When you step out of your comfort zone …

"... how typical of my heavy thing 
not to be consumed 
even by fire 
persistent as always 
to go its own way ..."

I’ve recently been experimenting with my creativity, and pushing against the boundaries of my comfort zone.  I think we all have our comfort zones, don’t we?  I’ve never been a big fan of writing groups, preferring to retreat to a quiet, solo space.  I say this even though I know that, when I do participate in group work, I nearly always gain some insight.  However, I’m an introvert at heart.  

This explains why I’ve taken to reading Beth Kempton’s book, The Way of the Fearless Writer, and trying out her writing exercises.  It’s helpful I think, to explore alternative perspectives and ideas. But, as you will gather from this week’s poem, not all the exercises have gone quite the way I expected.  When do they ever?  That’s part of the joy of writing though isn’t it?  As I explored in another post, you don’t always write what you think you will. (See: https://fiwynne.com/2026/04/29/when-what-you-create-surprises-you/).  Deep buried thoughts have a habit of finding their way onto the page when you least expect. For me, that’s when the magic happens. 

The instructions in the writing exercise seemed straight forward: focus on something negative in your life, find an object to represent it and then destroy the object, using fire.  It’s supposed to bring a sense of release.  Pretty standard stuff right? What could possibly go wrong?  Read the poem to find out!  

Despite the ensuing chaos, the lingering smell of smoke and the inevitable interruption from my husband, it wasn’t a complete disaster.  It wasn’t a disaster because it inspired a poem.  It did the job it was intended to do.  

And, yes, I learnt something.  It’s the same lesson on repeat: I need to stop taking myself so seriously, and learn to relax.  I knew immediately where I’d gone wrong: I’d screwed up my piece of paper too tight.  The fire couldn’t take hold because I gave it no room to breathe.  That’s the story of my life right there! I’m the equivalent of that tight little ball of paper; I’m working on loosening the folds and allowing myself to breathe.   

Of course, it’s not quite as simple as that, because I’m well aware that all the anxiety in my life is what also feeds my creativity.  A songwriter I used to know once told me that he wrote much better songs when he was unhappy.  Having met a partner and experienced happiness, he found it much harder to write.  I can relate to that.  

I acknowledge that anxiety is a great muse for poetry, but one of the reasons for experimenting with my writing practice is to discover and harness other sources of inspiration.  I’m enjoying the process and happy to accept, as with any learning process, that some of it will work and some of it won’t.  It’s all about balance at the end of the day.  Anxiety isn’t about to disappear from my life, but that doesn’t mean it has to dominate or overshadow everything else.  

The best thing of all about this exercise was that we laughed about it afterwards.  That alone is worth the lingering smell of smoke that, admittedly, overstayed its welcome.