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The way you live your life is an act of art, is an act of creativity.
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So a lot of people say that they're not creative and they don't think that that is a part of who they are.
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But I mean, if you've made choices and you're directing the way that you live your life, your life is an act of art.
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I think so that's the creativity.
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Absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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Hello and welcome to another edition of For the Love of Creatives.
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Today I'm Maddox, I'm here with co-host Dwight, and today's featured guest is Jennifer Locke.
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Jennifer, welcome to the podcast.
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Hi, thank you so much for having me.
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Well, I know that you and Dwight initially met at our experience event.
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Is that correct?
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Or Creative Mornings.
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Yeah, we initially met at Creative Mornings and I was, you know, talking as many people get drawn into wonderful conversations with Dwight because he's so present and available, and so we were just having a conversation and then he had kind of mentioned it as something that they were doing and he gave me his business card and so I looked it up online and I signed up for the newsletter.
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And then once the first well, I guess February is the I've attended one.
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It was in February and when the registration went for that, I said this is something that I want to prioritize, and I think we connected again at the next Creative Mornings and he was talking about it and and asking if I was in and I was like, dude, I already signed up, I'm going to be there, I'll see you at the one.
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So that's how we initially connected.
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And then I went to the event you all hosted and that's the one that I've been able to attend thus far.
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I hope to attend more in the future and it was just such a wonderful, wonderful, lovely evening where I met great people, and to be able to be intentional in that way with other artists was a gift.
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So it's something that I'm pursuing, or that I'm making more and more space for in my life.
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I love to hear that.
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So you know, since you brought that up, this is not really necessarily part of our conversation, but I'm going to make it part of our conversation.
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What was, what was your takeaway from that evening?
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What did you walk away with that you didn't have when you arrived?
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Uh well, connections for one thing, met some people and then, you know, went out to grab lunch with at least one person and I would like to do that more.
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Um, but I, I you had asked the question when we were there about why it was important for us to be there that evening, um, in one of the wonderful breakout circles that we did, and so I said that I really want to put myself forward as an artist and get into the practice of doing that and really claim that moniker, and so that's why it was important for me to do that.
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So I got practice in doing that when I attended that event.
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Yay, yay, and we'll come back to this.
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I think this is our starting point, but before we jump in, I want to give you an opportunity, just a kind of a brief overview, if you'll tell our listeners who you are and a little bit about how create your primary way that creativity shows up for you.
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Okay, okay, well, great, my name is Jennifer Locke.
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I go by you can also call me Jen answer to either one.
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And creativity shows up.
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For me I would say it's kind of the organizing principle of my life.
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So I'm a writer and I had been traditionally employed prior to having twins and that was almost 10 years ago and the traditional structures of employment no longer made sense for our family, and so I had always wanted to write.
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I had always felt a desire to write and loved it, and if you'd asked me what I wanted to be when I was a little kid, then that's what I would have told you.
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And yet I didn't take creative writing classes in college because I was too intimidated.
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Uh, I just somehow, you know, um, thought that that was something for other people and not for me, um, and so I'd always.
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It wasn't until I was in my mid twenties that I reconnected with that desire, thanks to my husband and and, who encouraged me in that direction and anyway.
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So when I had, I began writing in earnest, seriously, at that time in my mid-20s, and so knew that I'd kind of always organized my life around the decision of will this enable my desire to be a writer?
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Like traditional employment, teaching didn't do it long-term, because I did do it.
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That's how I started my career, but I didn't think it was going to afford me as much time as I wanted to pursue the thing that I really wanted to do.
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So I would say that that's always been the compass by which I've kind of oriented myself.
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I started when I left the traditional workforce.
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I had been writing seriously for a while and when I say seriously I mean like diligently and trying to get better at the craft and I, throughout that process, been writing middle grade books, so that's for, you know, younger readers, like eight to 14.
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So I'd had the practice of doing that for quite a while and knew that I had the skill set of writing books.
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There's a winding pathway in between that and what I ended up doing as a career, which is I currently work as a freelance writer and a ghostwriter of nonfiction books.
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But the through line has always been how can I organize my life around the thing that I most want to do and also get paid for it?
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And so that's kind of a circuitous answer to your question.
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But I write for my business and I also write for love.
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I still write fiction, and as many other artists that you speak to, I am always trying to keep the balance up, not letting one overwhelm the other and trying to keep the two in balance and really keep the writing that I do for myself as the primary thing.
