Act of Creating: Why Our Work is Important by Nevada McPherson

Let’s welcome back monthly columnist Nevada McPherson as she shares with us “Act of Creating: Why Our Work is Important.” Enjoy!

***

The end of winter is nigh, and whether yours has been a winter of discontent or one of satisfaction and productivity, the spring represents a time of new beginnings, new goals, and new challenges.

Act of Creating 

I am in the final stages of the rough draft of my novel. Looking ahead, I have ideas for some nonfiction pieces. I’m also still working on ideas for the videos I want to create soon. 

First things first, however. The novel is foremost in my mind.

I have a couple of story lines planned out to the bitter end and a couple that still lack endings because I haven’t found them yet. 

I’ve been keeping very late hours for weeks now and sometimes I sit and stare at my outline until I nearly fall over. 

I finally realized that I don’t find the answers by looking ahead but by simply writing. 

All the planning in the world doesn’t take the place of action and that’s what I’m doing when I just start writing a scene. That’s how I got through Nanowrimo and that’s how I’ll get to the last page. I don’t have to know everything. All I have to do is have faith in myself and my characters. 

Throughout the length of this project, things have been revealed to me that I had not planned and did not see coming, including amazing supporting characters that are real and vivid and did not exist when I started. I believe this is proof that there is magic in the mystery of the act of writing. 

Magic In The Mystery of The Act of Writing

Michelangelo claimed there was an angel in a block of marble and that he released it by carving away the excess. 

Is the core truth of what we want to share with the world our block of marble, and by engaging in the act of writing we release that truth through our stories and characters? 

I read in my horoscope the other day that:

“there is an energy in the collective unconscious that is seeking expression through your work.” 

That resonated with me. It has become my mantra and will continue to inspire me whenever my energy flags.

By engaging in the act of creating we are allowing that energy to be expressed. We are giving it shape and form through our stories and characters. 

Without the writers and artists of the world, what would happen to that energy? 

That’s something I’d rather not think about, because I believe the consequences are too tragic. 

What truths and understanding would remain buried, silent, without our creativity and our voices? 

Act of Creating: What Will You Create? 

As writers and artists we have an obligation to channel that energy in order to better the world, to chip away at the rocks where the story and characters are waiting to be released, and to express that energy in the collective unconscious through their life force—our life force! 

What an awesome responsibility, and what a motivator to keep going, to push forward, to fill the blank page, the blank screen, the blank canvas. 

Because it’s not that we must create art from scratch–it’s already here; it already exists. It’s our amazing task to release it into the world. What will you release?

Happy writing!

***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Originally from Georgia, Nevada McPherson lived in uptown New Orleans for many years and now lives with her husband Bill and rescue Chihuahua, Mitzi in Milledgeville, GA where she is a professor of Humanities at Georgia Military College. Nevada received a BA in English/ Creative Writing and an MFA in Screenwriting from Louisiana State University-Baton Rouge. She’s written over a dozen feature-length screenplays, one short screenplay, a short play, short stories and two graphic novels, Uptowners and Piano Lessons. Queensgate, the sequel to Uptowners, is her third graphic novel. For more information, visit www.nevada-mcpherson.com.