After a Short Absence

Last week’s missing post I would like to blame on a busy Easter weekend, but the truth is less glamorous than that (though no less turkey filled). I visited the family home for the holiday and took my laptop with me, intent on doing some much anticipated writing.

But what did I do? I forgot my laptop’s power supply, and for this energy-gobbling, battery-lazed rig, that meant a short runtime until critical failure. Forty minutes short, to be specific. I was able to complete some other, more important tasks in time before the screen turned black and shut me out for the weekend.

Having my long-awaited plans dashed, I’ve been out of sorts ever since. I’m not sure where the time went last week, but it didn’t go to writing, or reading. Tax prep, maybe, and exercise. Nothing creative, that’s for certain. So thank you for patiently awaiting word from me.

The good news is that I did carve out some time this past weekend to write, and it felt like coming home—familiar, comforting, and relaxing. Returning to a story after an absence is always a welcome relief. My characters haven’t run away on me, and the plot hasn’t stalled out. Everything is where I left it, waiting for me to discover the next words.

Even though finding those words after time away is a challenge, the satisfaction of finding them is unparalleled. At no other point does writing feel so right, so fitting, so me than when I return after an absence. Any doubts about my commitment to writing, any wavering faith in my love for the craft I harboured vanish. I know that writing is my creative hobby, outlet, passion—mine.

On the same note, I also picked up the piano this weekend. I hadn’t touched it in, what, a year? As I made my way across the keys, despite the skill I’d lost, I fell in love with the instrument again. Now I’ve been listening to nothing but piano music and seeking out new songs to try my fingers at.

Just like with writing, it felt so good to be back at a creative pursuit I had set aside. More than catching up with an old friend, I was reacquainting myself with…myself. I feel more centred and grounded. Our passions, even if they may fade in out and out over time, never truly leave us. They are a part of us, and we shouldn’t forget them.

Day to Dusk: A New Creative Interest

I gave my friend her birthday gift last weekend and ended up giving myself a rather unexpected gift: a new creative interest.

I took her to a painting workshop on abstract art. The workshop took a free painting approach. Our instructor demonstrated different tools and techniques to paint with, directed our attention to the paintings hung around the studio and the small photo albums of art clippings for inspiration, and said that he would be available to answer any of our questions. We were left to paint whatever we wanted however we wanted.

Which was perfect for my friend and me, since neither of us had done any painting since elementary school. We splurted various acrylic colours onto our palettes and let our paints take us wherever they led. And just like the first blank page when writing, my blank canvas intimidated me. I didn’t know where to start, and I didn’t want to ruin my painting with an errant brush stroke or poorly mixed colour. There are no erasers or backspace or undo buttons for canvas.

My finished painting, acrylic on canvas, Day to Dusk

I soon learned, though, that with layering, blending, and combining colours, mistakes became sources of intention and inspiration. I gained control over my canvas as I determined how to manipulate the acrylics and various tools to create different effects. It wasn’t long before I realized that I was creating something. I, one who cannot even doodle, was creating a painting.

That knowledge smacked me with delight. Painting, drawing, sketching—all the visual art stuff—I deeply admire but never imagined I could do myself and feel such joy doing it. But I did. Painting in that workshop filled me with as much creative energy and excitement as any of my other creative hobbies. Suddenly, I wanted to rush out and turn my apartment into a painting studio and line my walls with my own works.

Of course I had not intended to give myself a gift when I gave my friend her birthday gift, but I have no other words to describe my experience at that painting workshop. It was a gift to discover another creative interest, another avenue for self-expression, another form of creativity.

It reminds me that us creatives can be even more creative than we think and that we need not relegate ourselves to our one, primary creative passion. We also don’t need to be masters at the hobby to find joy in it. Sometimes, being a novice gives us the freedom to experiment, to make mistakes, to laugh, and to enjoy.