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Because when I am dedicating time to my writing and to the writing that is meaningful to me and of course it that is meaningful to me and of course it's all meaningful to me, but you know, to the thing that is my number one, I find that it is, um, I'm a lot happier in life, I have a lot more to give other people, um, so it is making time for my preferred you know, my preferred writing.
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That writing that is really meaningful to me is really important, just because of how it it feeds all the other areas of my life and allows me to show up better, as in my business.
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You know I have three little kids how to show up better for them and kind of in all these different aspects.
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But I think everybody you know, kind of in all these different aspects, but I think everybody you know the way you, the way you live your life, is an act of art, is an act of creativity.
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So a lot of people say that they're not creative and they don't think that that is a part of who they are.
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But I mean, if you've, if you've made choices and you know you're directing the way that you live your life, your life is an act of art.
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I think so.
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I want to acknowledge you, jennifer, for pushing through and finding your way to that in your mid 20s.
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You know we see so many people in life that live their life out with the dream that they never realize.
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They work at a job that they don't love because it pays the bills.
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I found my way to my dream when I was 24 years old.
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Oh really.
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I wanted to be a hairdresser more than anything in the world and I did that for 40 years and I retired at the end of 2019 after a 40-year career, and it had its ups and downs, but I don't look back with an ounce of regret.
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I loved it.
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I love so much about it and I have always felt so blessed and I'm wondering how you're experiencing.
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And I have always felt so blessed and I'm wondering how you're experiencing.
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You know, for me it was like, oh my God.
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You know, I see so many people that are just working for a paycheck and I get to do something every day, that I spend time with people that I really enjoy and I love what I do.
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How are you experiencing not being part of that group of people that just draw a paycheck, not being part of that group of people?
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that just draw a paycheck.
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Yeah, I mean, there's so many different like ways to live in the world and I acknowledge, acknowledge and I also acknowledge that I've been, I have an immense amount of privilege and and finding work and working to find a paying work that aligns with my interests.
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So I want to, I guess, give credit to myself for kind of following that compass, but I also want to give credit to my husband who has, you know, we've been married for almost 17 years, so supporting each other, you know, financially, kind of taking turns of who who carries the financial burden at various times, and that steadiness I feel like has allowed me to take different, take different pathways.
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If it had just been me, you know, responsible for all of the bills and things like that, who knows if I would have continued in a job but you know there's a million different.
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You could play that what if?
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Game all day long.
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Yeah, so I guess I want to acknowledge, I guess acknowledge him and acknowledge, but also acknowledge myself and choices that I made and kind of that, the compass that steered me throughout.
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Well, and I want to celebrate you both, because sustain a relationship and to have built a family that is something that we all hope to do.
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We know that that's what's most desired, but a lot of people can't make it for a lot of reasons.
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Well, thank you.
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Well and doing both.
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You know to be fully committed to your craft and to do a family.
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That's a lot, that's a lot.
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So, you know, we talked to a lot of people.
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That's kind of an either and or, because they just can't manage it all.
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And the fact that you're managing it all, hats off to you.
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Thank you.
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So let's circle back to what you said before we actually started, and that was the hesitancy to put yourself out there.
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Tell me a little more about that and what and what's behind that.
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Yeah, so we were chatting and I said that I had hesitancy about filling out my information and putting myself forward as an artist.
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As I mentioned, that's the desire that led me to your community event that I attended.
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And if something's going to make money, if something's going to be good for my, you know, I'll get on a podcast all day long and talk about my business, which is also of writing, you know, and to attract opportunities for that and open doors.
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And to attract opportunities for that and open doors.
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But I realized that I had hesitancy about putting myself forward as an artist and I can tell myself that it's because there are particular markers of quote unquote success that I haven't reached yet in my writing journey.
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But that may not be true, you know, because if I had reached those, would I feel differently?
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Would I still have that hesitancy about putting myself forward?
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You know, we'll see.
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So that was kind of the thing.
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That was at least that I was allowing myself, allowing to hold me back.
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Yeah, Can you describe a little bit about what the hesitancy is?
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Or is there a fear behind that or something that's just holding you back?
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Yeah, um, yeah.
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Well, I was talking about this, you know, in therapy not that long ago and I wasn't expecting to cry in therapy, but I did, and then I said, oh boy, there's, um, there's a lot of feeling there and I know it's, I know it's there, but, um, speaking it in a different context, I guess, is what brought up the tears.
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So I've been pursuing a traditional book deal for quite a while with various different projects.
