Who is your original creative muse?
And what is your creative lineage?
These are questions I often ask when I go on retreat with a new group of writers. It’s a technique I borrowed from another writing teacher (was it Natalie G?) who borrowed it from another who learned it from another and so on. That’s how this lineage thing works!
Just as tracing your ancestory can be useful to see what genetic traits, tendencies and potential have been handed to you through the generations, it’s useful to ask— who do you consider your creative lineage to be? Austin Cleon (Steal Like an Artist) has a good take on it here. Who are the creative artists, great writers, thinkers, aunts, uncles, teachers, who influenced you? Who are the ones whose examples inspired you to step on the creative path?
And where did it all start? Who got the ball rolling? Is there one person you count as your original creative muse?
Mine is my artist/poet mother Marjorie. I’ve written about her previously on Medium and in my travel memoir Looking for Duras, Finding my Mother, serialised on Substack last year.
Another important figure is a friend I made in my early 20s (1974) in the USA. I’d been travelling the east coast states, Canada and Central America for six months with my buddy Ruth Maddison. When Ruth went back to Oz, I headed for Eugene, Oregon where I’d heard I could get work with a tree planting collective called the Hoedads. The steep Oregon mountainscapes had been heavily logged and multiple crews of around 8 - 10 people were sent out across the wastelands in the worst weather imaginable, bags of conifer seedlings on our backs and trusty hoedads in our hands. The main prerequisite for planting was rain (all day, every day was ideal) because only then would the ground be soft enough to plant. A definite no-no was snow. If the ground was frozen we spent the day holed up in our black plastic tipi around the open fire, playing music and card games, cooking bean soup and keeping warm.
It was in this setting I met a fellow crew member called Simone (then known as Paula) We hit it off immediately. She was gorgeous, petite, vibrant, and had a wicked sense of humour. Her friend Scottie — a short, hyper guy, a percussionist, kept us entertained and when we got sick of planting trees, we rented a house in Eugene and lived the boheme life.
Simone was an artist, she spent her days doing fine line drawings with a rapidiograph pen and coloured ink, making collage poems, messing around with screen printing. I was drawing too filling diaries with whatever was in frame, still life, people in cafes, comic strips, fantasy stories.
Scottie played his conga drums and buzzed about. I started taking lessons from him, jamming with him and his mates, writing songs for his reggae group. Casey, a new house member had just returned from the New York with a bootleg cassette tape she recorded at the concert of a singer called Patti Smith. Patti didn’t have any records out yet but we played her cassette over and over until we wore it out. As the rains pounded our shingle roof and brightly lit semi trailers sped by on the freeway outside our door, we danced all night long to Redondo Beach, singing at the top of our voices..
Down by the ocean, it was so dismal
Women all standing with shock on their faces
Sad description, oh, I was looking for you….
Within a year I’d joined an all girl latin jazz band (as a percussionist!) and moved into an all girl share house in Portland. It’s what we did in the 70s!. Simone moved to Portland too with her new beau Charles, a local guitarist. But after making an album and going on tour it was time for me to move on again, first to Vancouver then the UK, Europe and eventually back to Australia.
When I think back it surprises me how short our time living together actually was, but over the next 20+ years Simone and I communicated by the post, sending back and forth typed-on-a-typewriter letters, drawings, cuttings, photocopied art works, comic strips, cards, mementos, polaroids, menus, coasters, poems, scripts etc. etc. The content of her letters was always humourous, cryptic, sardonic — a brilliant commentary on the times and life as an everyday artist. When each package arrived I marvelled at how creative Simone was in dealing with her latest challenges. Her life wasn’t easy, there were many dark periods, something she and my mother Marj had in common.
Eventually our letters slowed to a dribble and by then we were all on Facebook where Simone posted regularly, unwittingly creating a gallery so vast, so inspiring, that those of us lucky to number as her small group of FB friends could only look on in awe. After a decade or so in NYC (I visted them there in 1990), Charles and Simone had moved to Victoria Island off Vancouver, where Simone used her camera to capture the light, colours and abstract shapes of the island. Scattered in among the photos is an occasional collage poem, a drawing from a diary page, a cryptic commentary accompanying a quick sketch, a screen printed garment or two. This was now how we stayed in touch, sproradically commenting on one another’s posts, occasionally sending a note through on messenger. I especially loved her collage poems.
