Happy Friday, Reader!

This week I've been thinking about the experiences that shape us…and when we decide to break free from those shapes.

Colour Me a Clown

When I was 8 years old, I found myself dressed up as a clown in the circus, being led around the ring by the hand of a boy slightly older than me. Even at that age, I felt an existential dread I could not name, wondering how things had gone so terribly wrong.

My circus stint was the result of winning the top prize in a county-wide colouring contest. I was aiming for second place, which would result in a party for me and all my friends at my favourite ice cream parlour. I had unwittingly overachieved, and my ability to expertly colour within the lines had landed me on that fraught stage.

How many times have we found ourselves in a similar predicament? Where staying within the lines led us somewhere awkward with no graceful exit?

In conversations, this might look like following the rules we were taught, only to realise that we are performing for each other, like clowns in front of an imaginary audience.

How might we allow ourselves to escape this circus? To do things in our own way, and to let that take us to unexpected and wonderful places, where we can be ourselves and feel the rewards of our craft?

Learning to colour outside the lines

They say we must learn the rules before we can learn how to bend or even break them. Part of that is experiencing the many ways that the rules have constrained and confined us.

Many of us were taught to stay within the lines. To be in control and not be messy. Or too much.

Success meant sticking to the path. So we learned to keep our volume down and not take up more space than others. Or any.

We may have struggled with this and that struggle came with shame. Especially when others seemed to manage.

When the struggle to contain oneself seems unduly hard, the question often turns inward:

What is it about me that can’t conform? Or perform?
Or feel satisfied if I do somehow manage it?

Instead we may feel confined, uncomfortable, even trapped in the arena we fought so hard to get into.

This becomes a motivation to start questioning the rules we were taught. We might start bending them, too. Not because we are defiant rebels, but because the experience of toeing a line takes its toll.

So we see how far we can colour outside the lines without anybody noticing…

​Read the rest of this story on Medium​

Now onto this week's book updates…

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Writing more openly

With Lens Not Label 100% complete, cover-to-cover, all writing efforts are focused on finishing Uncontained.

You may have spotted an emerging theme about colouring outside the lines in the story above and last week's sneak peek of the cover. That's because it's adapted from the draft of the book. At the very front, in fact. (Which may not be a true fact by the time we publish. Place your bets now.)

Starting in October, we'll be writing even more openly, by making the complete book available to beta readers for feedback.

If you're interested in being a beta reader for Uncontained, please reply and let us know!

What experiences have shaped you and your work? And how has that shaping changed over time?

Also, your thoughts on clowns, circuses, and colouring in (and out!) of the lines most welcome!

Let it be messy,
Kim, Claire, and Nathan

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