💬 How to Bring Your Inner Child's Playfulness to the Page

Order Up! Serving you creative inspiration #3

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Order Up is a mini-series where I share little ways to gain creative inspiration. So far, I’ve talked about the film, American Honey and why you should make a soundtrack for your novel. This month, I’m trying something a little different and adding a thread for us all to engage in together. I hope you will participate—I’d love to hear from you.

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The picture above is me in the first grade. It’s also the image of me that first came to mind when I experienced my first inner child work meditation. I made this photo my lock screen on my phone shortly after, as a reminder that whenever I speak negatively or criticize myself harshly, whenever I beat myself, this little girl is the person I’m talking to. She is still a part of me, wondering why I’ve been so mean to her. She is still there, her happy self, looking for my attention. 

This has been incredibly healing for me. And while a lot of what I’m working through feels too personal to share here, I’ve also been thinking about inner child work in terms of creativity. 

One of the lessons writing my novel has taught me is that holding it all loosely is okay. It reminded me of a playfulness that I had in my youth when it came to art and writing that I had forgotten as I tried to be taken seriously as a writer. But art doesn’t have to be so serious all the time and I’m sure my 6-year-old self and her bangs would agree.

It’s no surprise that some of my best writing sessions, some of my favorite scenes in my novel have been created when I was ready to surprise myself on the page, instead of needing to have complete control over it. It reminded me of the times when I was a kid and I would fill notebooks with half-formed stories. When a scene would just pop into my head and I felt compelled to write. Then I moved on to cutting out pictures I liked in magazines to collage my walls or fooling around with some colored pencils on construction paper. I was just playing but I was making art—effortless. Or so it felt. And while as an adult, I do have deadlines, self-made or otherwise, and maybe I don’t have the time to write something just for the hell of it, I can try to tap into that attitude. That playfulness. That creative little girl and teenager are still there with me. And I can call on them whenever I wish. 

This has helped me a lot and I hope if you are feeling stuck or frustrated with your work, it’s helpful for you too. There is such pressure in our very online world to create and create quickly but also make it good. I think there is something to be said about remembering the times, pre-cell phones, when we were bored and in a way, much freer creatively, without so many eyes on us. Tapping into what that inner child might want from us—our attention, our acceptance, our love—is a great way to recenter, I’ve found. It’s a way to remember who you are without all the mess and stress of adulthood, who you are deep down as a person and writer.

I’d love to open this issue of Order Up to you, the In the Weeds community:

What was something you loved doing as a kid just for the hell of it? How can you bring this kind of energy into your writing life? What does your inner child love to create?

Whatever you want to share about that creative little self inside you, I’m here for it.

<3

Kailey

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