Thinking within the box
on limitations | green eggs and ham | jack white
Happy Sunday good folks
Thanks again for sharing your writing and songs with me. I love seeing things appear in my inbox each week in response to the prompts. You are always more than welcome to share, either in the comments below or privately, if that suits you better.
This week I am still getting used to full-time work. It’s interesting trying to build a new routine, when so many of the last months have been quite baggy and sparse. That was always the plan after closing down my business- to take some time- but after a while the days started to lose any sort of shape. I tend to work well with a routine. But at the moment, it does mean that there are limits to what I can write and make in the down time. It’s been a while since I worked the old 37.5 hours a week and by the end of the day, my brain is so full of information, I need a dark room with no noise in for a little while. I don’t know whether this is something to do with post-covid brain, or whether I’ve always needed that and just ploughed through in previous years. Either way, my kids have not gotten this memo and love to have their liveliest and most chatty time of night between 7pm and 9pm.
I also have a few limits when it comes to screen time. I currently spend most of the day on the computer, and by the end of the day, I have absolutely no desire to look at a screen. I am most definitely not a digital native like my kids, who don’t seem to have this issue. It’s a shame, because my usual method for writing poetry is straight onto my Macbook, with various revisions under the same title as the work progresses.
And so I’ve been thinking about limitations, and remembering how helpful they can be when it comes to any creative practice. I’ve seen Jack White talk about this a lot…
There are various ways that he talks about limiting himself to get the best possible end result- using guitars that go out of tune easily, only using red, white and black as a colour palette, booking only 4 days in the studio so that everything has to be done in a short space of time.
Dr Seuss purportedly was challenged to write a book using only 50 words, and now we have “Green Eggs and Ham” as a result.
This Ted talk by Phil Hansen called “Embrace the Shake” takes using your limitations to a new level; in it he talks about how neurological damage to his nerve endings changed the way he painted. I’d highly recommend watching if you fancy seeing a picture of Bruce Lee constructed entirely by karate chopping black paint onto a background, or a picture made only using burger grease! (I’m mindful there is a difference between those who self-impose limitations, and those who have no choice but to embrace them here, I use this merely as an example to illustrate what is possible.)
I stumbled on this instagram thread via the @bstosuy page, which nudged me to remember that anything is better than nothing. So, for my own limited practice, I’ve got a new notebook (I may have a problem), started setting my timer for 15 minutes and just writing. For me, it’s anything on themes of tech, AI, nature and such, as I’m collecting some poems to go into a pamphlet. Hopefully at the end of these scribblings I will have something to go through and edit, even if it’s tiny. There’s nothing more daunting than having not written/created anything in ages and trying to create something amazing when you return to it. For me, this takes the pressure off.
Invitation to play/write…
Impose some limitations on yourself. Perhaps you are time poor, so set a timer for 15 minutes with no expectations on yourself other than to write/create. I find it helpful to have an idea of what I might like to explore in this time, but you may prefer to leave it open-ended.
Limit yourself with shape instead. Brian Bilston is often doing this in a really playful way…
Poetry particularly lends itself to limitations because of how it words interact with the white space of the page. I think that’s why I enjoy it so much. You can limit yourself to trying one particular form for a while, or only writing a certain amount of lines. Here’s mine from when I played around with the form of a Villanelle; a fun one to try if you fancy it…
Or, limit yourself in new and weird ways. Only write short stories for a week. Only use the same 3 chords and see how many songs you can write. Only write when you are wearing your jumper you never usually wear. Only use your left hand to make stuff. Only write using sauce found in your fridge. The weirder the better!
Let me know how you get on. As ever, this is free, so please forward it to anyone you think may like it.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Solidarity for anyone trying to work at home with kids on half term.
Em x
Awesome, I love limitations they always turn out to be uniquely creative. I forced myself to write something in E-Prime language which removes the verb 'to be' and risks getting really lifeless but there's always a laugh in there somewhere.
Some Call It A Sunset
The Sun was meeting all expectations of the word ‘setting’.
Beauty and madness were feelings that might have been ticked
had someone presented a bizarrely accurate multiple choice survey on a clipboard.
Chirps from the cooling motorcycle engine seemed to weave themselves in
with the shoreline ambience.
Two memories were recovered from this one place.
Two completely different lives that are now understood to be the same thing.
This solar-themed ritual appears to be a constant while I have flux characteristics.
And I’ve got the feeling that there’s more to come yet.
Hail Ra!