process. Because even if I’m following beats, even if I have an idea of how the story is going to end, I need to just rely and trust my instincts as a writer for that first draft, to just follow it through, and stop trying to, like, micromanage myself, which is ironic. I do not relate well to micromanaging in any context from anybody, and yet I do it to myself, most of all. Like, I don’t get it, what our brains… but when it comes to Releasing, that’s what I was thinking of. It’s like releasing my control over the creative process. That’s where releasing is tough for me.

Gina
14:27
So do you have any tactics for, because you’re obviously fully consciously aware of this need to release that? Do you have any tactics to help you get over that, to lean in? 

KimBoo
14:43
You know, we’ve had… Yeah, we’ve talked. Recently, Gina and I have had a couple of conversations about bravery and courage. And one of the things that my father always taught me—he was an Air Force officer and he flew in World War Two and Korea and Southeast Asia, aka Vietnam—and one of his things was, you know, feel the fear and do it anyway. And so one of the things is when I’m really getting into that stage where I’m holding myself back because I’m trying to control what the output will be, I really just have to, you know, sternly talk to myself and say, “You can do that, but first write 500 words of the next scene.” You know, I give my personal permission to exercise that control. But I’m like, “Okay, do that later, dude. Right now, write 500 words of the next scene.” And I’m not saying that always works. But sometimes that really helps me get over the hurdle of trying to throttle the process. It’s just like, “Okay, you can do that. Yeah, but first…”

Melody
15:47
Yeah, yeah, that really reminds me, I can relate to that, KimBoo, because I find myself trying to force either the storyline or the character. Because I came up with this idea in the beginning about: this is how my characters are going to be, this is how the story is going to go. And then, you know, midway through, I just realized that in the novel I’m working on, midway through like, yeah, that’s a great idea. But that’s not going to work in this story. So now, what are you going to do? So I don’t know what I’m going to do, yet, about it. But I’ve at least come to those spot that I’m not gonna shoehorning this particular story passage into my story.

KimBoo
16:38
And I kind of want to cycle back to as well, Melody, where you’re talking about having to release some of the ideas that you had, because my latest release, which is one I’m releasing on my subscription platform right now is the Queen’s Aerie, and it’s a fantasy romance, a polyamorous fantasy romance, and the instigation for that story was a scene, a very dramatic scene—I’m not going to be spoilery in case there’s, you know, .01% of our audience wants to go read it—but it was a very dramatic scene. It was on a beach. It was in the middle of a war. And it was just super dramatic. And that was the first scene I wrote. And then when I actually got to that scene in the course of writing the story, it did not fit at all. Like nothing of that scene lived in that story anymore. And I had to let go of it. I just had, like, there was no place to put it. There was nothing I could do with it. The big dramatic moment that I had created and crafted for the story, as I wrote it needed to be different. And so, yeah, that one hurt. I had to release that one. And it’s still sitting on my hard drive somewhere. But I can’t use it anywhere. It’s just not, there’s nothing for it.

Gina
17:50
Accepting that that scene was the spark.

KimBoo
17:57
That’s true. It really was the spark. It was the idea. And you know, it was 2,000 words of a great scene. But I had to let it go. I had to release it, because it just didn’t fit the story that I ended up writing. Yeah.

Melody
18:10
And that shows us how Inner Disquiet cycles around again. Because even though we have this great idea from the beginning, it’s like, yeah, it’s not happening. Our characters are like, “No, that’s not gonna happen in this story.” Maybe another story, but not this one.

Gina
18:33
So I know that for me, one of the things that I have to guard in this stage, one of the things I have to pay attention to, is releasing clutter in order for me to open the floodgates of creativity, in order for me to step into the process. Clutter is a big barrier. And so…

KimBoo
19:00
What are you… what are you… what is clutter for you in that situation?

Gina
19:05
Can I show you a picture of my desk?

KimBoo
19:07
Okay, Gina, you are going to take a picture of your desk, and we’re gonna put it on the website when we post this episode.

Gina
Oh.