Snowflakes and My Return

I’m back fresh from vacation, and back to work and the old routine. Refreshed and recharged, I’m ready to get things done. But I have no ideas for my writing. I took my own advice and took a vacation from writing. I didn’t think about book reviews, blog posts, story ideas, or anything writing-related once while I was away. The 3,941 m (12,930 ft) elevation of Summit Lake, Mt. Evans, Colorado stole my breath, and with it went my voice.

Summit Lake, Mt. Evans, Colorado

Mounds of fluffy white clouds rested near the weathered snow covered peaks while misty sheets sluiced over the narrow road climbing up the mountain’s trunk. Tufts of brown and black tundra grasses sprouted between rocks and across open plains. Impossibly dark lakes cut holes into the landscape. Crisp and dry air, hovering above freezing, danced just out of lung’s reach. Blinding sun rays seared my exposed skin. Crickets, somehow all the way up there, accompanied the rush of wind as the sole sounds. Bright blue backdropped it all.

In place of my awed silence that stretched across my entire trip, I opened my eyes. I photographed everything. Since I turned aside one creative passion, writing, I turned to another, photography. I’m no master photographer, and I certainly don’t have the equipment or knowledge for it, but I have an eye for composition, and I love taking pictures.

Because it doesn’t really matter how good or bad at photography I am. What matters is that photography tickles me in the same way writing does. Photography is another creative passion, hobby, expression, interest — one of many other creative interests, in fact. As a creative, I can’t stop being creative, even when I’m taking a vacation from my primary creative passion.

I think this holds true for all creatives. We may all have our one main art that defines us as the dancer, cartoonist, violinist, or interior designer, but we also have a slew of other creative pursuits. This is what I love about creatives.

We can’t stop creating. We extend our energies to other forms of creativity in the way of side hobbies and interests. We’re not just the florist or the actor. We’re the florist who takes pottery classes Thursday evenings, and the actor who makes the most wacky homemade ice cream flavours. We’re diverse and varied, and full of surprises.

If there’s one thing I learned on my high altitude trip, except to never look up or I’ll get dizzy instantly, is to nurture all your creative interests, and grow as the unique creative you are.

Dear Creatives

Always hunting
for the next big idea
while waiting
for the next soul
shattering inspiration,
our eyes are fixed
forever upward
as we walk forward,
sprint sideways, and roll back
to where we started. We’ll give up
and we’ll cry,
or we’ll forget it
for a little while.

But we’ll try again
– we always do —
when we’re brave enough
to fail.
And when that failure gives us more
than it’s taken,
we spring to our toes
and climb on.
We’ll never reach the top,
but we’ll hit countless peaks along the way
and plant our flags each time.

Looking back, we don’t see
where we stumbled
or hear the wind
that defied us.
What we know is we made it,
and we’ll make it beyond this still,

if we need to, if we need to.

---

Our art, our passion, and our creativity is so much a part of our lives it can become our lives if it doesn’t overcome our lives. We are creative, and we need to express ourselves through our creations. We can’t live without creating…or can we?

Too much dedication to a creative hobby or passion can turn it into a creative chore or job. We start to feel obligated to our creativity and that, if we aren’t exercising it enough, we aren’t the creative we can be, or should be. We certainly shouldn’t take our creative drive for granted because it can leave us without warning and leave us devastated.

We carry on because we think we need to.

We don’t. We will only drain ourselves of every last bit of energy til there is nothing left but the hollow word should. What should we do when we’re spent, uninspired, and begrudging the very thing we’re supposed to love from trying too hard?

I challenge you to take a break from your creative passion. Put down the pen. Walk away from the keyboard. Shut off the camera. Close the spice cupboard. Hang up the shoes. Then, breathe. Don’t worry about, well, being creative. Just be. Everyone needs a vacation from something once in a while; we need a vacation from ourselves.