Last week via her FB page, Charles let us know of Simone’s unexpected, quick and sudden death. It’s devastating news, such a shock, reminding me of how fleeting and precious our time together really was. The strange thing is that in the weeks, before I received the sad news, while decluttering and reorganising my study, I kept coming across Simone’s letters and sketches, marveling once more at her spirited inventiveness. Even now on rereading, they light my creative spark, showing me as always, that everything is creative fodder, and when life goes to shit, there’s always an angle to take, a laugh to be had, a twist to be turned.
While her absence is sorely felt by those who held Simone close, the great comfort is that her work lives on. As far as I know she rarely exhibited, her daily art practice was her art. And like my mother Marj who toddled off nearly 20 years ago, Simone’s creative inspiration is as alive to me as it ever was. For the muse never dies, the muse lives on forever.
WRITERS JOURNEY NEWS
DRAFT BUSTERS ONLINE — Our next monthly module begins Mon Nov 18. Motivation Mondays: 10 - 11.30 am AEST, set your goals for the week, discussion on various aspects of writer’s craft plus a meditative writing exercise. Feedback Fridays: 3.30 - 5.30 pm AEST, readings and feedback on up to 1000 words of your writing project. Workshops are held on Zoom. Contact Jan if you would like to join.
FREE ONLINE WORKSHOP — On the third Sunday of the month at 4pm AEST we meet to introduce our writing projects and do a meditative writing exercise. Open to all— beginners, experienced, published, non published. Next one, Sun Nov 17. Contact Jan if you would like to join.
MENTORING — I have a number of mentoring packages available which can be tailored to your current needs. If you need a procrastination coach, someone to look over your manuscript or set ongoing deadlines, see here for what’s possible.
DESPERATE DEBRIEF — for paid subscribers, a free 45 minute chat about any aspect of your work, by Zoom or Whats App. Contact me to arrange.
HEADING OUT IN 2025
NEW!! The Healing Journey, Tasmania, April 4-9. A residential retreat with cancer navigator and researcher Grace Gawler and me. The first three days with Grace offers a safe space for women to explore and discuss their physical, emotional and psychological experiences with breast cancer. Followed by three days with Jan on how to transform those experiences into powerful writing. Details coming soon! Contact Jan if interested.
Creative Immersion in Ischia, Italy, May 3-10, 2025 for writers and artists. 7 nights, 8 days. Five nights staying at the extraordinary Castello Aragonese of Ischia!
We’ll be in Elena Ferrante territory, catching a ferry from the Port of Naples across to the volcanic island of Ischia to arrive at our accomodation. Don’t go any further without checking it out here! A most extraordinary environment in which to write and make art. Daily deep dive workshops designed to envigorate your creative process and rapidly progress your work. In collaboration with the Create Escape. Booking fast, don’t miss out! All info here.
Haiku Walking in Japan, The Tokaido Way, Autumn, December 3 - 8, 2025. 6 days, 5-nights, starting in Hakone-Yumoto and finishing in Kurami Onsen near Kakegawa.
For artists and writers.Daily workshops on the art of haiku, haibun and haiga. A gently-paced haiku walking tour along Japan’s greatest historic road (between Tokyo to Kyoto) aside the Pacific Ocean coast once walked by the famed haiku poet Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), featured in Records of a Well Worn Satchel, and artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) for his iconic Fifty-Three Stages of the Tokaido series of woodblock prints. Staying at local inns and hotels, each evening after our walk we’ll feast on local cuisine and soak in the onsen. My idea of heaven! Send expression of interest by email or DM.
Check out 20 years of Writers Journey international journeys and retreats. See where we went, what we did here.
I generally post writing/creativity tips and motivational articles, workshop and WJ news mixed in with eps from my current writing projects: a new segment Brush with Fame, a cancer journal, Letters to Leftie Bestie (My Left Breast) and a satirical flash fiction novella: The Everyday Musings of Louisa Greene. You can also find all eps of my travel memoir, Looking for Duras, a Mekong Journey, (where I go searching for traces of the French writer, Marguerite Duras in Vietnam and Cambodia) here.
I love getting your comments! Did you know that your ‘likes, shares or comments’ on the bottom of this page will attract new readers and keep the creative wheel spinning.
Jananna, your tribute to one of your muses, Simone, was powerful, moving and I could say inspiring except for the fact that the energy & creative productivity was like a Tsunami, magnificent and overwhelming. Loved the collage of letters & the drawings by you both. And on to all the writing ✍️ & journeys - I’m flabbergasted, breathless. You just keep keeping on 🙌🏽🌻😍joy
thank you so much jan i needed this, i need this. running on empty again. in your invitation to deep dive backwards i am reminded where to find nourishment