A preface

Creative process and why I am not writing another book right now

Something I’m made of wants to tell a story.

There are words in us,

our body carrying them.

Verses wrapped in paragraphs,

essays wrapped in paper—

lining soft walls within us.

I want to listen,

I want to tell.

There is beauty here,

there is beauty

here.

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I am learning that even the most beautiful, well intended and innately beheld narratives,

can get in the way,

of telling a story.

In terms of my writing process and this new long form that is a slow moving extension of the prose, poetry and lyrical pieces I am more intimate with, I have been moving into a personal challenge—

I am breaking things down and pulling them apart, and asking myself some open ended questions, without letting the answers that arrive immediately get first dibs on my fullstops.

This is an interesting, exciting and somewhat vulnerable process,

one I admittedly feel insecure in it.

For me, it’s been much like discovering that after making home in a room, there is a whole house I didn’t know about just outside the door. The idea of occupying all this new space is somewhat strange and oddly but to ignore it would be to say no to curiosity, no to process and no to getting to the crux. In all the feelings that are inhabiting beneath me, there is this bubbling feeling too— a feeling that this might just be the beginning of something deeply personal, an antidote to some of the tensions I have felt over the years when trying to write, when trying to speak.

Things often make more sense in reverse.

A playful illustration representing 'Getting to the crux'.

My long standing trek with poetic license and tendency to lean into the romantic throughout my long evolving relationship with art-making (a newer relationship with writing) has me exploring a question—

What if the well intended narratives I write from are gatekeeping more parts of the story? or even further, what if my lens is getting in the way of the story I’m desperate to tell?

I wonder what would happen if my pursuit to see beauty and be awake to it as the undercurrent and leading of my entire creative process was given the chance to explore the duality found in both telling the story beautifully— and the beauty found in not telling it beautifully.

What if I sit with my discomfort for a little longer? what’s beneath it?

What if I take my defaults and narratives and sit with them long enough to let echoes of the stories beneath them seep through?

What if there are words that come after the words?

Essentially, I’m trying to get to the crux, beyond default, beyond the room I have dwelled and beyond the sentiments I’ve nestled into along the way.

I want to undress some things and find some of the words that might unknowingly be found hiding behind other words. It’s in the unfolding of this body of work on creative process and why I am not writing another book right now that I want practice and explore the new rooms in this house of art.

'In the process' Captured by Kylee Hewitt

I’ll be dividing this body of work into two parts, because there’s a lot—

Part one: My creative Process. The most common question I get asked surrounding creativity — “What is my process?” a question I struggle to answer in short as it is multi-layered, seasonal and ever-changing. I want to understand more about the undercurrents of my process, the origins that formed it and share what makes it up. This is a question I have never really given time to in terms of sharing completely and in a full bodied way through words. Often with being deep in the process, living in it, moving with it, there is but rare occasion to step outside of it and be audience to it.

I want to sit

and reflect

and share

and give it language beyond the one-two-step.

Part two: Why I am not writing a book right now. An honest piece exploring where I currently find myself creatively, some of the surprising grievances and tensions that have come up along the way in choosing to follow my creative instincts, along with an array of other thoughts that have come up around being inherently creative and it also being my day job, my nervous system, timing, integrity, voice, paying my bills with art and the complexities that it holds.

I’m letting fall out completely undressed

and I look forward to sharing the adjoining pieces with you here.

This upcoming two part series will offer a free preview to all subscribers and the full crux and body of work will be exclusively available to paid subscribers only. Thank you for sowing here, for this opportunity to push my own limits and find the words begging to be found, just beneath the words on top.

All my love

Tess

x

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