Climbing creative mountains

For all the enjoyment and fulfilment along the way, living a life of creativity can sometimes feel like climbing an almost vertical mountain.

Finding inspiration and direction, staying motivated and overcoming internal barriers are just some of the possible hindrances.

But if you look carefully enough and trust yourself, there are footholds everywhere.

They can be in the form of a book that resonates with you, a song that makes want to dance, a conversation with someone who surprises you or finding an old photo. These footholds help us to be inspired, energised and enouraged, and show the way forward for our creativity.

So remember on your own creative journeys - be aware, keep climbing, and most importantly, at all points enjoy the view!

When are you most creative?

R O Blechman, Illustrator, designer and film-maker has these comments:

"I find that ideas crystallize in off hours, off moments, when I am totally relaxed. Usually it is at the end of the day when I am totally exhausted. That is when I get my best ideas. It is probably because I have given up, and let myself off the hook. That may be why many artists work at night. You are not tight, and can play with the problem."

The sleep borderland

In what state of mind or consciousness are we most creative?

According to Arthur Koestler - novelist, political activist, and social philosopher - the

"most fertile region seems to be the marshy shore, the borderland between sleep and full awakening, where the matrices of disciplined thought are already operating, but have not yet sufficiently hardened to obstruct the dreamlike fluidity of the imagination."

Creativity feeds creativity, passion feeds passion

I recently rediscovered Garry Mulholland's book - "This Is Uncool - The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk and Disco" - and it reminded me again what an amazing and affecting force music can be.

Whether you largely agree with Mulholland's choices, or loathe every single one of them, just reading the book you can't help but be affected by his obvious deep enthusiasm and devotion to his subject.

And it's always enjoyable rediscovering too some of the music that defined our own years of growing up, whatever era it was.

It's interesting how great creativity soaked with passion - in this case Mulholland's writing - often comes from an appreciation of another form of creativity - here it's the music he writes about.

What creative works have inspired your own creativity in the past, either directly or indirectly?

Combining different mediums and forms of creating can lead to surprising and exciting new results.

One exercise to try for example is writing whilst listening to a particularly intense piece of music. Whether you write about the music itself or just use the energy, rhythm or ideas, it gives a different slant to the writing.

Think about what other creative activities you can combine or use to stimulate each other and the different ways it can be applied.

(As a final note, if you prefer a story embedded with musical references rather than simply a list of records, then of similar appeal to lovers of music of this era is Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity".)

Fearless Creating

Whatever we enjoy as creative projects, sometimes there's nothing like the thrill of simply creating for the joy of creating.

The excitement of the unknown possibilities, the feeling of fear mixed with awe, the spontaneous free flow of ideas, words, images or sounds...

Decide for yourself to put aside an hour or so to commit to creating purely for the pleasure of it. Choose a media or format that you've always wanted to try but never had the courage to. Or something you loved when you were a child but haven't returned to in years, maybe decades.

Don't have any expectations of yourself, or aim to complete a piece of work within the time period you've set aside. The aim in fact is simply the experience of creating, not the final "product".

Whether it's finger painting, writing spontaneous prose, playing piano, tap dancing, carving wood or anything else, just begin, experiment, flow where it takes you, and enjoy the child-like sense of discovering at your capability to express your feelings and ideas, and the deep human need we all have to simply create...

Secret pleasures, secret passions

We all have things we love doing that maybe we'd rather not immediately share with our friends or work colleagues for example for fear of being seen as "odd" or "weird".

Sometimes these are just things we do for fun every now and then that are so different from our daily activities that it gives our lives the colour and variety we need.

Sometimes though, these passions can lead us to a job, opportunity or person that we never would have otherwise come across, and if we can get over own initial hang-ups about what others may think of us and have the courage to commit to these things we love, in the end surely we, and everyone around us, will benefit.

I myself would count karaoke as one of these. Now normally I'm fairly reserved and shy, but secretly I enjoy the excitement and attention of that few minutes up in front of a room full of people, singing the tunes implanted in my head from thousands of listens.

