Standing in the Hallway of Yourself: How to Cope with the Spaces of Your Writer’s Life

Imagine sinking into a bubble bath—easing down into hot, fragrant water full of bubbles.  A glass of chardonnay rests on the small table next to the rug, Mozart plays softly, and only candles light the room.  For the next hour you have nowhere to go and nothing to do except to be here, soaking away the stress of the day and embracing the sensual healing of your bath.

Now imagine that, just as you sink down into the hot tub, the doorbell rings.

Each of us has spaces in our lives: compartments that hold the different hats that we wear. Each of the significant parts of your life is a space that you enter and leave at will. There may be some correlation to physical spaces but that is not what I mean: I’m not talking about walking in the door to work or in the door to home. Rather, there is an energetic space involved.  When we sit down to write, we enter into the space where we exist as a creative person. To be deeply immersed in our own creativity, we must enter fully into this space.

It can be a problem when the artist leaves the door to too many of her spaces open at the same time.  If you sit down to write while your email program is open, or your internet browser is set to your Facebook page, or a work document that you need to deal with is open, it is as if you are standing in the hallway of yourself, not quite certain which room to walk inside. If instead you close the email, close the internet browser windows, move the to-do list out of sight, place the briefcase from work under the desk, then you are shutting all the doors and closing those energetic spaces away. Now the artist feels as if she is in the foyer, choosing which closed door to open.  From this choice point, you may choose to enter the door of your highest creative self.

It is possible to create a ritual of entering the room of your writer self. Clear the decks of distraction, put on beloved quiet music, make a cup of tea: do the same things each and every time to set the scene for your creativity.  Then, perhaps, close your eyes and sink into a light meditation.  When the cares of the outer world have slipped away, it’s time to pick up the keyboard and write.

Learning to enter the space of creative flow at will pays off in other ways—you can use similar techniques to enter the workspace, or to transition from work to home. And wherever you are, there all of you will be—committed, whole, and fully present. Ahhhh.