creativity

January 3, 2026

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i sit here
pining and whining
and wishing and wanting
to call myself
a writer

and i know
i know
my goodness i know
that i am a writer
as soon as i write
and i sit down every morning
and compose poem
after poem
after poem

but this desire is different

i want to create whole worlds with
the tip of my finger/pen/brain
i want to carry an audience on
a whole-ass journey and lead them
from beginning
to middle
to end

what i’m saying is

i wish to write prose
story
script
screenplay
novel
novella
creative essay
anything
i could even do it in poetry
if it felt right
but all i write
are these tiny windows into my own soul
and morning
while day
and night
i have epics unfolding inside me
and the minute i dedicate
a minute
or hour
or day
to getting it down
on paper/document/screen/anything
my skill with words seems
so
elementary
so
amateurish
so
trying too hard and getting not far at all
and i give up after
a page
a paragraph
a word

but the want

it remains

December 2, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

sometimes
when i don’t know what to write
i’ll just lightly tap my fingertips
against the keyboard

i don’t press any of the buttons down

it’s not to make any sort of mark
on the electronic page
rather
i’m trying to shake creativity loose
from my fingers, hands, arms,
body —
i’m trying to rain down onto the keyboard
and maybe one of these puddles
will create words
that i can splash into
and from which
i can start
a poem

November 14, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i think it’s so fascinating
that i’ve found a way
to expand from “write what you know”
to “don’t let too much out about your inner mind”
where my black and white thinking was fully vacillating between
creative nonfiction
memoir/essay/this needs to be fact-checked as well as can be
and
i need to write a story that has never happened
i need to write a story that has never been written
i need to 100% make this up or it’s cheating or cheapened in some way
and
both options overwhelmed me so

so

i found a way to springboard off of my past and thoughts and events
and land in the ether of “this definitely isn’t my personal experience”

i never knew it could be so easy
to be so
creative
[and to let it flow
in the way it does]

November 13, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

my mind chases ideas
races miles a second
when there’s nothing to occupy it —
story ideas from every fleeting thought/
a line of a poem repeating and repeating and repeating/
all asking questions of me:
could this concept turn into a play?
could this plot twist be startling enough to entertain?
could this mulling be the next
great
american
novel?

[i gotta say, as exhausting as it is to have all these ideas all the time,
and as disappointing as it is to never remember them when i’m near
pen and paper/screen and keyboard,
it is so much better than the alternative i dealt with
for decades
of every time there was any sort of quiet
and my mind wasn’t 100% occupied
it just told me how much of a horrible, terrible, inhumane person i was
and how i should probably go die
or something…so yeah…would definitely prefer
this
to that]

November 11, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

poetry
to keep non-poets away

that is not for me to say

i am here to help you see
the arts are always welcoming
you need only find the place that makes sense
in your own soul

everyone can poem
everyone can paint
everyone can act/sing/dance/make/
do
if you want to
if your drive is to express yourself

[it gets complicated when careers and livelihoods are at stake,
but art for art’s sake —
that is always for
every
one]

November 9, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

the everyday tasks
of being alive

[why is feeding one’s body so much more important
in our society
than feeding one’s soul?]

impart my own passions to me
and i’ll show you how cheap food can taste
when it is only for the nourishment
of keeping oneself alive

[i, along with every human deep down, wish more to

Thrive]

November 2, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

getting up
getting ready
taking the puppy on a walk
sitting down to write
or eat
or prepare for the day

then going about the day
which could be any number of things:

circus
or
a script reading
or
teaching aerial to children
or
grand jury these days
[but only for four more days]
or
[and these are the days i miss]
just chilling at home
kissing the puppy
cuddling with the cat
taking a nap
doing some household chores
taking whatever time i want to take
and
maybe
writing a little more

[when will i get time
to be creative
throughout my days
again?]

November 1, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

they say to be a good actor
you have to live some life first

is the same true about writers?

they say “write what you know”
and if you know shelter and
safety and never worrying
and never feeling anything
won’t your writing be…
kinda beige?

but as a writer,
as an actor,
as a poet,
we feel things with the intensity of a human being
thrust into the sun a thousand times over;
we take our [possibly mundane] lives
and crank our imagination up to eleven;
we seek experiences to suck life from
and try to make art from the remnants…

is simply living life too much for an artist,
or is it exactly what the artist needs?

[or am i over-thinking everything]

[and isn’t that what creatives do, too?]

August 30, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i feel at odds
with my own creativity
with my own wants and needs
with my own life as i’m living it
amongst people

everything feels so fallible
so ephemeral
and i suppose it all is
it’s just, there might be some time
before all the skills and abilities
and friends and life
leaves us

so we might as well have fun while we can
[rather than worrying ourselves
into complete stagnancy]

August 15, 2025

/ HJ / Leave a comment

do i have writer’s block
or does writer’s block have me
in a chokehold
from which i’ll never be released

do i have writer’s block
or is writer’s block my best frenemy
stalking me
fighting
and making up
and i keep them around for…
…for what?

do i have writer’s block
or is my whole life a lie
based on wanting to write
but never knowing how or when or why
or even if i really should
so i just
rush back
into writer’s block’s arms

do i have writer’s block
or are these excuses
to keep me from writing out
my whole soul?