We recently connected with Faith LeMone and have shared our conversation below.
Faith, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
I keep my creativity alive by being curious. I question why things are the way they are and how they came to be. I consume art that inspires me. I draw comparisons between the unrelated. I give myself times of silence where I can really listen to myself. And lastly I try my best to keep an open mind.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I teach group yoga classes and write poetry, as well as a few other side gigs. Poetry has been my newest passion and what drew me to it was the misunderstanding of it. When I used to think of poetry I thought of something I couldn’t understand or too strict for me to ever create. But poetry really has no rules and understanding is subjective.
I just released my debut collection, How She Still Swims and I’m so happy with it.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Reading was so helpful to me when I was writing my collection. I read everything from fiction to self-help to memoir.
A quality that helped me was being okay with not knowing everything and not letting it scare me off. I had to learn everything about publishing and formatting by myself and everytime I thought I learned it all I found a whole new area I didn’t know anything about.
Another thing that was really helpful that is more technical was finding programs that I liked. I found that I really liked word for formatting my book but liked drafting my poems physically on pen and paper.
If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?
I would create as much as I could. I would write, draw, paint, I would do it all. And when I would be too exhausted to do that I would rest and consume what I find meaningful. Nature, good food, time with my family. I would also probably go to the beach everyday.
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