How do they find the time?
Some of the people that I admire most are those writers I know that are married with children. I belong to the local Romance Writers of America chapter and have met many published writers through RWA. So many of those women (most are women, but not all!) are writing full-time or holding down full-time jobs, along with writing on deadline, at the same time that they are raising children, and still managing to keep marriages together. How do they do that?
Personal issues with time
I feel like I'm always playing catch-up with daily chores like walking the dog, doing the dishes and vacuuming the house, much less keeping up with my school work and my part-time job obligations. I am managing to squeeze in most of the writing I am doing for school, but I just realized that I hadn't written anything in this blog for over a week.
Creativity and time issues
I wonder how many people are derailed from their creative endeavors just because they don't have time? I know that there are 24 hours in the day for each and everyone of us. I know that we don't "find time." That we "make time" for those things which we decide to focus on. But doesn't it feel like just the common acts of living (like eating and sleeping and taking a shower) get in the way? I know that I like to sleep more than other people. I love my afternoon naps! But I'd really love to be able to get to my writing more easily, and I'd like to get to creative hobbies easier. I love to fiddle around with paints and drawing.
Possible cure
I love to watch decorating shows too. (One is on the television as I write this--one that deals with organization. Very inspiring!) I think maybe that I need to work on organization a little bit more, keeping my stuff--both writing and art--handier. Right now I'm on my bed with my laptop actually on my lap, because I can't get to my desktop. I've set my desk up in front of my window, so that I can be inspired by the squirrels in my backyard when I write. Given the crap on top of the desk, that's truly not working. I have dirty clothes, unopened mail, and believe it or not, about 6 dirty railroad spikes on my desk right now. I cleaned out the trunk of my car. Guess where the junk ended up? Do you have these organizational problems like me?
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Thursday, February 09, 2006
More on anxiety
Anxiety & Creativity
I re-read books all the time. I always get something new out of doing so. If it's fiction, I've probably forgotten the plot. If it's non-fiction, I will have lived more of my life, and grown and changed, and therefore, I will bring a new perspective to it. So, I decided to re-visit Eric Maisel's Fearless Creating. When I first read this book, ten years ago, I was either in gradutate school or just post graduate school. (Yes, folks, I am back, once again, in graduate school. A. I love to learn. B. I don't think the grad program I went through ten years ago was the right one for me. If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again.) I know it was ten years ago when I first read it because on one of the exercises he suggests doing, I wrote in the book--and dated my entry. (Yes, folks, I write in books. It's sort of a dialogue between me and the author. Or just me and myself. I paid for the book. I don't feel guilty.) He writes about anxiety in the very first chapter, and I'd like to share some of that with you here.
...while anxiety is the greatest immpediment to aliveness, in order to create you must invite anxieties into your life and live anxiously. ... Each stage of the creative process is characterized by its own kind of anxiety.... In its negative aspect it blocks the artist, causes her to limit her scope or create second-rate work, and more. In its so-to-speak positive aspect it is like the itching that accompanies the healing of a wound: horribly uncomfortable, but proof that creativity is happening.
creative blockage: the inability to manage the anxiety that attends the creative process
A large part of this book (perhaps all, I'm not sure since I haven't re-read the entire thing yet), is about how to manage creative anxiety, and I recommend reading it and doing the exercises. (Caveat: I don't endorse every single last thing that EM says in any of his books, but on the whole, I believe that he has good advice and an interesting take on things.)
The Creative Itch
Here is something that I don't think Eric Maisel adequately addressed in this book, nor did Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way. (Maybe they do in other books, I haven't read everything that they ever wrote.) I am assuming, if you are reading this blog, that you have a creative itch. Are you scratching that itch in the appropriate way?