Melody
19:19
Do we, do we all have to do that? I think we all have to do that.

KimBoo
19:22
Yes, I think you have to take a picture of our desks. And when we talk about clutter, so with our listeners, they can have a visual guide.

Gina
19:34
I mean, I do have to say that I have a great excuse. You know, I’ve been planning for this writing retreat that we just completed. And so everything was a whirlwind before I left, but honestly what to come back to that, wanting so desperately after having spent five wonderful days at the beach with women writing, wanting to stay in that writing mode, but I have all this clutter around me. So I really do, you know, I do consider it a Releasing when I reorganize. When I get everything into a more orderly state, my mind is more orderly. And so over the next few days, I will be releasing the clutter, so that I can make room for my muse to step in in its place.

KimBoo
20:20
Especially coming back from the beach house, because if listeners don’t know, Gina does these retreats regularly. And it’s at a beautiful beach house in a place here in Florida called the St. George Island. And it’s just so peaceful, and you can hear the waves and it’s just, yeah, I can imagine coming back to your cluttered desk. It’s just culture shock.

Gina
20:40
It’s a very orderly place. It’s very, very uncluttered and spacious. And that’s like the opposite of what my office is right now.

Melody
20:49
Likewise, my desk looks like a file cabinet exploded on it. And I will agree that the, you know, I can actually have a fair tolerance for some clutter and still be able to function and get some stuff done. But there’s a point that it’s like, no, no. It just makes my brain hurt to look at it. And because I think the mind wants to go, oh, that all of that needs your attention. And I don’t have the bandwidth to give it all my attention. And yeah, so then I probably, you know, eat chocolate and go watch Netflix for a couple of hours. But it does that, that all calm, that clean, orderliness calms the mind. And, yeah, which is helpful to me, so.

Gina
21:49
In thinking about our nouns—the people, places and things—are there any other things that, in order to make way for the muse, in order to fully step into the creative process, that you feel like you have to release? Anything else come to mind?

KimBoo
22:06
Hmmm, that’s a good question. I’m single. I live alone. I don’t really have anybody in my space, which I think a lot of other writers have to deal with, whether it’s a spouse, other family members, children, or, you know, heaven forbid, they’re college students living in a dorm room or something awful like that. I do think that one of the things as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten much more conscious about. And I think it’s a factor of getting older, rather than a personality thing, is scheduling my time with other people instead of trying to rely on just people dropping by or just, you know, having free time. And I know that’s not quite what you were talking about, as far as Releasing goes, people, place, nouns. But it has affected me in the sense that sometimes I’ve had to let, I guess, I guess what I’ve had to let go of is spontaneity. That’s really what I’m getting at. I need time to write. I need time to be creative. And just saying, “Well, you know, I’ll go hang out with friends or I’ll just work on this project or do this and then eventually I’ll get around to writing.” Spontaneity is something I’ve had to let go of, in that sense. I can’t just wait till I’m in the mood. I have to schedule my writing, you

Melody
23:23
You know, you can schedule spontaneity, which seems oxymoronic, but you know, I find, if I don’t schedule myself the time and space to have that downtime, to talk with friends, to renourish myself, and do self care, there’s nothing that bubbles up. The new creativity doesn’t come because it’s just, I’m always just juggling balls in the air, keeping them all going all at the same time. And that’s no space for creativity. So scheduling time for that is, for me, I have to put it in pen on my calendar, because I’ll often, like, I’m too busy. I can’t do that now. But it just nourishes me. Every time I’m reminded how much that nourishes me.

Gina
24:17
So it sounds to me like both of you are describing in slightly different ways the need to release overscheduling ourselves. 

Melody
24:35
Yeah. And then in conjunction with that, right now, my pay-the-rent business, my landscape design business, is going balls to the wall, and I am grateful for that. I’m liking that income. I love my clients. It leaves little to zero time for creativity as far as my writing goes. But I had to be okay with that because it is a seasonal thing, and soon it’s going to lighten up. And I just need to put my attention on that when I’d rather be, you know, writing and doing all that fun stuff. So I have to be okay that my schedule is what it is for right now.

