Thursdays were always my favourite. Not by default, as a consolation prize after all the other days of the week were ruled out, but because they always seemed to generate a special feeling in my soul. I still love Thursdays. They’re a day I almost feel permission to be bolder, to do more things, to upend the routine, break out of the norm. Because there’s always Friday and the weekend to recover, or to do stuff, depending on how the Thursday plans panned out.
Thursday then Friday
Pet shop Boys feat. Example “Thursday“
It’s soon gonna be the weekend
But perhaps this favouritism has its roots in Young me. Thursday was the First Day of the Cricket, with all the promise (usually unfulfilled, as an England fan in the late 80s and early 1990s) that a five day test match held. You could watch it all on TV for free then, although I felt I was waiting forever for the 11am start (only later was it simply a case of rolling out of bed and pouring a bowl of cereal). Thursday was Fish and Chips for Lunch Day too, for which I always went home from school, and later still it was Jobs Day in the local paper (yep, I know), where so much hope was wrapped up in an as-yet-unopened 30-page supplement. Thursday was also Archery Day, which I loved of course, and which offered the promise of such a great ending. Looking forward to archery was my psychological escape from High School – while I was physically present in certain lessons I could disappear in my mind to the archery range where I saw all my arrows landing in the centre of the target then me with a medal around my neck.
But most vivid of all, perhaps, are memories of me walking to primary school, along the narrow roads, no awareness of tomorrow, nor the l o n g day stretching ahead (of course, every day is long when you are 9). Excited about the stories I’d write, chatting to mum about my ideas as she pushed her bike towards town, for Thursday was also Market Day, and she’d be doing her shopping before returning home later with the salt-and-vinegared fish lunch. It was creative writing day, no less, and before high school kinda ruined it with rules and guidelines and does and do nots I loved the natural act of picking up a pencil and seeing what came out of my mind when it met the paper. Writing by hand, page after page, having such fun, escaping into world that only I knew because it existed only as I created it in my mind.
The me that much later navigated a life from university into the public sector limited his writing to policy briefings, research documents and committee reports. Coming out of that environment, writing was not forefront of mind, although doing my Masters catalysed my writing out of necessity, albeit in academese, as did my work in a think tank. Feeling as though I was playing catch-up with others who had always seemed to write insightful and compelling prose, my voice felt – sounded – muted: bland, inoffensive, literal. Where’s my expression gone? And then I realised – hidden through almost 20 years writing anodyne and neutral content designed to provide technical information for others (Councillors) to made decisions, whilst not unduly influencing them. It was never personal. Suddenly I had to get personal, to write with passion, to offer opinions, be creative.
Creative, just like I used to be back in Primary School.
Something inside of me that I can reconnect with, tap in to, develop, nurture. Like anything, best done through practice. And so, in a fairly unstructured way, I wrote some blogs, authored my first report, and then wrote the lead article for the RSA Journal – a personal take on public service reform. I was slowly building my confidence. I wish I had been a little more diligent even then, for while I was taking the opportunities as they arose, these were sporadic and often unpredictable. But I loved it. And then, of course, came COVID-19.
Why I started writing every morning from June 2020 I don’t really know. I had heard about the Morning Pages creativity routine, and while I wasn’t slavishly following the guidance there was something thrilling about opening the lid of my laptop in the morning and putting fingers to keys, seeing what would come out of my mind. I found myself writing – a lot. Perhaps I wanted a record of what was going on, to express myself, to process things. Certainly, I can look back over that time and see that my daily writing is in various parts sense-making, exploration, therapy, diary, ideation, ranting, creativity, analysis, nonsense, autobiography, experimentation, dreaming… In various ways, attempts at clarity.
Writing helps me unravel confusion, understand my emotions, develop my ideas, create a narrative, deepen my thoughts, align my arguments, empty my head. Sometimes it makes me smile, sometimes I’m baffled by the white screen, sometimes I tear up, sometimes I’m energised by a new insight, sometimes it pierces me deeply. Sometimes something profound emerges on the page almost as though a greater force was speaking through me; often I don’t realise my most profound insights until much later when I flick back through my writing.
Whatever the catalyst for my writing, whether it is first thing in the morning, or a work assignment, or exploring an area of interest, it’s an act of creativity. It’s the process that’s important, and I enjoy the process, including each subsequent edit, smoothing the edges, sharpening the argument, cutting out the noise to reveal and clarify the idea. Perhaps it harks back to those Creative Writing Thursdays, now swapping pencil and paper for keyboard and a Scrivener file. I can’t explain why or how starting the day with a few hundred words on a page is so valuable, but I just know that it is. I feel it, and I miss that feeling when I don’t do it. I can’t explain the satisfaction that comes from writing about something new, interesting or that was stimulated by a phrase in a meeting or a random thought while running. But I guess we don’t need an explanation for everything, so perhaps I should disengage my rational brain and embrace the flow of the creative moment. Perhaps it’s enough to leave it at that.
Postscript
In this digital world it’s easy to keep a copy of everything I write – blogs and reports, unpublished articles and extracts, perhaps distilling the narrative from talks I’ve given or workshops I’ve run or events I’ve attended. It’s too easy to let these ideas slip, to lose contact with them. So over the years I’ve gathered them together, shepherding them into Scrivener- (off-line) and WordPress-shaped pens for safe keeping. Places I can revisit and peruse as you might an old photo album, a museum to my past, reminders good, bad and ugly, hidden signposts to the future.
This blog (and wider website) is in many parts the result of that intention. An act fuelled in equal parts by my desire to make sense of things, to bring order to chaos, to remember everything, to not see work and ideas lost or wasted. In many respects it’s an act that is pure Me. As is the fact that this blog was catalysed by the realisation that this would be my 200th blog, a number that seems so unlikely – especially to the April 2016 me. Writing has always been my way to think out loud, and Curious Ian is excitedly anticipating what Creative Ian will have to say over his next 200 articles.
Ian Burbidge 
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