Here's what happened to me. I went off to Hollywoodland for college, with the idea that I was going to become a great actress--or at least a working actress. But I kept running into (creating within myself?) all these blocks. I had extreme anxiety about not only auditioning, but also about learning lines, everything connected to being an actress, really. But I still wanted to be an actress. Why? Was it just an ego thing? Was I really that full of myself? I don't think so. And then later, when I decided to go back to graduate school, I once again went into a theater program, with the idea that I'd be a director. So, why didn't I get out and try to work in theater more? I have all these friends who stayed really involved after school, working around Atlanta in local theaters. Instead, I took a job at a film equipment rental company and worked with a lot of filmmakers, helping them get their projects accomplished. (Julia Cameron calls this sort of thing I was doing "being a shadow-artist.")
Was I just delusional? Why did I say that I really wanted to do these things, borrowing zillions of dollars to go back to school, and then not do the follow through, anxious or not? Here's what I've decided. I WASN'T SCRATCHING THE ITCH IN THE APPROPRIATE WAY. (Eric Maisel is big on managing anxiety appropriately.) I WAS IN THE WRONG FIELD COMPLETELY. I'm not saying that this realization came easily. Far from it. It took me a long time and lots of courage to state that I wanted to be a writer. But once I said that out loud, I realized that saying I am a writer came so much more easily to me than saying I am an actress ever had.
Well, of course, parental disapproval had something to do with it. My dad thought that being a writer would mean that I was condemning myself to a life of poverty. But he didn't like the thought of me being an actress either. If I knew that my dad disapproved of both writing and acting as career choices, why did I decide that acting was the creative outlet for me? I think it's because writing is so important to me. And the thought of failure as a writer was so much more overwhelming than the thought of failure as an actress. So, I took a very very long detour from the creative path that I really always should have been on. I was scratching the creative itch in the wrong spot, the wrong way.
If you feel a creative itch, but you aren't really able to focus and/or accomplish even baby steps in your creative endeavors, do you need to try a completely different creative field?
I re-read books all the time. I always get something new out of doing so. If it's fiction, I've probably forgotten the plot. If it's non-fiction, I will have lived more of my life, and grown and changed, and therefore, I will bring a new perspective to it. So, I decided to re-visit Eric Maisel's Fearless Creating. When I first read this book, ten years ago, I was either in gradutate school or just post graduate school. (Yes, folks, I am back, once again, in graduate school. A. I love to learn. B. I don't think the grad program I went through ten years ago was the right one for me. If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again.) I know it was ten years ago when I first read it because on one of the exercises he suggests doing, I wrote in the book--and dated my entry. (Yes, folks, I write in books. It's sort of a dialogue between me and the author. Or just me and myself. I paid for the book. I don't feel guilty.) He writes about anxiety in the very first chapter, and I'd like to share some of that with you here.
...while anxiety is the greatest immpediment to aliveness, in order to create you must invite anxieties into your life and live anxiously. ... Each stage of the creative process is characterized by its own kind of anxiety.... In its negative aspect it blocks the artist, causes her to limit her scope or create second-rate work, and more. In its so-to-speak positive aspect it is like the itching that accompanies the healing of a wound: horribly uncomfortable, but proof that creativity is happening.
creative blockage: the inability to manage the anxiety that attends the creative process
A large part of this book (perhaps all, I'm not sure since I haven't re-read the entire thing yet), is about how to manage creative anxiety, and I recommend reading it and doing the exercises. (Caveat: I don't endorse every single last thing that EM says in any of his books, but on the whole, I believe that he has good advice and an interesting take on things.)
The Creative Itch
Here is something that I don't think Eric Maisel adequately addressed in this book, nor did Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way. (Maybe they do in other books, I haven't read everything that they ever wrote.) I am assuming, if you are reading this blog, that you have a creative itch. Are you scratching that itch in the appropriate way?