 

 

When It’s Gone

Sometimes we lose the will to create. The need to bring something new and unique into the world disappears, and we’re left without a single creative thought. When the creative’s mind is built on those urges and motivations, when it creates without us realizing, losing the creative will is akin to losing the creative’s mind. Nothing remains but a pained emptiness. When the creative doesn’t have the will to create, what is she?

This post is difficult for me to pen (and type). It will be short. I write this Tuesday night, barely forty-eight hours after all my creative drive dove into the murky and muddy waters of a stinky bog. Somewhere on the bottom it rests. Beyond sight, beyond reach, it festers without the passion of my heart, too wounded and shocked to follow.

I said goodbye to someone whom I still care deeply about. The same someone who, through emotional turmoil, helped me realize the healing properties of reading. I hoped that creating would have a similar effect in helping me heal, in occupying my mind and focusing my energies. But my hands, searching for my creative drive through the dark waters, find nothing.

Knowing that the will to create is gone, and feeling that emptiness is almost as painful as what caused it. I’m not myself. I’m lost. If I don’t fill my free time with creative activities, what else am I to do? I don’t have that creative energy pulling me through the day, filling me with excitement and spirit. In being silent, in not creating and not wanting to create, I feel as if I am doing someone or something a disservice. It’s plain wrong, and I don’t like it one bit.

So what do we do when we lose the will to create? Searching the waters might only make it retreat further out of reach, and forcing out a creation can be a grudge match between should, want, and can’t that ends in tears. One thing I know for certain: the will will come back. It never goes away for good. Unless we completely lose ourselves and our identities, the creative will is too fundamental to the creative’s being to disappear because of upheaval or upset. It will come back. When we’re ready.

In the meantime, this one creative is doing the only thing she can do: feel. And maybe, in time, the emotion overflowing from her will purify the waters.

The Moment of Inspiration: Claiming the Creative’s Identity

Motivation without inspiration is stagnation. Inspiration without limitation is motivation.

As a creative (which is my new term for creative individuals), my drive to create is always present. Sometimes it hops up and down, hollering at me to take action, and other times it naps on the couch, waiting for the ringing alarm of inspiration. When inspiration does come ringing, my creative drive jumps to life, which really is the best way to describe it — it has a life of its own. A whole new sensation comes over my body that is unique to the creative desire. It looks something like this…

The idea strikes me.

-STOP-
I freeze. I breathe in a whisper as my lips separate, my eyes widen, and I lift my head up and to the right. I am enraptured. Listening (“Only you can hear me, Summoner…”). Feeling.

-READY-
A tickle begins in my stomach and grows to the full weight of excitement. Heavy yet delicate, the excitement then spikes and shoots through my chest and limbs. Energy surges through me.

-SET-
A giggle bubbles my lips into a wide smile. Ideas trip and tumble over themselves in my mind. My gaze, far off and remote, bounces between the unseen sprites.

-GO-
I rush to the nearest recording implement: scrap and pencil, loose leaf and marker, phone, laptop, whiteboard. Fighting short-term memory fade, I scribble illegible short form and jots onto my implement. Trying to capture the burst of ideas before they dissipate.

-CREATE-
If I’m in the time and place to create right away while the inspiration is fresh, I will. If I cannot, which is most often the case, I pack up and store away all the ideas for later retrieval. Either way, the motivation and energy stay with me. I’m brighter, happier, strung with excitement and verve. Near to the point of shaking, I cannot contain what has struck me. My day is suddenly a remarkable, memorable one, for I have achieved the elusive moment of inspiration.

This transformation that comes over me is marked and noticeable as I described. For people who are nearby at the time, they all give me that same “What is going on with her?” stare. What they witness is the creative drive, the beginning cycle of the creative process in action. The strike of inspiration is a visceral experience — bodily, mentally, emotionally, spiritually — and it is, again, to what the creatives lay claim. It is the moment when the core of our beings rouse to life from its slumber. This moment is a part of us; it is who we are.

