To this day, my mind frequently changes, I try new things, I go in different directions. And I'm okay with that - though it took me a long time to get there. I used to feel ashamed of the fact that I enjoyed so many things and never felt the pull of one tremendous passion. I used to think that my career and happiness were doomed because of it. Now I embrace it and I've figured out some systems that help me to do all the things I'm interested in, while still feeling productive and focused.
"If I waited to be in the mood to write, I’d barely have a chapbook of material to my name. Who would ever be in the mood to write? Do marathon runners get in the mood to run? Do teachers wake up with the urge to lecture? I don’t know, but I doubt it. My guess is that it’s the very act that is generative. The doing of the thing that makes possible the desire for it. A runner suits up, stretches, begins to run. An inventor trudges down to his workroom, closing the door behind him. A writer sits in her writing space, setting aside the time to be alone with her work. Is she inspired doing it? Very possibly not. But this is her habit, her job, her discipline. Think of a ballet dancer at the barre. She is practising, because she knows there is no difference between practice and art. The practice is the art."Dani Shapiro, Still Writing
Last year a friend gave me a Tarot deck for my birthday and I tried a reading for the first time. It was a time of upheaval and uncertainty so I asked the cards what was the next step I should take in my business. Many of the cards made a lot of sense but one that confused me a bit was the Hierophant card. Here's an interpretation: "The Hierophant Tarot card suggests that you may be wise to follow established social structures and traditions. You may be involved in some sort of ritual, ceremony, or the trappings of religion. There is also a need to honour some tradition in your life, or maybe start some traditions of your own if you have none."
After thinking about it for a bit it became clear what kind of "rituals" and "traditions" the card was asking me to try. Creative rituals.
"It’s vital to establish some rituals -- automatic but decisive patterns of behavior -- at the beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up, or going the wrong way.
A ritual, the Oxford English Dictionary tells me, is a “prescribed order of performing religious or other devotional service.” All that applies to my morning ritual. Thinking of it as a ritual has a tranforming effect on the activity.
Turning something into a ritual eliminates the question, Why am I doing this? By the time I give the taxi driver directions, it’s too late to wonder why I’m going to the gym and not snoozing under the warm covers of my bed. The cab is moving. I’m committed. Like it or not, I’m going to the gym.
The ritual erases the question of whether or not I like it. It’s also a friendly reminder that I’m doing the right thing. (I’ve done it before. It was good. I’ll do it again.)"
Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit
In 2014, one of my 3 resolutions was to establish new habits of creative productivity. You can read about the goal-setting process here and my system for staying accountable to these resolutions here. The quick version is that every week I come up with a new mission to help me get closer to my goals. Since I've also been reading everything I can get my hands on about creativity, I've been paying close attention to what other creative people have written about habits and incorporating these ideas bit by bit into my weekly missions.
"It doesn't matter what the deal is that you strike with yourself, as long as you keep up your end of it, that you establish a working routine for yourself, a rhythm. I prefer to think of it as rhythm rather than discipline. Discipline calls to my mind a taskmaster, perhaps wielding a whip. Discipline has a whiff of punishment to it, or at least the need to cross something off a list, the way my son Jacob does with his homework. Rhythm, however, is a gentle aligning, a comforting pattern in our day that we know sets us up ideally for our work."
Dani Shapiro
Some of the things I've tried to help establish rhythm in my own life include:
- Moving down from full time to part time work so I have two whole days to create
- Getting chores done on Sundays or evenings during the week to protect my creative days and keep them open
- Doing creative work first thing in the morning - writing when I'm at the office (I have a lot of free time at my job) and developing new projects at home. I always start with the hardest thing, the thing that I would rather avoid doing.
- Writing down a numbered list of projects for each day. Instead of scheduling blocks of time, I just number my to-do items in order of priority. This helps me fluidly move from one thing to the next at a comfortable pace. When it's time for the next thing on the list, I jump in and do it, whether I feel like it or not.
