A liminal space is a location that is a transition between two other locations or states of being.
There are many places we could describe as liminal.
If you were like me, that initial delight in my personal stories came from entertaining myself and only me. In the beginning, there was no knowledge of critics, other people’s opinions, and no doubt. That feeling, that situation, is the liminal point of being I am trying desperately to return to. How stained and muddied are our writings after they have been thrown out of the warm, dark womb of imagination, and how pitiful and embarrassing they look lying shriveled in the glare of the Reader’s Opinion.
And it gets worse. I form my inner critic based on what others have said. I try and just write, let it flow, amuse myself, and hold back the Inner Critic with a stiff arm as I type frantically, trying to ignore the chaos. I’ve set all kinds of rules and boundaries to try and control it. It’s exhausting. My ADHD brain sings gleefully in an earworm tune, “Don’t let me get me; I’m my own worst enemy; it’s bad when you annoy yourself.” Thanks, Pink
Liminal moments. Those moments apart from time when you are gripped. Taken. When you are so fully absorbed in what you are doing that time ceases to exist.
Rebecca Wells, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
I do believe that this pull to a liminal place is where writers find their muse, their inspiration. It is what overcomes procrastination, laziness, and fear of failure. Once you are there, creativity blossoms; there isn’t hardly anything that can pull you away.
It doesn’t matter if you are meeting your writing goals or not. You are the link to the source, the electrified boogaloo, and that, in the end, is all that matters.