Here's what happened to me. I went off to Hollywoodland for college, with the idea that I was going to become a great actress--or at least a working actress. But I kept running into (creating within myself?) all these blocks. I had extreme anxiety about not only auditioning, but also about learning lines, everything connected to being an actress, really. But I still wanted to be an actress. Why? Was it just an ego thing? Was I really that full of myself? I don't think so. And then later, when I decided to go back to graduate school, I once again went into a theater program, with the idea that I'd be a director. So, why didn't I get out and try to work in theater more? I have all these friends who stayed really involved after school, working around Atlanta in local theaters. Instead, I took a job at a film equipment rental company and worked with a lot of filmmakers, helping them get their projects accomplished. (Julia Cameron calls this sort of thing I was doing "being a shadow-artist.")
Was I just delusional? Why did I say that I really wanted to do these things, borrowing zillions of dollars to go back to school, and then not do the follow through, anxious or not? Here's what I've decided. I WASN'T SCRATCHING THE ITCH IN THE APPROPRIATE WAY. (Eric Maisel is big on managing anxiety appropriately.) I WAS IN THE WRONG FIELD COMPLETELY. I'm not saying that this realization came easily. Far from it. It took me a long time and lots of courage to state that I wanted to be a writer. But once I said that out loud, I realized that saying I am a writer came so much more easily to me than saying I am an actress ever had.
Well, of course, parental disapproval had something to do with it. My dad thought that being a writer would mean that I was condemning myself to a life of poverty. But he didn't like the thought of me being an actress either. If I knew that my dad disapproved of both writing and acting as career choices, why did I decide that acting was the creative outlet for me? I think it's because writing is so important to me. And the thought of failure as a writer was so much more overwhelming than the thought of failure as an actress. So, I took a very very long detour from the creative path that I really always should have been on. I was scratching the creative itch in the wrong spot, the wrong way.
If you feel a creative itch, but you aren't really able to focus and/or accomplish even baby steps in your creative endeavors, do you need to try a completely different creative field?
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
The Effects of Perfectionism and Anxiety on Creative Efforts
The creative block called anxiety
There are times that I get an overwhelming sense of anxiety when I think about sitting down at my computer to write, or when I think about trying to produce any sort of piece of creative work. This sense of anxiety, I am not kidding, has been known to stop me from getting out of bed for the day. If you can't get out of bed to pick up a script, it's really hard to memorize your part in a play. If you can't get out of bed to look at a script, it's really hard to plan blocking when you are directing the play.
(Boy, this blog is not the easiest thing for me to write. I have anxiety about writing, particularly "for publication," in the first place, and I certainly have anxiety about confessing past misdeeds....)
Right there is a perfect example of a contributor to creative anxiety. Notice my use of the word "misdeeds." Isn't that word rather perjorative? Possibly many of you can sympathize with my harsh judgement of my creative efforts, or rather my contemplation of attempting something creative. It would have been easier to get out of bed if I hadn't convinced myself that my life would end in shame if I didn't do well on that one particular performance, or if I hadn't convinced myself that I'd never direct anything else if that one play wasn't perfect. Note that today I call myself a writer, not an actress or a director. It is through writing that I have realized that the first effort toward a creative endeavor doesn't have to be perfect.
Writing is re-writing
"Writing is re-writing." I've heard the saying for decades. I've only recently been able to absorb what it meant. As a child, when writing my school papers, I never re-wrote. No, they had to be perfect when they came out of the tip of my pen. Which is actually why I have extremely legible handwriting--that was part of the need for perfection. Hum. I wonder what triggered this need for things to be so perfect? I can speculate, but I'll probably never be able to pin it down. Was it because I had a teacher who wanted everything to be written in pen, not pencil, but then took off points if you had things scratched out and written over and around? That particular teacher wanted a neat line drawn through things that you needed to "erase." No wavy lines, no scribbled circles. That's not a good way to teach that re-writing is part of the process.