- Keeping track of time spent on all creative work and trying to increase the count each week
- Creating and keeping up with online creative challenges every other month (there's one coming up in October!)
- Working on projects just for me - not to sell - to experiment and develop my skills
"There’s a paradox in the notion that creativity should be a habit. We think of creativity as a way of keeping everything fresh and new, while habit implies routine and repetition. That paradox intrigues me because it occupies the place where creativity and skill rub up against each other."
Twyla Tharp
If these things sound really organized, methodical, clinical - the opposite of creative - that's because they are. My goal is to make space for creativity by creating routines. If I don't have to wonder about what to do next, if I have fewer decisions to make then I have more juice, more creative energy left. I want to make creative production as seamless and easy as possible so that, rather than fighting with myself to sit down at the computer or the craft table, I end up there without even realizing how I did it. I'm not there yet - certain days are easier to program and my plans frequently go off the rails. But I have noticed my production increasing, my ideas increasing, my level of satisfaction increasing - which is why we do this after all, isn't it?
“I keep to this routine without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind.”
Haruki Marakami
Will you join me in making creativity a part of your daily life? How can you set up routines, rituals, rhythms, habits to help you get there? Leave a comment below!
I was bitten by the travel bug at a young age. My mom has told me numerous times about how strange it felt to put her 5-year old daughter on a bus to go to a weekend Brownie Camp. I was small and shy but there was no way I wasn't going on that trip. Since then I've spent summers living in Quebec, New York, and Edinburgh, driven from one end of the United States to the other and back again, and spent 10 months backpacking and learning to weave in Peru, Argentina, and Bolivia. These trips and others have provided more creative fuel than probably anything else I've done.
I got the idea for my Edmonton postcards at breakfast place in New Orleans and I was inspired to start making paper mache organs after visiting a medical museum in Philadelphia. I started thinking about weaving at an art museum in Edinburgh, then went to South America with 'learn to weave' as my primary purpose and came home with the added benefit of understanding just how important creativity and making things was to me.
Why does travelling have such an impact on my creativity? In some ways it's the local culture that feeds me. Artists and artisans are influenced by and interested in different things in different parts of the world and seeing what else is out there has exposed me to new techniques, styles and subject matter. But even more important I think is the openness with which I visit these places. When I step into a gallery at home, it's usually in the context of my everyday life - it's a quick diversion from to-do lists and appointments and worries. I tend not to see things as clearly or be struck as deeply by what I do see. While travelling, though I often have a new set of worries on my mind, I tend to be more relaxed, and more engaged with my environment. Everything is new so everything demands my attention and there is a lot less everyday clutter to compete with for that attention.
Another reason that I'm more affected by what I see while travelling is that I am often alone. While I do love sharing my experiences with loved ones, there is a special sense of involvement that I get when I go alone. I am truly open to anything. In Edinburgh I visited their museum of history every few days and spent hours on each floor. There was no one to rush me, no one to influence my opinions. In South America I was free to follow any information or suggestion I received and wander without a plan. As a result, I just soaked it right up.
I'm not the only one who feels the special creative energy that comes from leaving home far behind. Many famous artists and writers (Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway are two often stated examples) added to their creative output while abroad. Several studies have explored the effects of "distance", whether psychological or geographical, on creativity. In one, the researchers gave participants a task - see how many methods of transportation they could come up with - and divided them into two groups. The first group was told that the task was created by local students and the second was told that it was created by students studying abroad in Greece. The group that thought the task came from Greece came up with many more methods than the local group. This kind of blew my mind a bit, and the way I interpret this study (in my very unscientific way) is to realize that you don't even have to go anywhere to gain the cognitive benefits of travel. Just thinking about another place seems to do the trick.
