We were lucky to catch up with Janay Blakely recently and have shared our conversation below.
Janay , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?
I have been writing for as long as I have been able to hold a pencil. I have always loved story-telling. When I was younger I did oratorical competitions. When I got older I competed in “Young Talent Big Dreams” and won the spoken word division. I also did some one off performances in college and daballed in one play performance. My more serious pursuits as a creative began when I came home to Miami in 2019 and submitted to the ‘Emerging Writers’ fellowship from Miami Dade college. They did not select my manuscript but, I figured, I had already written to poetry so I might as well put it out there.
From there I self published and sold at vendor fairs, performed at different events, hosted open mics, etc. I do wish I would have started taking my writing more seriously sooner. However, my writing is usually cathartic and a means for me to process my emotions or thoughts. I didn’t have as much I was ready to work through at the time.
I believe, like many, my 9-5 regular job helps to support my 5-9 which would include my creative pursuits which are currently (very beginner-level) graphic design via canva as well as writing. I do wish that when there were booms in social media, like youtube and tik tok, that I would have capitalized on it and put myself out there sooner. The novelty of those platforms is gone so it can be a little more difficult to find your footing and build and following.
Janay , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Janay Blakely and I am a self proclaimed ‘wordsmith’. My primary creative outlook is poetry/spoken word. However, I do also have a children’s book, I occasionally help people with their general writing, lead workshops, and I dabble in graphic design (primarily posters) as well.
I wouldn’t know perse what makes me different. The human experience is pretty universal. We all feel the same emotions but at varying intensities and they manifest/express differently. We all have interwoven stories but no one has my exact perspective but me.
Most recently I am proud of my graphic design growth. I had come to a place where my 9-5 was devoid of joy and fulfillment. I had also lost some of my creative spark. I have always had fun using canva but leaned more into customizing templates rather than starting from scratch. My last two projects (one for a paid client) I made from scratch without a template. I do think they were some of my best works to date. I like that I am feeling more confident in my abilities which allows me to take greater risks.
I am also working on a poetry project although I use the word in a more experimental context. Its about how everything under the sun is essentially a love poem.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I am a burnt out, (high functioning) mentally ill, former gifted kid. I thrived on outside validation that we given for output. I derived my worth from my ‘value’ to others. I was only happy making good grades, giving to others (so they would like me or keep me around), and generally being of service. The goal was perfection; always.
It makes for superficial writing. Writing to please everyone is impossible. It is the reason we have different genres, and subgenres within those, or different tropes. There’s even different styles of poetry from monstiches to limericks and free verse.
Perfection also causes paralysis. If you are focused on writing a good, you never end up writing anything. The art of creating, in any medium, when doing so authentically, is inherently messy and a little disordered/chaotic. Creativity is constantly in flux.
To be a good writer, or rather, to develop yourself, you have to write. Write the bad stuff and rework it. Write the bad stuff and leave it alone. Good is so subjective. Sure, there are basic tenets for what makes writing good, but even these rules are broken and rewritten constantly. That’s how we get new writing styles and honestly, that’s the fun part.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding part of being an artist for me is being able to share what I feel and have it resonate with others. Poetry is not a medium you get rich off of, especially now, unless you are one of the ‘Rupi Kaurs’ of the world. Would I like to make my full time living as an artist? Absolutely. Am I okay if it only supplements my income but never replaces it? sure.
Many times people don’t understand my poetry. Sometimes its a little heavy on metaphor and uses a lot of older diction. However, when someone does understand it they almost always tell me. It leads to deeper discussions about what they have experienced that made the piece feel more real to them.
EVen when it is not about my poetry specifically but about my backstory. I have bipolar disorder. My brain is a lot to deal with. Sometimes people hear that and talk about how creativity helps them cope. I recently lead a workshop for female veterans where we explored poetry as a way to talk about more difficult emotions.
Anytime my words can more something more concrete for someone else, or give them the words for what they previously couldn’t express, it makes it all worthwhile.
