Meet Judy Reeves

We were lucky to catch up with Judy Reeves recently and have shared our conversation below.

Judy , 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?

The first step for me to keep my creativity alive is to acknowledge and remember that I’m innately a creative being; creativity is part of me just like my blue eyes are part of me. I consider it a gift given by a generous and loving creator. Every morning as I light a candle at my writing desk and take out my journal (maybe read a poem or inspirational passage first), I look out my window at all that world outside—palm trees and lemon trees—trees that bear fruit right there; I can see it. Birds on the wire above and crows calling to each other as they cross the sky. Wow! Who would think of creating all that? I write and wonder.

Throughout my day, I notice how my body responds to any sort of creativity, human-made or natural. The way I respond physically offers a clue to what stirs me and can guide my own creative gifts. I pay attention when I’m out and about and experience the world through all my senses. I’m one who touches, smells, listens, sees details; I look up close. I often may seem the fool, the way I stand before a patch of wild flowers and weep at their beauty.

Others’ creativity inspires my own. This is why I go to art galleries and museums, why I attend poetry readings and hang out in bookstores and smell and touch the books when I go to the library. Theater. Concerts. Street art. I love the buskers in the park. And just look at how this bakery displays their temptations. Let’s go for lunch at this place that constructs the most gorgeous salads.

And yes, people-watching and interacting with others. This is one of the reasons I teach: to witness other’s creativity. Why I lead writing groups and create opportunities for us to write together and hear one another’s stories. All this helps keep my creativity alive and active.

Did I mention my great-granddaughter? Being with a three- or four- or five-year-old who is witnessing something for the first time invites me to see anew. How she loves to play, her imagination sparks my own and we imagine together–we create games and worlds and words. She is my teacher, too. I seek out teachers and mentors and friends who also experience the world through the wonder of creativity.

Keeping my creativity alive means being alive myself and receptive to the world. And being playful. Don’t forget that part.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

When I finally decided to get that tattoo I’d been considering for decades, I got an ampersand on the inside of my left arm. I’m an “and” person. I’m a writer and a teacher. I write books about writing and I write memoir. I love being with people (extrovert) and I sometimes crave solitude.

I’ve been a writer all my life. My first career was in commercial writing (newspapers, radio, TV, PR, marketing, advertising). My second, what I am doing now—I’m a writer and a teacher. I believe this is what I was meant to do. I lead workshops and teach writing classes locally at San Diego Writers, Ink, a nonprofit literary organization I co-founded twenty years ago, and I lead workshops and speak at writing conferences locally and internationally.

Writing is something we do alone, but how could we do what we do without our writing friends and community. One of my favorite things is creating opportunities for writers to come together in community to write and share their stories. I love finding interesting, stimulating places for us to gather—most recently we held a Fall Equinox Writing Retreat at City Farmer’s Nursery where we meandered among the flora and fauna (yes, they have growing green things and farm animals). Another time we gathered outside under the full moon to write our Blue Moon stories. I’ve taken groups on bus trips to the Los Angeles Festival of Books, and we’ve built bonfires at the beach where we circled around the fire and wrote our stories and shared them. Thursday Writers, a writing practice group I created thirty years ago still meets weekly. I believe the Muse likes to work a crowd and writing in community with other writers stimulates my own creativity.

Learning the craft is important too. I teach writing through classes and workshops focused on specific aspects of the craft and I lead read-and-critique groups where writers have an opportunity to receive critique on their work. Through reading and reviewing others work, we become better writers ourselves. It’s exciting and gratifying for me to hear when writers express surprise at what they’ve written, and maybe acknowledge, even if only to themselves, how good they are.

Another writing book is in the works. And more new workshops and classes. Keeping it fresh for me, keeps it fresh for my students.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

The title of my memoir, “When Your Heart Says Go,” says so much about how I live my life and approach the journey: I trust a strong intuitive sense that says “yes.” That would be number one. The second is having a strong community of like-spirited, like-minded friends whom I trust to be on my side, to give me good counsel and advice and to support me when I have doubts. Third, to find the joy in the every-day of the journey. Not everything happens according to my plans or my ideas–but always, always there are moments of joy to be aware of and to hold for just that long.

My advice: trust yourself, surround yourself with friends and supporters and trust them, live in the present (yes, make plans, but don’t live in the future or the past).

Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?

My mother shared a love of reading and books and made sure we always had them in our home; my father was a great teller of stories and always believed in me and my dreams. My father is the one who opened a World Atlas and showed me how vast the world is and the mystery of the universe. His optimism and great good humor influenced my view of life.

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