Saturday Inspiration: Liking What You Like
Celebrity Ghost Stories, Star Energy, and Creative Research
Every so often, I have to remind myself that it’s ok to like what I like
Do you ever get sick of your own writing— sick of your very neural pathways— convinced that the stale feeling will last forever and nothing will ever feel fresh again?
Sometimes it helps to go out into nature, go to an art exhibit, or read a nonfiction book on a topic that interests you. Other times, it helps to watch reruns of Celebrity Ghost Stories on YouTube.
Yes, Celebrity Ghost Stories exists and I watch it when my brain is tired and I just want to watch celebrities (and near-celebrities) talk about paranormal events. It also connects to my lifelong interests in ghosts/spirits, the metaphysical, and communication with the dead. When I’m watching it, I’m not necessarily thinking, “Oh, here’s some potential poem or essay material,” though my friend Sara-Ethel wants me to write a chapbook of poems about Celebrity Ghost Stories. (I could talk about how some stories are oddly touching, like those told by Joan Rivers, Carrie Fisher, and Rue McClanahan. In part because they are all now “on the other side,” but not only for that reason. I could also talk about how I think John Waters made up his story.)
I strongly suspect that activities like this which have no “purpose,” activities that are not connected to being productive in any direct way, are central to our well being and to having a healthy creative life. It’s a question of letting yourself enjoy what you enjoy. Sometimes I like to “be the person I just am,” as I put it in a poem once.
Yesterday while I was thinking about letting yourself like what you like, I was playing around with my tarot cards and happened to pull the Star card. A local tarot card reader I like, Gina Wisotzky of the Incandescent Tarot Substack, has great discussions of card meanings on her website, and she has this to say about the Star card (in part):
This purity of emotion is an important guide that The Star tells us to follow wholeheartedly. What makes us feel truly like ourselves? What do we love just because? When we connect to the wellspring of inspiration within ourselves we emerge into the world as new beings much like the naked figure in this card.
The card also shows the figure pouring into the waters of the unconscious and onto material land at the same time. One feeds the other. And according to my 1971 book Mastering Tarot by Eden Gray, “[b]ehind her a bird, said to be the sacred ibis of thought, rests in the tree of the mind. Eight stars, each with eight points, represent radiant cosmic energy.” Gray notes that the Star is “the card of meditation,” showing how “meditation modifies and changes (transmutes) the personal expression of cosmic energy as it pours down upon us…. the Truth will unveil itself in the silence.”
Creative Research
Related to liking what you like, I’ve been thinking about the idea of creative research, of following threads that pique your interest as part of creative practice. In a recent interview Nancy Reddy did with author Erica Berry, Berry discusses research, collage, and Joseph Cornell (a favorite of poets, too!), ending with a great prompt about beginning to map out interests that are tugging at your creative mind. Check it out!
By the time I finished my PhD in American literature, I felt like doing research and writing that fit into the world of literary scholarship had taken me away from the part of my mind from which I produced creative work, to some extent. But research and creativity don’t have to be at odds, of course. Discussing how research informed the essays in her collection Twenty Square Feet of Skin, Muse instructor Megan Baxter had this to say in a recent interview:
I’m a history nerd and love the process of research. There’s always some dense historical text or biography on my bedside table; in fact, I probably read more historical texts than any other genre. My creative and imaginary life is populated with figures I’ve studied, or been drawn to in one way or another. Meriwether Lewis, as I explore in ‘On Running’ was the subject of my sixth-grade history paper and he stuck with me, the idea of this brilliant, troubled man who had seen so much but was still unable to find happiness. Other non-autobiographical threads like Prince, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Bruce Springsteen, are personal favorites that have inspired me, or who represent a specific period of my life. Don Johnson pops up because I was assigned his song through a Twitter essay writing competition called March Badness. I always want to add depth to my work and I’ve found that additional voices and research produce an effect that feels very authentic to my personality.
To read an example of how Megan integrates research into creative work, you can read “A Deliberate Thing I Said Once to My Skin” in Threepenny Review, which won a Pushcart!
Courses
If you’re interested in following your own pulls toward non-autobiographical threads in creative projects, check out the new course Megan Baxter developed for Muse, The Writer as Researcher, which begins on September 10th. (5-week guided course, payment plans available through PayPal at checkout. Early bird price ends soon!)
Shapes of Stories offers a masterclass in essay forms with multi-genre writer Nancy McCabe. (10-week guided course, payment plans available through PayPal at checkout. Early bird price ends soon!)
And there is still room in the group self-guided course starting Monday 8/14, Approaching Mystery: Writing Flash Memoir about Wonder and the Unexplained.
You can also register for Fall 2023 generative writing workshops. The first one is Saturday September 2nd. ($40 each/ $25 for paid subscribers to the newsletter)