The crazy creative jitters

I have the jitters. 
The crazy creative jitters.
It started in September while I was holidaying in some very odd and exciting places. 

I thought it would settle once I was home and back into writing my novel. 
Because writing a novel is a creative thing to do.

But the jitters have grown. 
They're stronger, louder, longer.
Sometimes I feel like my brain is vibrating through the night.

I just have to create something.
No, not something.
Lots of things.

I've been writing every day and I'm happy with the story I've created. 
It's the third in a series and has just been sent off to my editor. 
Here are books one and two:

The third will be sitting on shelves this time next year.

But completing the novel is not enough.

I've bought wool and cotton which I'm turning into rugs and felted blobs of brightly coloured stuff. The stuff might become cushions or it might just remain as stuff. 

I've gathered fabrics and ribbons and rick-rack and stuffing. I've started making a series of tiny little people and one feral-looking rabbit. (I mean really feral.)

I've pulled out my pens and inks and I'm drawing tulips and pear trees and rolling hills with strange geometric patterns. 
Sometimes there are bears and children roaming through the tulips.
Moody blues, hot pinks, deep purples and olive greens seem to be taking over the world.

I've cruised secondhand stores, op shops and online trading sights. 

I've bought mirrors and pot plants and books and old family crucifixes and have rearranged shelves and walls and desks and drawers. 

Now I'm dreaming of typewriters and blackboards and lots of letters in ink and chalk and maybe some letters made from that weird felted stuff that is just loitering around my work basket.

I'm thinking of doing a course. I like the idea of pottery - wobbly sculptures of people with birds in their hands and flowers in their hair. Then again, taxidermy has always fascinated me. 

And I'd really like to build a log cabin and adopt a donkey or two.

In short, I've got the crazy creative jitters and they're leading me around and around in circles but not to any place in particular.

So what do I do?
I've been thinking long and hard about this - between the splashes of ink, and pages of stories and metres of ribbons and string.
And finally, today, I have come to a conclusion.

I do nothing.
Or, rather, I do everything!
Because the creative life is as much about the playing and the dreaming and the not knowing, as it is about the final product.

One creative act fuels another.
Even the weird blobby-felty things lead to the next thing... And the next...
Which might finally lead to The Big and Beautiful Thing That Makes your Heart Sing and Brings Joy to Others.

So if you drop by and find me tangled in fuzzy pink wool, splashed with moody blue ink and rolling down the hillside chanting in Polish while playing the ukulele and eating a cupcake, don't worry.
I'm just going with the flow, surrendering to the crazy creative jitters.
And hoping that somewhere, sometime, it will all start to make sense.

In the meantime, if you have any great ideas for using feral, fuzzy felt, drop me a line.