You Are Creative – Take it Further

Would you describe yourself as “creative”?

I would (and do). For a long time, though, I thought I wasn’t especially creative because the only creative thing I can do well is to write. I can’t paint or draw or sing or play any instruments well. I’m slightly in awe of people who can.

For most of my life, the bulk of my time hasn’t been spent on anything creative. I went through school then university, and got an office job which didn’t allow much room to do anything creative or innovative. (On really good days, I got to write software guides. That may give you some idea.)

I assumed that creativity was something that belonged to other people. (Like my sister, who’s great with a paintbrush, with fabric, with design, and any kind of artwork.) I assumed that you were either born creative or you weren’t.

Hey, here’s the truth. We’ve all got a huge amount of creative potential.

Inherent Creativity

You have dreams. (You might not remember most of them, but you have them.)

Dreams are insanely creative. They can be bizarre, wonderful, or downright terrifying. You can dream in vivid colour and incredibly close-up (I’ve dreamt of looking at strands of hair and blades of grass – and I’m not someone who normally stands still long enough in life to contemplate the details).

If you’re engaged in creative activity, you may well dream about it, too: I’ve dreamt in words. Vlad Dolezal dreamt a melody which became part of a piano composition: go watch him playing it here – it’s a great piece.

So, whether or not your conscious mind is letting you admit it, you are creative.

Think back to being a kid. You probably played all sorts of creative games. You played at different situations – Parents, Schools, Shopping. Perhaps you created imaginary worlds with characters and rules.

You might have written stories or drawn pictures or played at being the characters from your favourite books.

Sometimes, we think all this creative stuff is best kept in childhood. At best, you might carry on while you’re a student … but then “real life” starts.

Hey, I’ll let you into a secret. You can be a grown up and still play. You can make up stories, and draw, and daydream, and try out experiments in the kitchen which may or may not work. You can pretend to be a character in a made-up world (the more lucrative version of this is “acting”).

If you put aside your creativity once, in pursuit of responsible adult life, or because you weren’t “good enough”, or because someone laughed at your dreams, get hold of a copy of Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way.

Nuturing Creativity

Your creative potential is inherent. If you want to create, however, that means nurturing your potential.

The keys to this are giving yourself time, permission and the right surroundings.

Giving Yourself Enough Time

I can’t come up with an idea when I’m forcing myself to “be creative” for a few minutes. I can’t develop an idea in tiny grasped moments of time. I imagine it’s the same for almost every creative. Sure, some forms require less sustained time than others (you might be able to write a haiku in 15 minutes), but others need big blocks of committed time on a regular basis (writing a novel, for instance, or recording an album).

Busyness and creativity do not play well. (If this is an issue for you, read this piece I wrote for Productive Flourishing: How Being Busy Means Not Being Creative)

Quick heads-up: Two awesome creative guys, Charlie Gilkey and Jonathan Mead, have teamed up to create The Dojo, an ebook and set of audio tracks and more to help you do more great things with your time. If you find that “write novel” or “compose song” keep getting shunted down the list in favour of “check emails”, then you’ll want to give this a look. I’ll be writing a review of it next week, too, so keep an eye out for that.

Giving Yourself Permission

One of the biggest struggles I have with creativity is giving myself permission. I’m putting my novel first at the moment: I’m sitting down to write every morning, before I get into emails, before I work on my ebook, before I write posts here on Aliventures.

And often, I’m battling an internal voice which says The novel doesn’t matter. No-one’s reading it. Chances are, it’ll never get published. You’ve got emails waiting. A bank balance to think about. A wedding to plan.

Of course, the novel does matter. Your creativity matters too.

Giving yourself permission doesn’t just mean recognising that you are creative and that you are allowed to play around, have fun and make something unique. It’s also about reminding yourself, probably several times a week, that it is good and right to make your creativity a priority.

Your Creativity Surroundings

Few great ideas come from a person sitting and thinking by herself – true, that’s part of the incubation phase, but the seeds are planted in the preparation phase. Talking to people interested in the same things you are or who are just plain creative helps you become more creative.

(Charlie Gilkey, Demystifying the Creative Process, Productive Flourishing)

Other people’s creative energy feeds my own. I came back from South by South West interactive with a head full of ideas (one big idea is launching in a couple of weeks; watch this space…)

One of the main reasons I’m taking an MA in Creative Writing is for the company of fellow writers: the other students help me stay encouraged, help me focus, and make me feel that I do have permission for my writing. Amongst a bunch of novelists, there’s no question that writing is a priority.

Beyond people, there are plenty of ways to feed your creativity. I’m a writer, so I do a lot of reading – sometimes I’ll get a specific idea or learn a new technique which helps me directly, but more often, the stuff which I read just simmers away in my mind.

If you want to compose, listen to music. (Not necessarily your own genre, either.) If you’re an artist, go to galleries. If you’re an actor, watch plays.

I feel that I shouldn’t write this because it should be obvious – but I’m not sure that we recognise how important it is. Our creativity can be sparked and maintained through other people’s creative work. One of the pieces of writing advice I’ve heard over and over again is to read lots.

Creative Steps

If you’d like to do more with your creativity, here’s just a couple of ideas:

Get yourself a notebook. Doesn’t have to be beautiful (though go for if it that inspires rather than intimidates you). Plain paper may be better than lined. Give yourself five minutes a day to jot down ideas, whatever’s on your mind.

Enter a competition: anything which involves creativity – a caption competition, a short story competition, a photo competition. Don’t worry about not being good enough. Sure, winning is nice, but having an incentive to create and finish something is what’s key.

(Whether or not you’re a writer, give Creative Copy Challenge a look.)

Good luck with your creative endeavours. Above all, have fun!