So what are YOUR secret pleasures and passions? Maybe it's a collection of something? Maybe it's a class you go to every week to share with others with a similar interest? Maybe it's currently something even less structured or regular, like dancing with abandon in your front room to the soundtrack of your youth when everyone else is out? (whether it's Flashdance, Saturday Night Fever, or West Side Story)...

Think about how you could, if you wanted to and if these are things you truly are passionate about, expand these activities into your life more... There's no harm in researching where you could take them. You never know where, or to who, they may lead...

The melody within the symphony

I came across this phrase - "the melody within the symphony" recently and it's got me thinking about all the possible connotations.

The most obvious, and where it originates from, is in music, in an orchestra in particular where individual instruments play melodies within the larger body of sound being created.

So how can it apply to other creative areas, or other senses?

Maybe in a painting, the symphony is the overall impression and presentation, and the melodies within can be different colours, shapes or figures, each performing their own pattern and adding to the overall impact of the piece.

In a writing project, say a novel, the overall symphony may be the story and how it's progressing. The melodies within the symphony can be the formation and development of characters, or excursions down minor plot lines.

One definition of a symphony is "Something characterized by a harmonious combination of elements."

In a team of people all working on the same project, much like in the orchestra, as a whole they can be moving towards a common goal with a united effort, yet within that there are individuals creating their own contributions, all of which enhance and harmonise with the overall progression of the project or business.

And what if there was no melody? What would we be left with?

Would it simply be a steady predictable rhythm pounding over and over? Or in fact is the entire symphony of anything made up completely of a collection of interacting melodies?

Without any melody there would simply be a void or silence?

Think about the creative projects you're involved in, on your own and with others. What kind of melodies are you creating? And how does this add to the symphony of the project overall?

A giant YES on your wall

Reading some reviews of Eric Maisel's book "The Creativity Book", I came across this idea from Lee Silber, author of "Career Management for the Creative Person" -

"Reading this book is like putting a giant yes on the wall."

This struck me as such a powerful and visual phrase and made me realise again the power of "giving yourself permission" to be creative.

So put a giant "YES" on YOUR wall and think about all the things you'd like to say yes to around your creativity, but don't because of some fear or doubt or other.

Add this list of things around the word yes.

Say YES to writing your novel. Say YES to taking up painting landscapes again. Say YES to getting your guitar out of your attic and playing some of your old songs again. Say YES to starting a new project in an area you've never tried before.

Whatever creative project you've been thinking about beginning, give yourself permission today and put a giant YES on YOUR wall!

Self-education

"Let a student enter art school with this advice: no matter how good the school is, his education is in his own hands. All education must be self-education."

- Robert Henri

The sleeping senses

We can often find ourselves apparently "bored" or feeling without inspiration, not because nothing around us ever changes, but simply because of the way we filter what we do see, hear and feel.

We become desensitised in a way to the many changes and motions around us, that could be sources of inspiration, the tiny sparks that fire off a wild new idea or the kick start we need to continue a long term creative project with fresh energy.

Designer and Art Director Alan Fletcher sums this up eloquently in his book "The Art of Looking Sideways" -

"...we also only notice things which are directly relevant to our daily business. In consequence, we tend to reduce our environment to visual muzak - a perceptual symphony of shapes, colours and patterns.

Blinkered by habit we glance around rather than look with acuity. In effect the eye sleeps until the mind wakes it with a question..."

So in fact it can be our eyes that are sleeping rather than our minds, which is what we may usually first focus on.

And following this train of thought, this obviously can extend to our other major senses. Because we're focused on our series of daily habits and routines, we close our senses to the constant array of stimuli we're showered with.

Now whilst this can be a good thing - if we attempted to respond to every single source of stimulation at once our minds would probably disintegrate - it can also unconsciously force us into predictable, uninspiring and repetitive behaviours. If we follow exactly the same series of actions every day, then it's likely we'll have exactly the same responses and feel the same sense of boredom and "here we go again"...

So make the effort each day to focus on one of your senses and really fully experience all that's going on around you. Even doing this for a short period - maybe while you take a morning shower, on your journey to work or school, or whilst having a meal - can really help to get you back in touch with the sensual world surrounding you, and of course be useful in triggering off your imagination and creative ideas as well.

