How I'm creating through this year's chaos
Plus some 2026 updates
Life always feels chaotic to me, but recently everything feels especially tumultuous.
The state of the world, filtering down to the everyday.
And honestly, I’m so effing lucky in so many ways. I’m not currently under threat of being bombed or displaced from my homeland. I am LUCKY, and I am reminding myself of that fact constantly. But the lows creep up on me anyway.
I’m struggling to do my usual kind of writing. I’m struggling with the ‘planned’ things, the things that have been on my brain to get done, the works-in-progress. None of that feels easy (not that creativity is ever really easy) for me to get to right now.
What has been popping straight into my mind and demanding to be put down on paper is poetry. I wouldn’t call myself a poet. I didn’t ever dare to dream of being a writer, I didn’t dare to dream of much of anything for myself when I was a kid or a teenager. What I did do was write poetry. I have joked many times that I wrote terrible poetry in high school, and that that was perhaps the only sign of my future author career. Since then, I’ve scribbled lines and short poems here and there but my creativity has been pulled towards prose. Until now.
While life is feeling the most chaotic and uncertain, the creative side of me isn’t itching to write prose or draw or paint like usual, but instead it’s manifesting as verse. And I’m going with it.
I’m reading lots of poetry lately too.
Plenty of Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Evelyn Araleun, Lionel Fogarty, Jazz Money, plus a bit of Keats and Plath here and there. But mostly I’m reaching for poetry that’s unflinching and blistering in its commentary and tells it how it is.
I’m not looking for perfect structure or straightforward storytelling that’s tied into a neat bow. I don’t need resolutions or obvious themes or perfect clarity.
I need words that make me feel.
I need to jot down the words that pop into my head. The short bursts, the sentences that might not make sense, but they come out anyway. It doesn’t mean I won’t edit them if I ever want them to be anything more than for my eyes only, but the looseness, the way in which I don’t have to plan or think too much before I write feels so very right.
Maybe it’s because my brain is having to process and make sense of so many things happening around me and to me that I don’t have space for communicating clearly in full sentences that everyone can understand. Poetry allows my brain to have a break from making sense and finding sense in the whole lot of sh*t that’s going on in the world, and instead puts my feelings down on paper in such a satisfying, jagged edges kind of way; filling the cracks that aren’t straight and uniform but curved and criss-crossed and uneven and all over the place. Poetry is filling up the cup where nothing else fits neatly but needs to be filled all the same.
It doesn’t matter whether my poetry writing goes anywhere or ends up published. What matters is that I’m still creating in the way my mind and body need.
There are times when creativity requires a little push and you have to sit down and do the work whether you feel like it or not. But there are also times like this where you need to go with the flow and follow your impulses.
So for now, I’m scribbling down lines of poetry and it feels oh so therapeutic. I’m sure I’ll be back to prose soon but for now I’m happy to be creating in whatever form feels right.
Excerpt from Namatjira by Oodgeroo Noonuccal
What did their loud acclaim avail
Who gave you honour, then gave you jail?
Namatjira, they boomed your art,
They called you genius, then broke your heart.
Your turn
What are you creating lately? Is the weight of the world affecting your creativity?
Updates
Books
My latest picture book Narm-Jaap: A Flinders Street Station History illustrated by Dylan Finney is well and truly out in the world, and I’m loving all the pics and videos of people spotting it in bookstores or holding their own copies! Click the link below to buy your copy – and send me a pic of it if you do!
I was also super excited to see Narm-Jaap in the latest Scholastic Book Club brochure! I had no idea it was going to be in there when I opened my daughter’s copy to have a browse, so it was a wonderful surprise!
Check out Miss 9 and Mister 6 holding onto a copy they spotted in our local Bookface store.
I’ll have some news about One Word very soon too – it’s a picture book I wrote and illustrated that will be out in July. Stay tuned.
Substack
Here at Creating Through Chaos, I’ve been busy behind the scenes conducting interviews for the What does it mean to live a creative life? video series.
Check out the very first video interview via the link below:
And be on the lookout for the next interview that will be out at the end of this month. If you’re not familiar with the series (last year they were written interviews – see the full archive here), they’re an ongoing project where the goal is to gain insight into how creatives juggle their work, regular life, and all the rest alongside their creativity. We also discuss success and how we might define that differently and what it means to be a successful creative today.
If that’s sounds right up your alley, make sure you’re subscribed so the interviews will arrive straight to your inbox every two months, and if you’re interested in participating, reach out via email or DM.
Recent notes
Before I say goodbye for now, here are some recent notes you might have missed. Feel free to tap some hearts, restack, share, and comment away! Any and all support is very helpful and much appreciated.
Yanu!
I acknowledge the Darkinjung people as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which I am writing from today. I walk, talk, write, and create with respect on this land, and I acknowledge the enduring connection the Darkinjung people have with this Country; I thank them for their care of this Country, and I pay respects to the Elders past and present, and extend that respect to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here reading or listening.
It seems like the time I work in my studio or outside are the only times I can forget what a mess my government is making of everything. Chaos is now the standard here.
We can't give up and we mustn't stop creating.
Not sure. Feel like everything is sapped lately. Chaos and anxiety are plaguing me right now.