What to Do When the Creative Won't Go ...

Every once in awhile, the creative flow will suddenly - and seemingly without any good reason - gunk up. It'll actually keep running because we are creative beings and it's what we do, but there's a whole lot of stuttering and the stuff that comes out of us is soooo off.

Fixing it can be a great and satisfying pleasure. It can be fun.
It can also bring us to tears.

I forgot the tears part until a friend called the other day. The note of defeat was pretty loud and self confidence was definitely threatening to run away.

Only days before, I'd had to do my own self repair and was all warmed up so I jumped in with gusto, barely stifling a 'yippee!' I could hear my friend's eyelids blink, startled by all the enthusiasm. She is fairly new to a full-time creative life after spending spent years in the corporate world, and thinks creativity is a part that needs expressing. I suspect that point of view is the culprit.

To me, creativity is a way of life. A way of life makes room for everything and is always teaching us how to live into higher, truer sweetness. A few years ago, I interviewed Brian (Brian Andreas, to anyone who might not know who I'm talking about :)) about how he takes care of his creativity.

(In case you're not connected to us through Facebook, here's a treat we made to help us surf out January ...)


If I think creativity is a way of life, he must think creativity IS life. It's really as if there's no distinction for him. His antennae are up at all times, seeing the delightful in just about everything. In fact, sometimes I think the delightful that hides from so many of us actually comes out just for him. (I should hunt down those notes and post them, shouldn't I? Yes, I should and maybe I will. ) ANYWAY, one of the things we didn't talk about was what he does when there's a bit of a hiccup. IF there's a bit of a hiccup.

That's okay. This is what I do when my machinery starts misfiring, things I check in on, things I ask myself, expecting me to answer very VERY honestly:

1. Is there any - and I mean ANY - part of me focusing on applause or admiration or flickering daydreams of them gasping and grasping, finally, my genius?

This is a very private thing and no amount of talking about it in a pub will clear it up. I like sharing my work and want to do stuff that's good for my career and I even have visions of doing projects that speak to a big old audience, but I have to do that from the business part of mind mind, not the creator part.

2. Am I holding on to stuff just because I did it?

Oh, THIS was a problem when I first started animating. I told myself - PROMISED myself - that I'd just 'try it out' but after hours and hours of work, my brain's hands would wave all over the place while it shrieked: I can't! I can't do any more! Oh, those were some ugly moments. When I started teaching Flash to kids, it's one of the first things I tried to impress on them: let it go.

If the computer blows up, you haven't lost anything at all. You've been teaching yourself SOMETHING, guaranteed, and often, if what you had was great and wonderful and wanted desperately to be in the world, you'll be able to recreate it - only better.

The thing is it's not enough to hope stuff disappears by accident (except my car the insurance company totaled. I really wish I'd go out one day and it would be - poof! gone.) Some things need revisions, need re-doing, need to be thrown away. It's a gift to stop and start all over.

Clinging to what doesn't work is making a contract with a poverty consciousness. When I hear any echo of 'I can't,' I know it's true.

I'm pretty committed to 'I can.'

3. Am I paying attention? Am I receptive? Am I loose?

Or am I letting some irritation nag at me, some tiny resentment I thought was hidden away scratch its way to the surface? I take the time to set it straight with some spiritual exercising; forgiveness is a good thing to start with and being really big grateful for all the creative juice I can squeeze out. THIS is where I want to be, buoyed by bliss-y stuff.

4. Am I doing the work? Am I pushing my boundaries and edges and DOING the work?

I really like the work involved in living. Everything I do, even the tedious stuff, informs the final outcome. To know more is to have a richer vocabulary I can access (and I don't mean a vocabulary of words, but of ideas and techniques).

I'm not so fastidious - I just enjoy the sensation of discipline and the results.

BUT. Sometimes, I'll decide to try something new. And I'll forget that I only got where I am after work. Some how, I allow myself to be deluded into thinking that by sheer force of wanting it, it'll work out. Working out is not the same thing as doing the work. Sigh.

*** *** *** ***

And that's it. They work like a dream. They return me to being connected to happy, playfulness and when I'm there, I can race like the wind. (Which is a hell of a lot faster than my car is going right now ...)

PS. Am also happy to report that some of the above worked beautifully for the friend, too. So, finally, Yippeeee!

- posted by Cris