Gina
25:23
Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Knowing what you need when you need it. What you need to do when you need to do it.

Melody
25:36
That’s the definition of self-care.

KimBoo
25:39
Self-care. Waaa…

Gina
25:42
So to kind of bring us full circle, one of the early things I mentioned about Releasing was resistance. And Melody mentioned this. And resistance has been a huge one for me. And I have found a lot of really great advice in a book by Steven Pressfield called The War of Art, so we will put that in our show notes. But that’s one, listeners, if you have not investigated, it’s a very short book. You can almost read it in one sitting. But for me, the usefulness of it has been having it close by and just being able to randomly open up a page and read an entry from time to time when I’m sort of feeling that resistance come up.

Melody
26:25
I highly recommend it as well.

KimBoo
26:27
Yeah, same here. I liked the way he kind of anthropomorphizes resistance, which you may or may not believe that it’s a real energy, but as a distinct thing, like a demon or something. But it really helps his approach to it really helps I think, solidify, not solidify, but helps show how we do have power over it. Yeah, because resistance can be so insidious, right, like, but it is, in a lot of ways, an internal demon.

Melody
27:01
Oo, what a great writing exercise. I do this in plant spirit medicine a lot with people. If there is an issue or problem or particular state of mind that you’ve had some resistance around or difficulty with, create a being. 

KimBoo
Like a character.

Melody
Yes, yep, a character. If releasing is a character, what does it look like? How does it stand? What is its attitude? And make this specifically to you and your life. What does this look like? How does it move through my life? What does it have to tell me? What do I need to tell it? That is a really cool exercise.

Gina
I like that.

Melody
It’s a good way to not only understand but maybe connect more with our motivations and our desires around Releasing.

Gina
27:58
So I know that we’re going to have worksheets on each of these stages. And what we’re going to do as far as the structure of our discussion about the stages is that we will focus on the particular stage in the creative cycle. And then in the next episode, we’re going to relate that particular stage that we just talked about, to the seasons, which we’ve discussed in previous episodes with Melody, and we will refer you back to the relationships that these stages have to the seasons. So I’m suggesting, Melody, that you and I get together to talk about the worksheet for Episode 21, which is our next one upcoming, and see how we can incorporate that exercise that you just talked about into the worksheet. 

Melody
I love that. 

Gina
Yeah.

KimBoo
28:49
And that sounds like a great idea to wrap up on for this episode. What are we doing? So we’re doing for the next Episode 21? We’re doing Releasing; we’re talking about the season. And then so what’s the next stage after that, Gina?

Gina
29:03
The next stage after that, which we’re going to be talking about in Episode 22, is called Emulating and Mirroring. And this, in a nutshell, is basically when we look to our mentors for inspiration and for learning. It’s very much a muscle-building and beginner’s mind stage. And we’ll talk about the good and the bad of that, the challenges, and the feel-good parts as well. So that will be the next stage that we’ll talk about in Episode 22. But first before we go into Episode 22, we will have Episode 21, which is our next one. And in that episode…

Melody
29:47
KimBoo And I like what happened to 21?

KimBoo
29:53
I thought she already talked about… I don’t know. Whatever. Have we told everybody it’s been a long week? It’s been a long week for all of us.

Melody
All good.

Gina
30:03
So listeners join us for Episode 21 when we’re gonna touch again on Releasing but in the context of the seasons, which is Melody’s specialty. So I’m looking forward to that. And just as a reminder, we’ll have a worksheet for this particular stage, along with this episode and the show notes and the transcripts on our website, which is AroundTheWritersTable.com. And you can listen to old episodes there as well. We hope you’ll join us there.

Dave
30:36
Thanks for joining us around the writer’s table. Please feel free to suggest a topic or a guest by emailing info@aroundthewriterstable.com. Music provided with gracious permission by Langtry. A link to their music is on our homepage at AroundTheWritersTable.com. Everyone here around the writer’s table wishes you joy in your writing and everyday grace in your living. Take care, until next time.

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