In pursuit of the creative spark, some of you clean, some of you organize, and some, ahem, plagiarize. But one artist confided that when he wants to look at the world through a new lens, he changes his shoes...to the wrong feet.
Jim Johnston of Mexico City wrote:
"In my studio I wear those hideous (but comfortable) rubber shoes with
holes in them, known as 'Crocs'. When I'm stuck for creative direction
I take them off, switch feet and walk around a bit, then sit back down
to write. The slight, rubbery discomfort usually gives me enough of a
jolt to help out."
Congratulations, Jim!
I hope the brand new beginner's guide to bread baking that I'm sending you, along with a bonus dough-scraper, will provide new inspiration. I highly recommend wearing the shoes on the proper feet during kneading, however. I'd rather not be held responsible for any Croc-related mishaps...
(By the way, check out Jim's great blog on Mexico City here.)
I was thinking about what Jim said, and I realized that when I need to shake things up, I don't change my shoes, but I do change where I write. After writing the first draft of my novel in the not-so-quiet room of the public library, I worked on revisions while I was away at a residency, and finished revising in an unused classroom in a local community center. Now that I've started work on a new novel, I've been trying to write in my dining room, but the frog tank on the table is distracting me (isn't it true we can become distracted by the oddest things). The crickets we put in there for the frog to eat are drowning. I feel less sorry for them as frog food, somehow, but more sorry for them because even when I pick them out of the water and put them back on a rock, they dive right in again. (I know, there are metaphors galore lurking here; I'm just not ready to parse them.) Not high on the evolutionary ladder, brain-wise, these crickets doing the dead-cricket float. I try to tell them the frog will only eat them if they're moving. It's all right if the frog eats them; they've served a noble purpose. But if they drown, stupidly? Then I'm a murderer.
I'm thinking I may have to change locations, again.