The Challenge of Being Creative--Every Day
Today, I wanted to talk with you a bit about creativity. As an author, I face the challenge of being “creative” every day. How do I do it? How does any artist do it? And by the way, just what is an “artist”?
An artist is anyone who creates art, right? The question is—what constitutes art? To me, an artist is anyone creating something that others can appreciate while providing the artist inner joy. So, an author is as much an artist as a painter. (We just paint pictures with words.) A photographer is also an artist, as is a sculptor, woodcarver, glassblower, quilter, baker, chef, and so on—all bring something beautiful to the world that others can appreciate.
But back to my point. How do YOU, as an artist, be creative—every day? After every work of art is complete, the artist asks the same two-word question. “What’s next?” What’s the next novel, painting, photo, or sculpture? And to answer that question, all artists must “establish a daily routine.” A time to work. A place to work. The discipline to work. We must carve out some creative time and space in our schedules every day to make the magic happen. And some days are hard days and we live with the awful responsibility—and guilt—of feeling like we're “wasting time.”
Every day the writer must achieve a word count. A painter must fill his palette and, well, paint. The photographer must find something worthy of clicking the shutter. A sculptor must sculpt. A woodcarver must carve. But most importantly, amid the work, the artist (that’s you) SEES something none of us see. For the author, it might be a plot twist that moves readers to tears or conjures up memories that evoke happiness. For the painter, he might see a sky so blue and orange that his resulting painting takes your breath away. The photographer composes a shot with an angle or perspective that makes us say, “Wow, I didn’t see that.”
In the end, every piece of art is a “contribution.” It contributes something to the world that we didn’t see quite like that before. Perhaps American essayist, poet and philosopher Henry David Thoreau said it best:
“It’s the beauty within us that makes it possible
to recognize the beauty around us. The question
is not what you look at but what you see.”
Henry David Thoreau
What Do You Spend Your Time On?
Author Austin Kleon, in his book Keep Going, says “The truly prolific artists I know always have that (What’s Next?) question answered because they have figured out a daily practice—a repeatable way of working that insulates them from success, failure, and the chaos of the outside world. They have all identified what they want to spend their time on, and they work at it every day, no matter what.”
Kleon goes on to say, “We have so little control over our lives. The only thing we can control is what we spend our time on. What we work on and how hard we work on it.”
Author Annie Dillard adds, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
As an author, I’m striving to be creative almost every day—to contribute something that others might enjoy or find helpful or encouraging. And it all began with establishing a daily routine and sticking to it—because I believe that while we're “working,” inspiration will find us. And it’s our routine that not only makes us productive—it makes us creative.
Willie Nelson, the 92-year-old American country singer and songwriter once quipped, “I think I need to keep being creative, not to prove anything but because it makes me happy just to do it … I think to be creative, keeping busy, has a lot to do with keeping you alive.”
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SOMETHING TO CHEW ON: What are you creating? Do you think of yourself as an “artist”? Why or why not?
YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY: Author Austin Kleon has written what I consider to be the best 3-book series on creativity. Here are his books. You can follow him at: https://austinkleon.com/
Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
Show Your Work:10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Noticed
Keep Going:10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad
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