Thursday! 2-34: The Theme is Theme

V2, I34

Did you know that Thursday! has a comment section? When you read the newsletter here on Substack, and you get all the way to the end, past the places where I prostrate myself on the cold Earth and beg for money and links and likes and all the other things we creative types have to do to spread the word, there’s a comment section! You can’t get it from just the e-mail version, which is why I mention it. It’s only on the web version of Thursday!, which you can reach from your computer or the mobile communicator and tricorder device of your choosing. You might one day want to avail yourself of the ability to comment on something I write. You might even want to engage other readers in conversation and slowly build an eager and lively community of Thursdologists…Thursdayites…Thursdanistas…Thursdayati?

The point is, there’s a comment section. It is just one way to have an active hand in what I do here, along with sharing Thursday! or handing me a small amount of money each month! Cool? Cool.

On with Thursday!

You know the little epiphanies you get about your work sometimes that jump out at you and bite you a few times before running off into the woods or moors or moonlit fields of high grass? One of those accosted me this week as I read through some stories and poems I’d written in the past. Turns out — and you should probably sit down before you read any more — I write a lot about werewolves.

Yes. I know. I was as shocked as you are, no doubt, right now. For reasons I can’t even begin to explain, my creative life is littered with casual lycanthropy. My favorite song, my first published book, and two of my favorite movies¹ involve werewolves. Those fuzzy little, night-roaming, throat-ripping scamps show up in all sorts of places — serious and not-so serious. I’ve written light poems about them and creepy stories. They creep around trees and inside quiet houses. I put them in attics and basements and bedrooms and warehouses. There’s a draft sitting in my computer right now in which a werewolf lives underground and protects what’s left of society from a werewolf apocalypse horde.

Lots and lots of werewolves in my writing. It’s a theme. And that’s what I pick up all of you and ask you to join me on this week’s wordy walk through creativity: theme.

We all have themes that season our creative works. T.S. Eliot tended to work back to themes of societal dysfunction and decay inside cities. Walt Whitman worked quite a lot in nature and with references to spirit and aspiration. Stephen King returned often to love, friendship, and innocence (believe it or not). Grant Wood’s works were based in earth and working the earth, building in the earth, and the people who he thought were move connected to the earth. All artists have themes to which they return over and over again and there’s never just one reason a particular theme “sticks” with a creative person.

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You can change themes as well. Plenty of writers have filled pages with their grief or anger. Others turned joyous or worshipful. Me, I turned wolfish. My friend Liz is very centered on pastoral themes of life and contentment (and I do love her meditations on both every week). I’m sure if you look around, you’ll see plentiful examples, including in your own work.

My point here, though, is that you have themes in your work you may not even recognize. Perhaps you haven’t thought to look. Perhaps they’re invisible to you because you’re so close to your work and the themes are so familiar. Perhaps you’re changing as a person and an artist and your themes are changing with you such that what you’ve written before isn’t what you’re writing now. None of these things are bad. In fact, I think they’re great! It’s cool that I write about werewolves a lot because I love werewolf stories. Heck, I like cool monster stories, which is why I write them. You’re going to write the themes that live in your heart as well, no matter what those themes are.

That brings up another use for artistic themes. We can use them to gauge where our heads and our hearts are and what thoughts occupy them. It’s tough for an artist to keep their loves and hates out of the work. We tend to tap directly into those subjects for our art. Because of that, we can more readily see the feelings and subjects on which we’re dwelling when we look at our art than when we take one of those little meditative dives into our psyche. Artists have a habit of bleeding their hearts right onto the page, the canvas, the chunk of granite or wood, or the music. Sometimes we mean to do so but most times we don’t. We do it because that’s how we work. What that really means to us is we are transparent to anyone who sees our art over time. Themes emerge pretty readily to anyone who wants to look, and that includes us. We can look too, can’t we? We can see if we’re wallowing in unhealthy thoughts or if we’re working things out okay. We can see if we’re stuck in a ditch or if our current feelings are proceeding in a good way.

I don’t know what all that means in terms of lycanthropic portrayals in short poetry, which leaves me the same, old, loveable muddle I’ve been for a while now, but perhaps it’ll help you a little bit. Our artistic themes are our hearts and minds working themselves out through our own creativity. I like how it works. It seems healthy to me, so long as we see what we’re doing and use our themes not only as creative help but also help for our own mental and spiritual health.

The world out there is tough. I don’t need to tell you (though I do, and will, because it’s good to know you’re not the only one who feels the weight). We can use any bit of help we can to get along a little better with ourselves and with each other. The themes of our art can help. Really. Take a look at what you’ve done lately. See if you notice any recurring themes. Once you find one or two of them, tuck them away in the back of your mind. That way, if you get stuck or stalled, you can pull those themes out and see if they’re a help or a hurt. If the latter, then change them. You’re allowed.

Okay. So. Have you noticed any themes to your art? Tell me, would you? I do like hearing from you, even if I don’t answer back very quickly. I read every e-mail I get and Substack also drops a note to me when someone leaves a comment in the comment section (WHICH EXISTS!). I’ll see them and I’ll read them and I’ll try very hard to talk back, too, if that’s what you want.

(Thanks to Rachael Sinclair for whipping up the spiffy new Thursday! banner you see if you get the weekly e-mails. Good grief, I don’t deserve the awesomeness of my friends!)

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Poems and Stories and Such I’ve Written Lately

1. “Werewolves of London” by Warren Zevon, One Hungry Werewolf and Other Monstrous Rhymes, An American Werewolf in London, and Stephen King’s Silver Bullet.