Procrastination and the gift of creativity

How I'm overcoming my own worst enemy when it comes to creating: myself

Photo by Kelly Sikkema

I spent some time this afternoon transcribing the interview I did a few weeks ago with Mary Mathis, a fellow University of Iowa Journalism School graduate and freelancer. Some of our conversation centered around the idea of the worth of our work and labor, and why self-employment allowed her the space and freedom she needed to function at her most creative.

I’m particularly interested in this part of our conversation because of the fact that I finished transcribing this interview this afternoon. My goal last week was to transcribe on Tuesday and Wednesday, write on Thursday and Friday, and edit on Saturday and Sunday. Clearly, something (read: myself) got in the way of those plans, and what I learned from Mary will live to be published another week.

Truthfully, I’ve given up on a lot of projects over my short lifetime. I’ve had a few different blogs. I intended to start reviewing every book I read last year (you can read the few that I have reviewed here). But I made a promise to myself as I began this Substack that I would work at this for a long time; that I would grow it into a community resource, a space for gathering, a movement to celebrate all the Midwest has created and will create.

So I’m writing this to say that while the procrastination demon won this week, I’m taking it as a lesson learned in developing discipline within my creative side and personal projects. The only way the work can get done is if I focus on getting rid of the barriers that keep it from me. I’m my own worst enemy when it comes to putting my work out into the world, but I’m proud of myself for not giving up on this concept that I feel passionately about.

All that is to say that my first profile is still coming. I’m excited to share with you Mary’s lens through which she views artistic labor, and I’m excited to see what I learn as I craft the story. And I’m excited that I’m two months into writing this Substack, and I’m still here sharing my thoughts with you.

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The Snag Essay

This week, I want to reshare the first piece of creative writing that I’ve ever had published. Aside from the obvious reason of having my work in a literary journal, this essay is monumental in my life as a writer because the act of writing it felt so fundamentally different than anything I’d created before.

I wrote this essay, Among the Wildflowers, during my senior year at the University of Iowa. The class was Advanced Creative Nonfiction, taught by Lucy Schiller. Lucy is that teacher for me. She’s incredibly thoughtful and sincere, a teacher I felt like not only cared about me as a student, but also about the world and the way literary work could change it. We had such meaningful conversations in her class that the hour-plus we spent there flew by. She’s also a brilliant writer who has explored some of the creative minds of Iowa in the way I hope to. I was introduced to her in another class with this New Yorker essay about Arthur Russell, an incredibly talented yet tragically unknown musician who grew up in Oskaloosa, Iowa. This essay in the Columbia Journalism Review hit me on a personal level, having lived in the Quad-Cities for three years - she speaks with Eric Sorensen (a former Quad-Cities meteorologist and current U.S. Representative) about climate change reporting and the Mississippi River flooding in Davenport in 2019.

Lucy called this week’s essay “The Snag.” We were to write about something that snagged our mind, that felt meaningful to us on any level. This idea changed the way I thought about how to approach a creative writing topic. It helped me conceptualize how the smallest objects and moments in our lives all have a place in the broader narrative. I finally understood how to use symbolism within creative nonfiction and memoir, and it was this essay that made me fall in love with the genre. As I struggle with procrastination and doubting the importance of my work, this is a reminder for me that my gift as a writer is to infuse meaning everywhere.

I have such a different relationship to the world, and to myself, than I did when I wrote this essay nearly four years ago, and yet it still fills me with a sense of wonder at what I’m able to do with words. That, I believe, is the point of all of this.

This essay was first published in Anti-Heroin Chic Mag.

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    Sunflowers have bright, golden petals exploding from their brown centers. I could swim in that deep, dark center. They can grow taller than most humans, usually with their faces towards the sun — hence the name. They shine bright and grow in plentiful groups. They are rarely lonesome.
                                                                                                                                 -----
            I am not a person filled with sunshine. I don’t tend to wear bright colors. I have a temper, a sadness that rests in the pit of my stomach. I enjoy fucked up endings instead of happily-ever-afters. But for some reason, sunflowers fill my head. I draw them in the margins of my notes when I should be paying attention in class. I dream of running through a field of yellow petals. When I see a sunflower, I have an urge to stick my nose deep into the center in the same way I used to stick my nose into other people’s business when I was a child. I connect with them in a way I don’t think I will ever want to understand.
                                                                                                                                  -----
            The scientific name for the sunflower genus is Helianthus. All helianthus species, except for three, grow in North America. I learn that the sunflower that has planted itself in my mind is actually called Helianthus annuus. Maybe one of these 70 species of sunflowers that exist has some spot of anger or discomfort within itself like me.
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            My obsession with sunflowers began at age 18. I came to college and subsequently fell apart – only temporarily though, I need to give myself some credit. Sitting in a crowded lecture hall, my mind would wander from “why can’t I stop gaining weight?” to “how long until my boyfriend gets tired of my brokenness and leaves me?” (Two more years by the way, then I would learn that he never saw the sunflowers in the same way I did). I learned that sunflowers were the only thing I could successfully doodle in my notebook and not have them look like they came from the hand of a four-year-old. Sometimes I’d flip through my notes and just see pages and pages of round flowers—some big, some small, all looking at me like they desperately wanted to comfort me. Sunflowers were the only reason I could pay attention in class anymore. They saved me that year.
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           The Perennial species of sunflowers aren’t welcomed in gardens because they are invasive, controlling, smothering. They command space from the other flowers, push them out. I did not know this until I sat down to write this essay, but it makes me sad. The sunflower wants to love us, brighten our day and make us stop and appreciate a little piece of beauty. And we just tell it no, please stop taking up so much space. Maybe I am more sunflower than I thought.
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            I’ve had a plan for a gigantic sunflower tattoo on my thigh for the last two years. I filled up a Pinterest board with ideas. I reached out to a friend to ask if she’d draw it for me. I look through my notebooks to find the magically drawn sunflower I would put on my body forever. I can see it in my mind, how others might look at me when they see a sunflower peeking out from beneath my shorts while I walk down the street. How they might see it and think that I am bleeding sunshine, even when I’m not.
          I have told myself these last two years that “one day, I’ll treat myself.” When I save up the money, I will spend it all on my sunflower thigh tattoo and not give a damn what my grandmother has to say about it.
          The money always ends up going somewhere else. Today, I went to the mall. I bought clothes for my niece on the way. I splurged on a purse and a new pair of shoes for myself.
            Maybe I don’t deserve sunflowers.
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           Sunflowers have a natural symmetry based on the Fibonacci sequence. I am a writer — I have no clue what that means. But I do know that I am not wrong in finding such beauty in the plant. Scientifically, I’d be wrong not to.
            I don’t have a choice.
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            I want my “father-daughter” dance at my wedding to be Wildflowers by Tom Petty. I’ve pondered the idea of my wedding theme being sunflowers, but I’m not sure if it’s too much. If people will walk in and realize the decorations are too “me.”
          In Wildflowers Tom Petty sings, “You belong among the wildflowers/you belong in a boat out at sea/sail away, kill off the hours/you belong somewhere you feel free.” It became my favorite song the second I heard this first verse. When I listen to it, I can see myself in a field of sunflowers with my eyes closed. I can feel a light breeze, and I inhale greatly. I don’t know if sunflowers have a strong scent, because despite my obsession I somehow have never stopped to smell them, but I do know just being there will let me experience a positive energy in a way I’ve never seem to have been able to before. I hear the joyful, playful guitar sounds from Tom Petty playing in the distance.
           I’d give anything to feel that free. 

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