Creative Companions

If your creative travels and experiments sometimes feel a bit insular and isolated, then find yourself a Creative Companion.

Of course this can be an actual person, but think more abstractly too.

Maybe you're going on a long train journey. You're planning to make use of the traveling time to work on a creative project.

What Creative Companion can you take with you to inspire you and keep you focused?

It could be a favourite book, a journal, a treasured photo, an object connected with a certain memory or something else entirely.

Make it something that will help you to create, but also that'll keep you company and recall a happy or creative state, and bring you fond memories or thoughts.

You may develop a favourite Creative Companion and use it every time you travel, or you may take a different one each time.

As always, have fun and experiment, and see what works for you and your own creativity...

Creative Power Bursts!

Try having Creative Power Bursts. These are short sessions where you are as creative as possible in a chosen area or format.

Here's how it works -

First, choose a time limit, make it quite short, say 15 mins.

Then choose a format or medium, maybe writing, or drawing, or something else you're comfortable creating.

Set an alarm to go off after the time limit then GO!

Don't stop creating until that alarm goes off, even if you feel you've run out of things to say or express, just keep going.

Also, don't restrict, judge or censor your output, just flow...

Aim to be more creative and productive in this Power Burst than you have been in the whole of the last week!

When you've finished, put what you've created away somewhere and return to it in a few days to see what you can take from it.

You may enjoy just the intensity of short bursts of creativity with no particular aim or outcome, or you may find you generate some great ideas or themes on which you can expand at a future date.

Experiment with the period of time, time of day, format etc, see what works best for you...

"No you didn't!" - an exercise for creative ideas

I'm currently doing acting classes at the New Venture Theatre in Brighton, East Sussex and learning loads of interesting stuff.

One exercise we did last night was called "No you didn't!".

We were asked to get into pairs, then one person begins telling the other about what they did that day from the moment they woke up. The other person interrupts with "No you didn't!" as and when they want, and the first person then has to adapt their story or change its direction each time.

The first person can return to the original true thread of their story if they wish to or go off on wild flights of imagination and never return!

Most of the class found it very interesting and a great way to be spontaneous and stimulate the imagination. Most people also were surprised at how easily they could create very abstract, creative and colourful stories!

I'm sure it can be adapted to a number of different scenarios and be a valuable source of generating ideas and expanding your imagination.

I certainly intend to use and adapt it myself in the future.

Happy imagining!

Athlete or astronaut?

In their fascinating book on how wit is used in graphic design - A Smile in the Mind - authors Beryl McAlhone and David Stuart, when discussing the limits of using wit in marketing and design, say-

"We are not in an athletics situation, where performance limits must be near. We are in a space travel situation, where we are so far from the limits we can't even know where they are..."

How do you relate to this in the context of your own creative abilities or ventures?

Are you a trying to write a novel "just as good as" your favourite author?

Do you want your next painting to be "as involving as" a classic work by a painter you yourself highly admire?

Is your new musical composition "nearly as accomplished as" the musician you hold up as a hero?

In other words, are you trying to reach, or surpass, a limit you're already familiar with? Do you have a set idea of what's good and use this as your measuring stick?

Then maybe you could describe this perspective as similar to the athletics situation in the quote above. There are already limits, records or standards, and you're aiming towards these.

Or maybe you're a space traveller?

You have no idea of the limitations of your creativity and don't want to know. You want to stretch your creativity as far as possible, time and time again, reaching further and further out into your own unknown "deep space".

There are no boundaries to hold you back, no standards or rules to restrict you or to censor your artistic output. You are free to pursue your creative ideas as far as you want. And then go even further.

So think carefully about how you'd describe YOURself as a creative artist?

Are you an athlete or an astronaut?

"They will point us to our freedom..."

"Our parents, our spouses, our children and our friends will press every button we have, again and again, until we realize what it is that we don't want to know about ourselves, yet. They will point us to our freedom every time."

- from "Loving What Is" by Byron Katie.

www.thework.com

5 words to describe you

Pick 5 words that describe yourself.