This is great news for those of us who aren't able to travel whenever we want. It's been well over two years since coming home from my last trip and I'm itching to get out and explore again, though I'm much more restricted financially than I have been in a long time. While I have my fingers crossed that I'll be able to go on a trip in the spring, I need to find ways to fill my creative tank now. If you're longing for a creative jolt but can't manage a big trip right now, here are some ideas to get you in a travelling frame of mind:
- Read novels or memoirs that take place in far away places. I just finished The Ghost Bride which is set in Malaysia, and while much of the book takes place in the afterlife, it filled me with plenty of intriguing images and ideas.
- Go on weekend trips. We live three hours from the Rocky Mountains and we try to get out there as often as possible to go back country camping. While I don't feel the buzz of stimulation that I do in a foreign city, being out in the wilderness calms my mind and body like nothing else and gives me space to think through problems.
- Explore your own city. Try new restaurants (especially ethnic ones), go to new neighbourhoods shop in stores you've never visited. I find that used bookstores, coffee shops, and small galleries tend to give me the biggest hit of creative energy.
- Look through photo albums and journals from past trips. While most of my trip photos are stored on my laptop, I did manage to make a beautiful album about Edinburgh, with photos, sketches, and postcards from museums. Flipping through this book brings me back to the feeling of wide open inspiration that I felt there.
These are just some of the ways that travel and travel substitutes impact my creative life. How does travel impact your creativity? What do you do when you can't get away?
Some people love the Christmas season. Some can't wait for the Stanley Cup playoffs or the Olympics. For me, one of the best times of the year is the Fringe Festival, an annual smorgasbord of theatre that descends on our city every August. My parents used to take me when I was a kid and as soon as I got a car I spent the greater part of the 10 day festival volunteering, watching plays, and taking in the atmosphere. This year over 200 hundred plays opened their doors in over 50 venues across town. I saw 10 of them.
Here are a few things these plays made me think about when it comes to creativity in general, and the process of creating work for an audience:
Start by playing. Some of these shows were clearly created by people who just started messing around with a bizarre character or an elaborate costume piece and let the story take them where it would. Many of my favourite plays start this way, without a script or a roadmap, just a sense of exploration and discovery. Things come out of this experimentation that could never have been dreamed up while sitting at a desk. This is an essential part of any creative process and something I'm actively trying to incorporate into my own routine on a regular basis (watch for an upcoming blog post about it!).
Put your heart into it. When someone really really cares about what they're doing, and really really cares about my experience of their work, it shows. Their joy and passion flow through every aspect, and I leave feeling satisfied. Yes, they have talent, but it's clear that they've worked for it. They mastered the skills, they put in the time and the hard work necessary to do the best that they could, and they inspire me to reach for my best work as well. If I can inspire that kind of dedication then I've done my job well.
Be specific. The more precise and perfectly choreographed a piece is, the more captivating it has the potential of being. In theatre, improv can be fun (and useful in the right contexts, as in the first point) but nothing beats the energy of something has been rehearsed and meticulously fine-tuned. I watched a show where the actors wore masks, so they had to use subtle gestures and movements to convey emotion and to move the story forward - if they had been sloppy and tried to wing it the audience would have been lost. In another the actors matched the rhythm of their movements to pre-recorded sound effects so effectively that I found myself mesmerized by an invisible typewriter. In my own work this means keeping an eye on the details that I often like to overlook to make sure that everything syncs up.
What's the take-home? Decide what you want your audience to take away from your work. I watched a show about the coming apocalypse and despite it being rather political and a bit heavy-handed, I wasn't entirely sure what they wanted me to get from it. Was I just supposed to laugh and then go on my way? Did they want me to take action and start trying to prevent the apocalypse, or start preparing for it? Or was it just a friendly warning that the apocalypse was on it's way, but everything is going to be just fine? Not every piece of art has a message of course, but everything does have a purpose. Be clear about that purpose - what do I want people to do with this piece?
Make a decision. This point is similar to the last in that you must be clear. One play billed itself as something and then turned out to be something quite different, which isn't always a bad thing. What didn't work is that they tried to be both and it just ended up feeling awkward. Just as it started to gain steam in one direction it would switch gears and lose me completely. Choose something and then stick to it. Don't try to be everything to everyone. This is advice I really need to pay attention to, since I have a hard time not trying to do everything.