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So the way that fiction writing works is that you write it's a goofy system you write the whole book and then you pitch different agents, you know, and you want to get representation for that book.
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So if you're an agent, then the agent submits your book out to editors and if the editor wants it, then they buy it, you know.
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And so it's so subjective.
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You get a lot of oh, this is so wonderful, this is so great, but we already have a book that's kind of similar to it on our list, or, you know, the voice didn't, just didn't totally click with me.
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Like, you get a lot of feedback that is is nonspecific, a lot of nonspecific no's, even complimentary no's, but they're still no's.
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A lot of nonspecific no's, even complimentary no's, but they're still no's.
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And so I've been through that process a couple times with a couple different agents, and we're talking like over a decade long process, in both the refining of the craft and in the attempts to get an agent, and then on submission, and so yeah, so I've just been heartbroken in that respect in the past of having these things that you pour your heart and soul into and that haven't seen the light of day.
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And, of course, there are always options, like in terms of what you know, like, self-publishing is always an option and it's a great option for the people that I work with in my, my freelancing business, which is nonfiction.
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Um, it's not as wonderful as an option to me at this moment, at least not as appealing, but it is always an option, um.
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So, all that to say, I know that there are many, many ways by which these things could see the light of day.
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Um, and maybe, maybe sometime I'll I'll change my, change my mind about how I want them to come to fruition.
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Um, and still like, so there there's that.
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And then, um, I was thinking about this as I've been like sending emails to my agent, like I've allowed that, to hold myself back, like well, we haven't sold, so I only have a a right to email her, like once every two weeks or something like that.
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You know I, I've been aware of these thought patterns that I have that say like, oh, you don't have.
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You know, she's got other clients who make her a lot more money than you, so you don't have the right to email her.
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And I'm like, oh, that's I'm, I gotta get rid of it.
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You know I, I um just kind of dispelling that, that idea and that limiting belief and like, okay, I just gotta, I have to act as if I have every right to email her.
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Politely, you know, when I want to, when I have something to say, I need to.
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Even in this relationship that is mediated with people who have the ability to sell the book, like I'm not pitching the editors directly, it goes through her because she has the relationships directly, it goes through her because she has the relationships.
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I still want to act like it's, like I'm the boss and like it's my career because it is, you know, like, in effect, they, they work for you at the end of the day, um, so, yeah, so that's the like heart hallmark of success that hasn't been achieved yet.
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Um, but I don't want that to hold me back, you know, or to um, limit my ability to describe myself as an artist, or to keep me stifled.
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Doing the same, doing the same thing, um, that's kind of what this year has been all about for me is trying different things and, um, you know, if one way didn't work, like, okay, well, how about?
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How about something else, you know?
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Switch it up, write something new, write in a different form, write poetry, write a weird piece of flash fiction which is what I did last week, you know, write a picture book.
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Yeah, so that's what this year has been about for me is experimentation and taking the bull by the horns, I guess.
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Bull by the horns, I guess.
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Okay, I have a lived experience of a time when I realized if I would put myself out there personally, it would completely impact the effectiveness of my business.
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Oh really.
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And I'm wondering if you can speculate how putting yourself out there personally and for you, that would look like probably putting yourself out there more personally with your agent, because they're the one that's representing you with all those editors and I'm wondering if you can speculate or see how that might change.
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What's going on, what's been going on for 10 years.
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I mean, like how it might Well, I Well, that's that's my yeah, that's that's what I've been thinking about is how I need to like you know that whole dance, like no one's watching love, like you've never been hurt, like you really have to.
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I keep thinking about that and it's so cliche, but I'm like you kind of, it is true.
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You know, like you have to act as if you don't have all F baggage or whatever.
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You have to act as if you don't have all F baggage or whatever.
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Like I'm the only one who I I'm fully aware that the judgment that I have for myself, conscious or not, other people don't have it.
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You know, like I.
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I know it's all a me thing in my head.
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Um, yeah, so that's, I keep thinking about that silly little but if you, in your situation, if you were to do that, what would that look like?
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And if this is going in a direction you don't want to go, it's okay to say you know.
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No, so this is what it's looked like lately.
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It's being more, it's being a squeakier wheel and sending more.
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Sending being like, hey, I found this editor and what about this and what about this, and hey, we talked about this.
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So when is that going to happen?
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Just being a squeakier, and that's what I'm doing currently and, yeah, acting like I have every right to do that, because I do, you do, absolutely.
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I can look back and realize that when I have every right to do that because I do.
