Lucy Adkins - The Fire Inside: A Companion for the Creative Life

The Fire Inside: A Companion for the Creative Life

Lucy Adkins and Becky Breed. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WriteLife Publishing

(an imprint of Boutique of Quality Books Publishing Company, Inc.)

www.writelife.com

The poem Mourning Dove Migration was previously published in the 2000

Nebraska Poets Calendar by Black Star Press.

Printed in the United States of America

978-1-60808-248-3 (p)

978-1-60808-249-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number 2021931255

Book design by Robin Krauss, www.bookformatters.com

Cover design by Rebecca Lown, www.rebeccalowndesign.com

First editor: Caleb Guard

Second editor: Andrea Vande Vorde

Praise for Lucy Adkins, Becky Breed, and The Fire Inside

Beginning with Say Yes to Creativity and all the way through twelve chapters to Just Do It, The Fire Inside is jam-packed with ideas, tips, suggestions, inspiration and general cheering-on. Lucy Adkins and Becky Breeds newest book indeed lights a fire and tells us how to keep the flames burning. Whether using the book as a daily dose of inspiration or a straight-through read (and read again and again), writers and creators of all stripes will be grateful for this lively companion for their life, creative and otherwise.

Judy Reeves, author of A Writers Book of Days and Wild Women, Wild Voices

The Fire Inside is packed with stories, lessons, and exercises that encourage readers to grow their creative souls. Written by two empathic educators, this book is practical and passionate, accepting and challenging. It is impossible to read The Fire Inside and not be inspired to follow our dreams. I recommend it to all artists and artists to be.

Mary Pipher, author of Writing to Change the World and Women Rowing North

A warm and welcome conversation for those searching for their creative identity. Lucy Adkins and Becky Breed offer insights on how to pursue creative passion in the midst of the everyday in order to live a soul-filling, expansive life. Absolutely inspiring.

Tosca Lee, New York Times bestselling author

The best books about writing are the ones that dont read like books about writing, but instead feel like conversations with a wise friend who is sitting beside you as you write, encouraging and guiding you every step of the way. That is the kind of book Adkins and Breed have written, again. Like their first book, Writing in Community: Say Goodbye to Writers Block and Transform Your Life, this book, The Fire Inside, is sure to find a space on the shelf nearest your favorite writing spot and will become one of the most dog-eared books on that shelf. There is inspiration on every page.

Karen Gettert Shoemaker, author of The Meaning of Names

If ever there was a book that could help the aspiring creative past the fear of finding and exercising the creative potential that stirs within all beings, it is this book: The Fire Inside: A Companion for the Creative Life. And a faithful companion it is. Lucy Adkins and Becky Breed have written a book that invites us to come forward with such intelligence and grace as to be irresistible. On every page they speak to the creative process and the creative spirit with a clarity that allows the reader to recognize the fire inside and believe in it as rightfully theirs. If you bring this wonderful book home, and hold it close, you will never walk alone in the vast field that is creative living.

Philip Kenney, author of The Writers Crucible

A fine companion for anyone looking to begin or deepen a creative life. Filled with practical advice on getting started, nurturing inspiration, and connecting with other seekers in your community, The Fire Inside offers meditative and effective writing prompts that will help you observe the world and yourself in a more significant way.

Theodore Wheeler, author of In Our Other Lives

The underlying principle of The Fire Inside is that, whether we recognize it or not, we are all inherently creative, though creativity doesnt happen in isolation. It happens when we open ourselves to possibility, to the idea that we create not only out of our innermost beings, our unique selves, but in partnership with mystery, the life-giving source that helps us achieve what is latent inside.

The ideas presented within these pages grew out of many years of devoting ourselves to the practice of creativity, working by ourselves and with others, paying attention to the process, and wanting to share what we have learned. Weve learned how to find our rhythms, let go of what holds us back, woo the muse, and make the magic happen more often. We learned that when we do, the tremendous power of creativity fills our lives with purpose, cultivates opportunity, and connects us to the rest of the world in ways we would never imagine.

Our first book, Writing in Community: Say Goodbye to Writers Block and Transform Your Life, examined the potential of inspiration and connection within a writing community, how we can find our authentic voices working shoulder to shoulder with other writers. In this book, we take the process a step further, combining one hundred and twenty personal narratives and essays along with questions for reflection to explore how each individual can grow in their creative lives. It describes the cyclical nature of creativitythe times we need to persist as well as the times we need to let go, when we need to reenergize ourselves by exploring new places, new types of creativity, and seeking out and nurturing relationships with mentors. And it describes the times we would benefit from being in solitude, keeping company with ourselves in a quiet place.

We learned, and learned again, that great effort and patience are required, that we will experience delays and frustrations. But how much clay must we fire to create the pot we envision? How many pages of a short story must we shred before we craft the satisfying, mesmerizing end? Gratification has its own timetable. But when it arriveswhen a ballet dancer performs a successful dance series, when the book of poetry is published, the delight is incomparable.

When you live your creativity, its an amazing journey. We want this book to be a companion on the way, to encourage and inspire you, and provide gentle proddings to help you continue the creative work you love. We craft our lives from the fire insidelistening to the spirit and following the promptings of the heart. Let them be amazing.

The examples and stories within these pages are the truth as we have experienced it through writing, study, participating in various writing and creative communities, and living in this world. Some of the names have been changed for purposes of confidentiality.

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the worlds deep hunger meet.

Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking

Inner fire is the most important thing we possess.

Edith Sdergran, The Poet who Created Herself:

The Complete Letters of Edith Sdergran to Hagar Olsson

Deep within us, we have a yearning, a passion, a desire to make and to do, to create something out of our hearts and imaginations that did not exist before. To bring forth something new upon the earth. It is innate in us, this intense wanting, and when we are engaged in the specific type of creativity we were meant to dowhether it be painting, writing, making music, or designing a new way to educate our childrenwe experience what Martha Graham calls a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening. Its what puts the spark in our eyes, the skip in our steps. It is the fire inside.