My Dad was a perfectionist. Which is a good thing, since he was an airline pilot. Trust me, you don't want sloppy when you are a passenger on an airplane. But I think that he let that perfectionist streak get out of hand. I remember that when I was a child, my family took a "ski vacation." My dad absolutely refused to get on skis, while my sister and I, and even my mom, happily took the beginner ski classes and spent the day on the bunny-slope. When I asked my mom why Daddy wasn't skiing, my mom said that he didn't like to do things that he wasn't good at. Well, obviously, when someone won't do something they aren't good at, they aren't allowing themselves to be a beginner. If you can't be a beginner, then you don't know what you might become good at.
Perfectionism
But speculations on why I became a perfectionist to such a degree that it was paralyzing aren't solving the problem, and that's what I (and possibly you), really need to do, right?--solve the problem. I did have to go through the process of figuring out that perfectionism is a block to creative efforts. Now, how do I get around this particular block? I suggest baby steps. SARK, the writer of Succulent Wild Woman: Dancing with Your Wonderful Self and Make Your Creative Dreams Real: A Plan for Procrastinators, Perfectionists, Busy People and People Who Would Really Rather Sleep All Day (no, I don't know her, she wasn't writing about me! Although she does seem to have described me rather well....), SARK suggests "micro-steps," smaller than baby steps. Having problems getting a query letter written? Micro-step #1 might be to turn on the computer. That's all you have to do. You have achieved something worth celebrating! So celebrate it. Trust me, this process does eventually work. I've been known to decide that all I need to do is turn on the computer. Eventually I got to the point that I'd sit in front of it.
(I haven't actually read the book that seems to be all about me. I'm on her e-mail list. She was writing about this topic in her newsletter several years ago. I'm glad an entire book on the topic is finally out. I'll probably buy it soon, but I didn't really know it was out--hence the reason it wasn't on my list of favorite books on creativity. I'm sure I'll add it soon.)
Good luck on dealing with your own creative anxiety. I'll write more about the topic soon.
There are times that I get an overwhelming sense of anxiety when I think about sitting down at my computer to write, or when I think about trying to produce any sort of piece of creative work. This sense of anxiety, I am not kidding, has been known to stop me from getting out of bed for the day. If you can't get out of bed to pick up a script, it's really hard to memorize your part in a play. If you can't get out of bed to look at a script, it's really hard to plan blocking when you are directing the play.
(Boy, this blog is not the easiest thing for me to write. I have anxiety about writing, particularly "for publication," in the first place, and I certainly have anxiety about confessing past misdeeds....)
Right there is a perfect example of a contributor to creative anxiety. Notice my use of the word "misdeeds." Isn't that word rather perjorative? Possibly many of you can sympathize with my harsh judgement of my creative efforts, or rather my contemplation of attempting something creative. It would have been easier to get out of bed if I hadn't convinced myself that my life would end in shame if I didn't do well on that one particular performance, or if I hadn't convinced myself that I'd never direct anything else if that one play wasn't perfect. Note that today I call myself a writer, not an actress or a director. It is through writing that I have realized that the first effort toward a creative endeavor doesn't have to be perfect.
Writing is re-writing
"Writing is re-writing." I've heard the saying for decades. I've only recently been able to absorb what it meant. As a child, when writing my school papers, I never re-wrote. No, they had to be perfect when they came out of the tip of my pen. Which is actually why I have extremely legible handwriting--that was part of the need for perfection. Hum. I wonder what triggered this need for things to be so perfect? I can speculate, but I'll probably never be able to pin it down. Was it because I had a teacher who wanted everything to be written in pen, not pencil, but then took off points if you had things scratched out and written over and around? That particular teacher wanted a neat line drawn through things that you needed to "erase." No wavy lines, no scribbled circles. That's not a good way to teach that re-writing is part of the process.