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You do, absolutely you know.
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I can look back and realize that when I have allowed myself to get vulnerable in front of key people in my life, suddenly they were ready to go to bat for me.
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And that's what you need.
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You need your agent to go to bat for you, and the more you reveal yourself and the more she likes you because she's been really seeing a deeper level of you.
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I just have to wonder if that's going to change the way she presents your books to these editors.
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That makes sense.
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Mm, hmm, mm hmm.
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Well, and we've we've all had those experiences.
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We know this innately People like people.
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And no matter how accomplished anyone is, what really draws you to another person is how you can connect with them and see a little bit of yourself.
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Yeah, and I, I know what it's like when, um, one of the things that Maddox has advised me at times uh, even just for for doing this podcast he's told me that, you know, I need to set aside the stiff persona that I've had in my corporate life where I needed to make sure that I was delivering the message that was approved and could only show just those things and just be the person that people fall in love with in our living room.
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Right, just completely show up and the whole experience of it's going to change for the better for everybody.
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That's so I love that.
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That's so beautiful, and how has that impacted your corporate life?
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I know I'm not the interviewer here.
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No, but it's a great question.
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You do get to ask questions.
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Yeah, absolutely, oh it.
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It has completely shifted things in ways that that I never could have imagined, and I'll share with you an early experience of it.
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After the pandemic, one of the things that I had to deal with was I was in the midst of some intense grief and I was in a position where I needed to go and present something to a probate office of all places, where you know they, they deal with death and dying all the time.
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So I kind of had a built-in sympathetic audience without even realizing it, and I needed to show them some very mundane stuff for the nature of their business and I asked them to just be patient with me because I could feel the grief coming and I just needed to cry it out and it would, and I would be with them again.
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And they were like oh yeah, absolutely, cause, I mean, that's, that's their every day, they, they deal with that all the time and it, it.
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It shifted the experience because it went from something where they were sitting with a vendor to they were with a human being and it made it a much richer transaction or a much richer experience and not a transaction.
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You know, we were suddenly communing, we were sharing in something.
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Yes, we had business to attend to, but we were doing it in the spirit of fellowship, of being human beings and supporting each other.
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And it was a beautiful thing.
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It is a beautiful thing.
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There's something very magical about vulnerability.
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I just you know.
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It just draws not just anybody to you, it draws the right people to you.
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It's like this self-selecting tool.
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The minute you get vulnerable, the people that wouldn't really be your people, they go away.
00:25:39.656 --> 00:25:44.836
It makes them uncomfortable, but the people that are really your people, it draws them right in.
00:25:44.836 --> 00:25:46.486
So it's like this self-select tool.
00:25:46.486 --> 00:25:47.146
It's beautiful.
00:25:47.146 --> 00:25:56.118
If you want to know who your friends are, just cry or get mad or just you know, and it just it's just wow.
00:25:56.118 --> 00:25:56.980
I love it.
00:25:57.299 --> 00:25:59.145
Good, yeah, yeah.
00:25:59.145 --> 00:26:06.358
I learned early in my life that I was going to have to be okay with crying in front of other people because I did it so much.
00:26:06.358 --> 00:26:09.631
I was like I'm just going to have to.
00:26:09.631 --> 00:26:14.351
This is just who I am, this is what I'm going to do, and I'm going to be okay with it.
00:26:14.351 --> 00:26:15.233
You know so.
00:26:15.726 --> 00:26:18.013
I'm an emotional person myself.
00:26:18.013 --> 00:26:21.010
You know I'll make this really brief.
00:26:21.010 --> 00:26:24.160
But on on Dwight's and my first date.
00:26:24.160 --> 00:26:32.606
Five minutes into the date, tears streamed down his face and and it just drew me in like a moth to flame.
00:26:32.606 --> 00:26:33.590
It was I had my.
00:26:33.590 --> 00:26:39.438
I had my moment, you know in from the Jerry Maguire movie, where she said you had me at hello.
00:26:39.438 --> 00:26:43.692
You know he had me at the first tier.
00:26:43.692 --> 00:26:44.894
That rolled down his cheek.
00:26:44.894 --> 00:26:51.034
Yeah, yeah, it's like oh my gosh, I think, yep, this is it.
00:26:51.595 --> 00:26:52.336
Oh, that's great.
00:26:52.978 --> 00:26:53.719
And here we are.
00:26:53.719 --> 00:27:07.017
Okay, let's go back and look at a little bit of of origin.
00:27:07.017 --> 00:27:09.660
Let's.
