There will inevitably be a bit of irony in this post..well because I am writing at all …and because what I want to talk about is that feeling that there is nothing more to say.

I write for a living…this is probably a great surprise to anyone who taught me in primary school because it was not my strong suit then.

In fact primary school was hardly the place for any form of creativity. It was actively discouraged in an environment where individuality, different thoughts and the consequence of possible different behaviour, was all too hard to manage.

I well remember actually being held back after school for not copying a teacher’s drawing – she had drawn stick figures and lolly pop trees – to illustrate a lovely poem we were reading about a pixie and forget-me-nots.

She was furious that I had drawn a real pixie with a blue hat and expression and features and a tree with gnarly knots and a bird in a nest in its branches…what was I trying to do, she demanded, make her look silly? I was seven and did not understand the concept of making people look silly. It left me bewildered and stung.

And so you learned to conform.  For the first couple of years I found this quite distressing.

I had idyllic preschool days…no kindergarten for me. I spent my time with my mum and dad at dad’s office – his place of business – one shopfront in a group of about eight and I knew all the neighbours.

Mum read me stories to keep me occupied,  I drew a lot, sometimes did little jobs – like ordering our lunches from the shop next door and I played with the most wonderfully tolerant retired couple who owned the block of shops and lived in a rather exotic home behind them. They had travelled the world and regaled me with stories – slippers from China, stones from the outback, carvings from the islands, saris from India, larval rocks – and information and I in turn helped them in the garden, played with their pets and kept them in chatty company. No question was too silly – all answers were given fully with patience and kindness.

So school was a jolt and I did run away at least twice in the first couple of years…before finally settling in to the uniformity of it all. Little moments of creativity often got me into trouble. Drawing won me praise and annoyance all at the same time because school was not all about the illustrations. Talking, once a skill for negotiating the adult world of the office, got me into the most trouble of all.

It was not until much later that I felt I could write. One rather fastidious English teacher in high school unleashed the possibilities for me with a simple exercise. Write me a colour she said…I want to know how that colour feels and sounds, I want to know what it tastes like.

It was a wonderful, revelatory, experience writing about blue and I felt a harmonic ring about the whole exercise…a profound sense of excitement and depth.

So where does that go when you write for a living and how can you possibly keep the joy alive and the creativity going? (Answers to this question will be gratefully received)

Write me a media release just has no passion – especially when it has to be approved by 10 different people who are more concerned with typos than creativity.

I set myself tiny private goals, to create a little humour or flow…a snappy headline, a little onomatopoeia, or double entendre…but it is ultimately joyless.  I am not sure how many people realise that PR folk often work with very poor material. That is about it for creative challenge – people give you a thought, a few dot points, a dense research report and you mould it into the news release format.

It is a craft for sure…I am amazed at how many people find it difficult, but it is structured and formulaic, following all the hackneyed principles of news: who, what, when, why and how.

It would be fine..doable…sufferable…if there was time and head space for something other…a place where you had the energy and enthusiasm to enjoy words again..to explore new ones, to play with sound, rhythm and subtlety of meaning.

But there is no room. In between phone calls, incessant email, and yet another deadline, somehow creativity dries up like old bones that are just too tired from holding you together.

Some days – not every day – because there are interesting moments and still things to know and learn – but some days it feels like primary school again…and I want to get my tough little brown school bag and run.  Just slip away, with no small anxiety about missing roll call, but a bursting, bubbling sense of freedom and relief at the site of the horizon.

So I write this little piece and ask your forgiveness – because apart from this – and those who know me will find it rather incredible – I have nothing much to say.