My Dad was a perfectionist. Which is a good thing, since he was an airline pilot. Trust me, you don't want sloppy when you are a passenger on an airplane. But I think that he let that perfectionist streak get out of hand. I remember that when I was a child, my family took a "ski vacation." My dad absolutely refused to get on skis, while my sister and I, and even my mom, happily took the beginner ski classes and spent the day on the bunny-slope. When I asked my mom why Daddy wasn't skiing, my mom said that he didn't like to do things that he wasn't good at. Well, obviously, when someone won't do something they aren't good at, they aren't allowing themselves to be a beginner. If you can't be a beginner, then you don't know what you might become good at.
Perfectionism
But speculations on why I became a perfectionist to such a degree that it was paralyzing aren't solving the problem, and that's what I (and possibly you), really need to do, right?--solve the problem. I did have to go through the process of figuring out that perfectionism is a block to creative efforts. Now, how do I get around this particular block? I suggest baby steps. SARK, the writer of Succulent Wild Woman: Dancing with Your Wonderful Self and Make Your Creative Dreams Real: A Plan for Procrastinators, Perfectionists, Busy People and People Who Would Really Rather Sleep All Day (no, I don't know her, she wasn't writing about me! Although she does seem to have described me rather well....), SARK suggests "micro-steps," smaller than baby steps. Having problems getting a query letter written? Micro-step #1 might be to turn on the computer. That's all you have to do. You have achieved something worth celebrating! So celebrate it. Trust me, this process does eventually work. I've been known to decide that all I need to do is turn on the computer. Eventually I got to the point that I'd sit in front of it.
(I haven't actually read the book that seems to be all about me. I'm on her e-mail list. She was writing about this topic in her newsletter several years ago. I'm glad an entire book on the topic is finally out. I'll probably buy it soon, but I didn't really know it was out--hence the reason it wasn't on my list of favorite books on creativity. I'm sure I'll add it soon.)
Good luck on dealing with your own creative anxiety. I'll write more about the topic soon.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Other books on Creativity that I can recommend
I've been commenting mostly on CM's book Creativity. That's not the only book on creativity that I find interesting, although it is the one that I find most useful for a grand overview of creativity as a subject. Some other books that I like:
The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron
Fearless Creating, Eric Maisel
A Whack on the Side of the Head, Roger von Oech
And even though it's not specifically on creativity, I recommend CM's book Finding Flow which is a great book that deals with enhancing daily activities. Flow is a state that is often associated with atheletes--in fact, Tiger Woods is often referred to as a "flow practitioner." (There was a Time or Newsweek magazine article on him and flow at one time...sometime in the last ten years.) Flow is also that state in which writers and artists are working if we are doing our best work. "It's just flowing," "the words were just poring out of me," "I was cooking on all cylinders," "the characters led me on"--we use the language of flow, we just don't always think about what that means. Nor do we realize that we can learn or enhance flow. In fact, writers (this one in particular) often sit around and whine about writer's block. Read Fearless Creating and Finding Flow. They are both very helpful resources to deal with writer's block. (It really helps if you practice what they preach...) In particular, Finding Flow lays out a path to be able to get to your best writing state on a regular basis.
I'll be discussing these resources in more depth later.
The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron
Fearless Creating, Eric Maisel
A Whack on the Side of the Head, Roger von Oech
And even though it's not specifically on creativity, I recommend CM's book Finding Flow which is a great book that deals with enhancing daily activities. Flow is a state that is often associated with atheletes--in fact, Tiger Woods is often referred to as a "flow practitioner." (There was a Time or Newsweek magazine article on him and flow at one time...sometime in the last ten years.) Flow is also that state in which writers and artists are working if we are doing our best work. "It's just flowing," "the words were just poring out of me," "I was cooking on all cylinders," "the characters led me on"--we use the language of flow, we just don't always think about what that means. Nor do we realize that we can learn or enhance flow. In fact, writers (this one in particular) often sit around and whine about writer's block. Read Fearless Creating and Finding Flow. They are both very helpful resources to deal with writer's block. (It really helps if you practice what they preach...) In particular, Finding Flow lays out a path to be able to get to your best writing state on a regular basis.
I'll be discussing these resources in more depth later.
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