How to be creative... (Part One)
This is tricky. It's really something that I've just begun to think about, largely because it's been forced upon me. I have a composition to finish by this Friday and it's getting more and more difficult to even put pen to paper. I've been putting back my own deadlines for this composition, because I haven't been feeling "very creative" recently. But if I'm rational about it, it's quite silly for one to claim they're unable to create simply because they're not "feeling very creative at the moment". What does that mean? I would concede that there are those who are more creative than others, but I reckon in any creative work there's 5% natural creativeness and 95% sweat, blood, toil and tears. However, I'm sure many people, including reknowned and celebrated artists, think that creativeness is some kind of mystical thing that comes as it pleases, causing one to simply wait around until they're made able to create again.
Let me be brutally honest here. I'm a naturally lazy man. I've learnt to force myself to work hard, but it can be a real effort sometimes. It's convenient for me to use the excuse of "not feeling very creative" to stop working and wait until I felt able to compose again, because what I'm trying to compose (my music, not this blog) right now is really taxing me. That is surely lunacy, though. Pieces of work do not come from a clear blue sky, so how I can expect one to fall? I think I need to concede that if a piece of work is hard, then it doesn't mean that I need to wait until what is desired 'falls from the sky', but that I need to work harder to complete that piece of work.
I reckon one of the main reasons that being creative can be so hard is because it requires a decisive mind. One needs to make desicions at every level of the work, from it's conception to it's completion. All of those decisions matter and that makes the decision making a heavy task to bear. OK, well at least it should if you care about your work. If you work alone as a creator, all your decisions reflect upon you and there is nobody to whom you can pass the buck.
It does make sense then, that so many people wait for the creativeness to come to them. They can avoid making the decisions themselves and simply do as they're told by their flashes of creative inspiration. I would guess that the more you work at creating, the decisions become easier to make and hence the impression of 'creativeness'. Hey, it wouldn't be an impression, it would be creativeness!! I would also guess that this would make for more effectiveness at acting on inspiration, wherever that occurs.
Whatever, I have to start creating now, so I have no choice but to work damn hard. I shall let you know whether my hypotheses turned out to be true or not...
Let me be brutally honest here. I'm a naturally lazy man. I've learnt to force myself to work hard, but it can be a real effort sometimes. It's convenient for me to use the excuse of "not feeling very creative" to stop working and wait until I felt able to compose again, because what I'm trying to compose (my music, not this blog) right now is really taxing me. That is surely lunacy, though. Pieces of work do not come from a clear blue sky, so how I can expect one to fall? I think I need to concede that if a piece of work is hard, then it doesn't mean that I need to wait until what is desired 'falls from the sky', but that I need to work harder to complete that piece of work.
I reckon one of the main reasons that being creative can be so hard is because it requires a decisive mind. One needs to make desicions at every level of the work, from it's conception to it's completion. All of those decisions matter and that makes the decision making a heavy task to bear. OK, well at least it should if you care about your work. If you work alone as a creator, all your decisions reflect upon you and there is nobody to whom you can pass the buck.
It does make sense then, that so many people wait for the creativeness to come to them. They can avoid making the decisions themselves and simply do as they're told by their flashes of creative inspiration. I would guess that the more you work at creating, the decisions become easier to make and hence the impression of 'creativeness'. Hey, it wouldn't be an impression, it would be creativeness!! I would also guess that this would make for more effectiveness at acting on inspiration, wherever that occurs.
Whatever, I have to start creating now, so I have no choice but to work damn hard. I shall let you know whether my hypotheses turned out to be true or not...
posted by Iain at 11:39 AM
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