Reclaiming Creativity

Everyone Can Be Creative

Next to finding and following your passions, being creative is the state-of-the-art state of being. Anecdotally speaking, look around in the media, in local businesses and establishments, and your own workplace, and you’ll find a host of hype and buzz surrounding the magical, mystical, secret-to-success concept of “creativity.” I can’t help thinking, though, that this excitement for creativity is trying to take something from the traditionally creative type of people that will always be theirs: the creating part of creativity.

Workplaces and workers alike are scrambling to find their own creativity. Ping pong tables and free massages, gourmet lunches and bean bag chairs, living walls and art deco murals. Such workplaces à la Google, Valve, and Desire2Learn are based on the creativity concept and designed to encourage worker participation, originality, accountability — even enjoyment — and of course, production. It’s all about injecting a little freedom to think and innovate outside the norm. While this approach is old news by now, the creativity idea remains, and how it has flourished.

Books like Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace and Creative Confidence by Thomas Kelley and David Kelley explain how crucial creativity is to workplace success and how anyone can nurture creativity. Public libraries such as The Halifax Central Library are renovating (or in this case, rebuilding) their spaces to be more like those creative workplaces and to encourage public interaction and collaboration.

Some colleges and universities offer creativity focused courses, such as The Creative Process and Studies in Creative Collaboration in Ryerson’s Creative Industries BA program, and Design Strategies for Business Innovation: Studio Practice and simply, Creativity in University of British Columbia’s Bachelor of Commerce. Creativity can be taught and learned. “Creativity” is everywhere, and it is for everyone.

So the mantra goes. Many of the creativity concept proponents source their favour for it from the traditional creative types: the artists. The painters, the sculptors, the dancers, the poets, the composers, the artisans. Creativity worked for them. Their names echo through history for their originality and innovation. They were able to think in unique, unrestricted ways due to their unusual (i.e. creative) habits of life and work. So let’s make an impact, the creativity advocates say. Let’s be the firsts of something, let’s find success like the creatives did by doing what they did. Let’s be different.

But Not Everyone Is Creative

It seems to the artist — at least, to this writer in particular — that there is a bit of identity theft going on here. No longer can the creative types claim creativity as their domain, their specialty. Everyone can be creative to some degree. “You’re creative because you’re a writer? Well, I’m creative in my business solutions for my clients.” So the feeling goes, anyway. What once was a defining trait of an entire group of people is now a latent potential inherent in everyone.

I want to reclaim a part of creativity back for us creatives. What remains unique to creative individuals is the drive to create. Creative people, like no other, possess a deep rooted motivation to produce for the sake of production which urges them to bring into existence that which had not before existed. Consumption is not enough. Enjoying the creations of others does not quench the creative’s imagination or creative desire. Quite the opposite. Consumption ignites inspiration and fuels the desire to create something as stirring or beautiful as what they consumed. They must make their own contribution to the world.

No where have I experienced the creative drive like I have in my university creative fiction and poetry workshop classes. The classes were filled with a diverse group of individuals, from an egotistical teacher’s pet and an unshaven feminist, to a hardcore, hilarious nerd and a laid-back, beer-loving ruralite. Our opinions and perspectives varied as much as our writing styles, and not all of our relationships were created equal. Yet I have never felt as at home as I did among that peer group. Running through all of us and cutting down our differences was not only the desire, but also the need to create.

We shared stories of how our hobbies and our writing filled that need. One woman drew comics to help her think; another played piano to keep her sane; a third baked delights for experimentation’s sake. Although we didn’t personally partake in each other’s pastimes, we understood the reasons behind them. We all felt those same reasons, and more. Our creations are an extension, expression, exultation of ourselves that cannot be contained. I cannot be happy to my core if I cannot create.

And this is what non-creative individuals are missing. It is not imagination, ingenuity, innovation — the periphery elements of creativity. All of that can be attained with some free-thinking tricks and risk-taking. It is the internal, unstoppable need to create that is definitive to creative individuals, and essential to creativity.