Then ask 5 close friends or colleagues to each pick 5 words to describe you.

What similarities are there in the words they each choose and those you used yourself?

Were there any surprises in the words they chose?

What does this tell you about how people perceive you and how authentic you are being to your true self?

Focus on what's still possible...

Following the earlier post - What's in your "Box of Possible"? - this quote from Pope John XXIII seems very relevant:

“Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.”

What's in your "Box of Possible"?

Several different sources in the last few days have made me again revisit just how much we're capable of when we have a clear vision to move towards and we have the belief that we can achieve that vision.

In fact, the formula for achieving whatever we want in our lives essentially could be simplified to -

success = vision + self-belief + action

As creative people, we usually find it relatively easy to have great ideas, dreams and visions for what could be achieved. But when it comes to actually doing them, we're often overwhelmed with negative inner voices, self-doubts and reasons why they can't be achieved.

We may completely believe that the things we envision are entirely possible to achieve for someone with the necessary talent, drive, commitment and confidence. It's just we're not that someone.

So think for a moment about your own "Box of Possible".

What's a Box of Possible? Think of it as a box in your mind where you store all the things you know you can comfortably be, do or have, either because you've been/ done/ had them before or because they're very similar to things you've been/ done/ had before.

Take some time with this, write or map it out if you wish to. When you're done, think about the following -

How big is your Box of Possible? Maybe it's the size of a aircraft hangar? Maybe it's the size of Africa? Or maybe it's the size of a matchbox...

What does it look like? What colour is it? What is it made of? How heavy is it?

Is it transparent and amorphous? Maybe it's made of rubber, tough yet flexible. Or is it made of bulletproof 4 inch thick titanium?

Think about all the different aspects and characteristics of your box. Remember this is what contains - in your mind - all the things you completely believe you can be, do or have.

Once you get a good feel for your Box of Possible, you can begin to expand it...

So what single thing could you do today - something that you've never done before - that you could then put in your box and therefore instantly expand it?

What if you did something like this every day for a week? How much bigger would your box be then? What else about it's structure and dimensions would be different?

Commit to this for just 7 days, and at the end of this period, review your Box of Possible and notice how it's changed...

Heroes in our own lives

Further to the earlier post on "The danger of heroes?", I came across this quotation -

"Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story."

- John Barth

Three hundred and sixty degree sound!

I came across a CD which had the phrase "360 SOUND" printed on it. It got me thinking about what this could mean.

360 degrees is the obvious interpretation that came to me, having sound all around in every direction and completely enveloping you.

Maybe sometimes though, even though we constantly live in world of "360 SOUND", we can tune in and out of certain frequencies or sources at will. We choose what we hear and what we absorb.

The phrase "selective hearing" is often used jokingly to suggest someone only hears that things that are of benefit to them and manages to conveniently become "deaf" to anything that they don't want to hear or don't want to deal with!

What if we expand this 360 idea to a wider range of senses, and a wider range of experiences? How "tuned in" are we to all that's going on around us?

Stop for a moment and just listen to the sounds around you right now. It's virtually impossible to hear nothing, so listen carefully to all the tiny details you can hear going on.

As you tune in and out to different sounds - internal and external, at different distances and in different directions - no doubt you'll realise that at any given time there's far more going on around us than we're initially aware of.

Now apply this to your creative influences. And expand the idea again, wider than just the sense of sound and hearing. At any moment how many stimuli are you aware of? And how many of these are potential sources of inspiration for your creativity?

Of course it's quite possible to go around in a virtual bubble and be aware of only a very small amount of outside stimuli from each your senses.

But the more aware you can become of each of them, the richer your experiences will be and the more material and inspiration you'll find to develop and enhance your own creativity, whatever projects or ventures you're involved in at the time...

So switch on those antennae!

Make voyages!

"Make voyages!
Attempt them...
there's nothing else."

- Tennessee Williams

The energy and playfulness of a kitten...

We have a kitten in our home, and like most kittens, she's always up for having a quick play, day or night. She can be literally fast asleep, but flick a crumpled up piece of paper across the room and she jumps and races after it.

What if we could be like this with our creativity?