Show, don't tell. This was one of the biggest lessons I learned in drama school and it's true in many art forms. In general the audience will be happier if they are drawn into something and can feel it in their hearts - rather than thinking about it intellectually. One play featured two vibrant, charismatic performers whose portrayal of a couple from the 1890s had me captivated immediately. After a few minutes, however, they broke character and started telling us the story of the characters rather than acting them out. This served its own purpose in the structure of the play, but I couldn't wait for them to jump back into character and continue showing me the story, since, to me, that was so much more compelling.
Know when to stop. One of the shows I saw was pure comedic gold. The characters, the absurd storyline, the use of audience participation - all of it was like nothing I had ever seen before. The scene wrapped up, I wiped my eyes (from laughing so hard I shed a few tears), and got ready to leave and tell all my friends about it. But it wasn't over. After a brief interlude, the actors reset and started over again. Same characters, different absurd storyline, different use of audience participation. This time wasn't as surprising, or even as much fun, and certainly wasn't as careful and precise as the first half. The message I took home from this show was to be careful about taking something too far or giving too much of something. If you're relying on novelty and surprise to keep people engaged, then make sure you're not overdoing it and wearing them out. From my own personal experience I knew that once people started walking by my booth at craft fairs (where I was selling postcards of my hometown) and saying - 'There's so much Edmonton-themed stuff here this time', and 'Oh, I love your postcards, I have 5 at home!' that it was time to move on to something new.
Sometimes, more is more. After you've made some decisions, gotten specific, decided what the purpose is, feel free to go full throttle. Pile it on, shock us, exceed all our expectations. I saw a dance show where the dancers spun and twirled amidst a mass of white pillows that kept growing and growing until they had a pile of over 300 and it was large enough to launch themselves into. It was the very definition of excess and it was wondrous and beautiful. They let the audience live vicariously through their grand exploits and we were very thankful to have been taken along for the ride.
Don't forget to have fun. In every show I saw, from the serious to the playful, when the actors let themselves go and gave in to the moment, they had me. I could tell they were enjoying themselves, and that is a beautiful thing to watch. I find that the projects that feel fun to me while I'm working on them always succeed better than those that don't. Find what makes you smile and do that - chances are your audience will be left smiling too.
What sort of creative events fill you up? What do you take home from them? Leave a comment below!
I have been keeping a journal of some kind since I was around 8 years old. I have always been afraid that if I didn't write things down my life would fade away from me and I would be left with nothing. My record-keeping has evolved over the years from a strict diary of daily events, to a dumping ground for negative emotions and self-hatred, to colourful experiments with poetry and drawing, to a record of my growth and progress and a celebration of life. I've gone from writing every day, to every week, to once a month, to everything in between.
I keep my diverse collection of books in a Rubbermaid bin that I drag from one home to another, and though I can't bear to read some of them, I wouldn't dream of letting them go. Without these books I honestly think I would be lost. They keep me in touch with myself and with all my past versions, and they constantly give me something to aspire to. Without these books holding me accountable to myself, I imagine that I would drift aimlessly through life with no intention or goals.
If it sounds pretty dramatic, that's because it is. These books are my lifeline. They hold my wisdom and my mistakes, my triumphs and my failures, my joys and my sorrows. They ARE me. Writing about what I've learned about journaling is sort of like writing about what I've learned about life. It's a big topic. With that said here are some things I've discovered in my journeys through journals:
1. Keep track of the good times. One of my primary goals is to write about everything good that happens, and everything that I want to remember. Lately I've taken to simply writing a list at the end of every month: I spent time with this person, I tried this exciting activity, I read this amazing book, I learned this important new lesson. For our first anniversary I made a zine for my boyfriend, with each page being a record of my favourite shared memories from each month of our relationship. Thanks to my journal I was able to recall these memories with ease.
