The art of creative hibernation
My weekly letter to you
Hello, dear friends,
This week I’m writing to you from one of my favourite creative nests - my bed.
When I need to do the kind of thinking and writing that I can only do by making a creative cocoon and shutting out the rest of the world for a while, this is the place I retreat to. I pile up my pillows, grab my laptop and notebooks and I nest.
This time of year in the northern hemisphere is perfect for hibernation. The days begin in darkness. It’s cold and often grey. This external weather is probably why I always feel so out of step with the cultural (market?) forces urging us to get out there in January and do, do, do the new… Instead, I find myself wanting to go inward. To listen to my internal weather. To cultivate the art of creative hibernation.
(Also, given the current fuel crisis in the UK, spending time cocooning with blankets could be a very sensible option.)
How do you cocoon? How do you make space for the hibernation of new ideas?
What happens when you give those things - fragments, glimpses, sounds - that you only partially hear, perhaps in your dreams, space to expand?
Few of us can hibernate like bears for weeks and months at a time. But maybe we can create mini-hibernations, our own little nest or cave or chrysalis?
I’ve realised recently that I have a pattern of abandoning myself, over and over, in doing, doing, doing. Certainly since my Dad died so suddenly last year, I have done a lot of this. And so I’m beginning this year with a gentle vow to myself to cultivate the art of creative being, hibernating, allowing.
These past weeks, I’ve been lighting candles and reading my Kindle in the bath. (Apparently, there’s a new waterproof Kindle now - but I find that my trusty old Paperwhite is perfect for night reading.) So far, since just after Christmas, I’ve loved:
Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet - I’m very late to this one but could not stop reading it once I’d started. However, if you haven’t read this yet and if you are grieving in any way (or possibly, if you are just human) this book is going to grab you and wring you out like a wet dishcloth. It’s beautiful but I cried through most of the second half. (I probably needed to.)
Katie Kittamura’s Intimacies - This was a big hit back in 2021. I found it thought-provoking and… well… intimate. For me, this was a meditation on all kinds of things that have long interested me such as the idea of home and what draws people to one another and, yes, how easily we can abandon ourselves. Also, the writing is superb.
Celeste Ng’s Our Missing Hearts. I love Ng’s writing and this book is important and gripping and beautifully crafted. I thought that Little Fires Everywhere was an extraordinary novel. (Reese Witherspoon’s dramatisation did something very interesting with the book and gave it a new life. I often find myself disappointed by adaptations.)
Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. This seemed to make it onto all the ‘best books of 2022’ lists and I’m not surprised. It’s another book I read in greedy gulps. A page-turner and full of interesting ideas about our relationship with tech and games and fantasy and story-telling. And it made me realise that my 20’s are, of course, now curiously ‘retro’ from a technology perspective. Of course they are.
Current bath read is The Glass Hotel by Emily St John Mandel. I don’t quite know why I’ve never read Mandel before now but I’m enjoying this. I’m also enjoying the sense of place. It’s set in Vancouver and Canada, where I once spent six months, and where I’m hoping to visit again very soon so I’m enjoying these details.
So what are you reading, right now?
And do you have a favourite hibernation space? I’d love to hear about it.
Please do share in the comments.
Wishing you a cosy week.
Sophie x
I thought this was just me! I always need to ‘nest’ myself in bed in order to do my best writing. Being flat so that all the energy can be spent on my intellectual muscles rather than physical ones.
I do find myself hibernating for long spells too, and not just because I’m in Scotland. Although the six hours of daylight help me feel cosy and introspective at home. My body makes me slow down every winter, and instead of fighting it like I did as a younger writer, I now make use of the time and space it gives. I write when I can. I have many nests. i’m currently under blankets on my oversize sofa with soft lighting in my living room. In my study, I have heat pads for the back and even for the feet so that I can feel cosy at my desk. I’m very low on energy, I make use of my attic bedroom where I feel cocooned by the lower ceiling and smaller windows. They’re all comforting in different ways.
In order to write, I like to get a cup of tea, and keep wrapped up in bed with the curtains closed, and the door closed, and the heating on. This seems to create a cosy, safe environment for me to write, first thing in the morning... and probably provides some kind of 'womb' for me to work in. I find that this is the most productive time.
Similarly, in the evening, again, I like to sit in bed, wrapped up, to do some illustrations for my poetry collection, albeit with a comedy drama on in the background, on occasion.
This 'Sacred Space' is not an uncommon thing for Writers to have. When you have a plan of something you wish to achieve, and a daily goal in mind, then it helps to have this personal thinking area to work in. This, coupled with daily a routine, helps to make the rest of the day bearable also. Having written x number of words in the morning, satisfies the 'hunger' that Writers often have - to simply get down on paper, those musings, which otherwise clutter up the brain.