00:27:09.660 --> 00:27:25.999
Why don't you tell us a little bit about how creativity showed up for you in your earliest days of your life, the first time you really experienced something that looked, tasted, felt like creativity, and what was it?
00:27:25.999 --> 00:27:29.894
How old were you and what was it, and how did it impact you?
00:27:30.644 --> 00:27:33.419
Oh, boy what was it and and how did it impact you?
00:27:33.439 --> 00:27:46.950
oh boy um that moment when you were like, oh my god, I have to make something, I have to, I have to create something um well, I, I guess it was.
00:27:47.131 --> 00:28:14.667
I mean, I was a huge reader as a young child, still am, you know, and then realizing like, oh people, this book didn't just come out of the effort, somebody wrote it, you know, like that's a job that you can have, like OK, that is the job that I want, and that was like seven, you know, when I, when I had that realization.
00:28:14.667 --> 00:28:16.349
So so that's one way.
00:28:16.349 --> 00:28:24.166
I was always a club starter as a child and so I think that's one way, you know we would.
00:28:24.166 --> 00:28:35.508
I'd be like let's have a this club or this club or or whatever, and so we'd like get my friends together and form a little club for whatever I was interested in.
00:28:35.508 --> 00:28:41.719
So I think that's another way that creativity showed up and I see it with.
00:28:41.865 --> 00:28:43.449
So I have my daughters right now.
00:28:43.449 --> 00:28:50.071
I have twins who are nine and I have a three-year-old and I see them do this all the time too.
00:28:50.071 --> 00:28:53.405
Just start little games, or like we're going to do a show.
00:28:53.405 --> 00:29:07.210
Anytime you get like three kids together, they're going to put on a show for you, you know, and they'll spend the whole time figuring out who talks first and getting their costume together and that will be the 15 minute show.
00:29:07.210 --> 00:29:11.847
But yeah, I don't know, it's just like the impulse is so present and they just do it.
00:29:12.008 --> 00:29:26.589
You know we're going to do a show, we're going to do this, so, um, it's, it's fun to see it now with my own own kids, but I was definitely that way too Like let's start a club, let's do a show, let's do a good show for um.
00:29:26.589 --> 00:29:29.375
You know, my cousins and I would get together at how or not?
00:29:29.375 --> 00:29:33.227
Halloween, Thanksgiving, and we put on a show for the family.
00:29:33.227 --> 00:29:38.836
So it's just kind of baked in to to being a kid, you know.
00:29:38.836 --> 00:29:42.308
So it's, everything you do is is like that.
00:29:42.308 --> 00:29:49.633
You know, it's like it's just an expression of creativity, and it's when we get older that we forget about that.
00:29:50.255 --> 00:29:51.920
That, that creating clubs thing.
00:29:51.920 --> 00:29:55.509
You're kind of demonstrating some community leadership.
00:29:57.354 --> 00:29:58.115
Yeah, I would.
00:29:58.115 --> 00:29:59.117
I would say so.
00:29:59.117 --> 00:30:12.277
I, that's definitely like forming community has has always been a priority, priority to not just me but my husband too and um.
00:30:12.277 --> 00:30:37.721
So looking for, looking for places where there's opportunity and kind of um like okay, somebody just needs to make the first invite and other other people are, other people want it, you know everybody kind of like you know how people say that they're lonely, like they don't just say that there's a whole loneliness epidemic.
00:30:37.721 --> 00:30:45.657
But if everybody feels that way, nobody is inviting other people to hang out or to start something.
00:30:45.657 --> 00:30:52.695
Then you just need somebody to to get the ball rolling, you know there's a shortage of initiators, for sure.
00:30:53.925 --> 00:31:03.614
Dwight and I are definitely initiators and we marvel sometimes because we make all these invites and have people over to our house and rarely do we get an invitation.
00:31:03.614 --> 00:31:12.515
And it's not because people don't like us or don't want to hang out with us, it's just they're not necessarily initiators.
00:31:13.965 --> 00:31:14.205
Right.
00:31:14.205 --> 00:31:31.933
Or they probably look at you all and think, oh, they're the creativity community guys, they're probably out having these wonderful artistic experiences every night of the week, like they probably have that assumption and I think we all go around assuming that of other people and it's just not true, you know, it is not true.
00:31:31.933 --> 00:31:32.413
You know, I think you're right.
00:31:32.413 --> 00:31:33.348
I think we all go around assuming that of other people and it's just not true, you know.