What if we could have it always just there on standby, waiting to explode at a seconds notice?

Well, we can! Quite simply, the more creative we are, the more creative we are. The hardest part is usually starting. After that, the more we produce, the more there seems to be to create and the easier it becomes.

So, starting from today, be like a kitten with YOUR creativity - playful and ever-ready!

Creative dress and identity

Does the way we dress and behave affect our creativity?

I very much believe we're all individuals with our own unique ways of expressing ourselves. I don't like to generalise or categorise people.

That said, however, there are certain "looks" or styles we can recognise or describe if asked.

For example if you you were asked "What does a rock musician look like?", maybe you'd have an image in your head of Liam Gallagher, Jon Bon Jovi or Mick Jagger (depending on your age!). Or someone else entirely.

If you someone posed the question "Can you describe what an abstract artist looks like?" or "How would you recognise a writer?", again you'd have certain images and ideas in your head.

The point is that whether we agree with it or not, there are certain styles, clothes, attitudes and behaviours we associate with certain creative people.

So how can we use this to stimulate our own creativity?

As an experiment, try being a completely different creative person for a day. Something very unusual and unfamiliar to you. It could be a specific person or just an image you create yourself.

Dress like them, act like them, assume the same behaviours, attitudes, ways of speaking. Do all you can to get into the role of this creative person.

If you can't imagine doing this for a day, at least do it for a few hours, and go to a major town or city. Notice any changes in the way you feel, the way you look at things around you. Notice also any difference in the way people look at you and treat you.

Finally, do some creative work, or start a new creative project, while still in this different role. Again, notice any differences in the way you are.

You may find you like it so much you take on certain parts of this new style and attitude permanently...

What's your creative musical style?

Whatever our main creative output is - painting, music, writing, craft, graphic design - it's easy to get stuck in a particular form or style. Subsequently, we create variations on the same piece of work time and time again, rather than develop significantly as an artist.

Think about how this applies to you for a moment. What familiar patterns and attributes are there in your creative work?

Now if you were to use the analogy of music styles, what would you say your creative output was most like?

Perhaps it's like the short bubbly candy of perfect pop?

The punchy aggressive dynamic edginess of hard rock?

Maybe you create in complex sumptuous layers like a classical symphony?

Or maybe you enjoy the loose energetic flow and spontaneity of modern jazz?

Pick one of the these styles or define one of your own that best fits the majority of your work.

Now, as an experiment, pick another musical style. Something that's radically different.

For your next creative project, imagine you're now creating in this musical style. Think about every element and characteristic and follow it as closely as you can.

You may find it incredibly liberating and a great source of energy and ideas. Or you find it alien, difficult and frustrating. Or both!

Whatever happens, there's plenty to learn from the experiment.

Afterwards, feel free to share your experiences here with us...

The danger of heroes?

Most of us have heroes that we look up to and that inspire us to greater heights, whether in our chosen field(s) of creativity or in our lives in general.

Seeing and knowing someone else has reached the kind of achievements we would like for ourselves, or just observing the way someone conducts themselves and lives their lives, can of course be a guiding light to some extent and give us considerable motivation and direction.

But is there possibly a danger of holding our heroes in too high esteem? And in trying to follow them too closely?

We are, after all, unique individuals. Whilst we may have great respect and admiration for someone who has achieved what we consider as greatness in their life, it doesn't necessary follow that the same kind of achievements are right for us, or will give us a similar fulfillment.

They are who they are, you are who you are. Both extraordinary people, capable of unleashing your creative abilities and harnessing your unique talents to build the life that's right and best for you.

So think about YOUR uniqueness. What are your greatest strengths? What's your vision for a life of creative fulfillment?

Imagine if someone were to interview your close friends and family. What would they say your major strengths and talents are?

These needn't all be "identity level" strengths, eg "she's a wonderful writer" or "he's a superb pianist."

Think about all of the more subtle strengths you have also. Maybe you're a great listener. Maybe you're incredibly determined. Maybe you have the ability to be calm in a crisis? Maybe you're a very supportive friend?

See how many strengths and talents you can come up with, and create your unique strengths profile...