This year I started a self-care journal where I write down, every day, the things I did that made me feel good and the things that I'm grateful for. When things aren't going so well this record helps remind me that I am doing okay and that life is actually quite lovely.
2. Keep track of what you learned from the bad times. As a teenager I use to write about every miserable little feeling that I had (and at that age I had a lot) so books from these years are filled with drama and whining. When I do dare to crack one of these books, they make me grateful that I grew up. Lately my strategy has been to hold off on writing about a negative situation until I can get some perspective on it and give myself some advice for dealing with similar situations in the future. This makes it feel like a constructive activity, rather than self-indulgent.
3. Use the right book, and the right pen. I don't mean to stress you out, but this is a very important decision. The book needs to be portable, yet sturdy. I stopped buying coil notebooks because the coil will collapse after being crushed a few dozen times in my bag, making it hard to open. It needs to lie flat, and be stable enough to be used on my lap, or on the ground. The paper needs to have the right texture for what I want to do with it. On my South American trip I found I did the most drawing in a square hardcover book with slightly rough pages. Something felt so right about drawing on those pages, whereas the book I bought when I finished it barely got used. I will spend an hour in a stationary store feeling the pages, holding the books in my hand, imagining how I will use it. I would recommend blank pages, as they're more versatile and you can pack more in, but lined pages definitely have their place.
If I do get a lined book, I use a plain ballpoint pen. But my blank journals call for something a little more decadent. A gel pen flowed across the pages of my last book, while a fine-tipped Sharpie scratched across the one before that. I can't say this enough: it has to feel right. I has to feel like the most natural combination, like something you can't wait to pick up again. If I find that journaling has become a chore, sometimes getting a nicer pen is all it takes to get me going again.
4. Don't discriminate. Record everything. When I'm traveling I am the best at journaling. I write down snippets of conversation or overheard exclamations, I describe my surroundings in great detail, I sketch what I see, I record all five senses, and I write about what I'm learning - about myself and about the world. I basically pack the pages full of wonder and curiosity, and joy. And when I'm at home... I occasionally remember to write about dinners with friends and special date nights. But those times when I do bring my journal everywhere and use it religiously, I can feel my life expanding and becoming infinitely richer. I pay closer attention, I feel more attuned to the different textures of my life. And these journals are the ones that I love going back to, to be inspired and to remind myself of what it feels like to be fully present and alive.
5. Play. Since I've started trying to make a living making art I often forget about playing with writing or with art, though as a child and early teen, that's all I ever did in my spare time. I have books full of poems, attempts at non-fiction, drawings, paintings, and other assorted bits and pieces. Lately I have to remind myself to write about an adventure longhand - to try to squeeze some juice from my experiences - or to illustrate my emotions, or to make a collage to help me remember a dream or an event. It's important to create for the sake of creating, without an audience in mind, and the journal is the perfect place for these adventures since it is a solitary place with no critics and no judgement. It is the best venue to try something new, to experiment.
Keeping a journal is one of my most important creative practices, no matter how intermittent it may be. Writing about it has me feeling inspired and excited: I can't wait to open a new book and start recording.
Have you ever kept a journal? What did you love most about it? If you've tried to keep one and given up on it, what was your biggest challenge? Leave a comment below!
In July I ran my first creative challenge and it was a lot of fun. Incredibly challenging, but a lot of fun. This is what one of the participants had to say about her experience:
All in all, I've had a blast. Not all of them had been winners, but I've felt a definite sense of pride at what I've accomplished. It was something to look forward to everyday in July.
I'm really glad a few people were inspired to look at their days a little differently during the challenge. I know it certainly stretched me and I learned a lot. Here are some things I thought about throughout the month:
Thank you to the small but dedicated group of people who played along with #InspireJuly. You inspired me and made it all worthwhile, and thanks to your effort you can look forward to many more creative challenges in the future. If you didn't keep up with the challenge as it unfolded, I've collected the majority of the posts in the following Storify. Enjoy, and I hope you'll join in next time!
