Creativity as a muscle.

From time to time I like to consider creativity like a muscle.

The more you use it the stronger it gets, but at times you can get tired and need rest.

One of the things about creativity is that the more you exercise that muscle the more creative you find yourself. If I’d only knew as a kid just how valuable creativity would be as an adult. So many practical things we can do to boost our creativity, and so many things we can do to help our kids and those around us jumpstart their own creativity.

I’m working on a writing project right now and I looked down at my journal with it’s cover and thought “Lets write us a trip to Paris.”  This was inspired of course by the report of when Paul McCartney once said to John Lennon before writing a new song: “Let’s write a swimming pool!” 

What an amazing gift that creatives have to create something from nothing.  Something that is useful in some way that can in tern manifest in a trip to Paris or a swimming pool.

Given that we are all creative I do get a bit sad when I hear people saying they aren’t creative.  That’s like saying you don’t have any muscle.  You have lots of muscle, your heart is a muscle, without it you would die.

Creativity is much the same.  When people say they they aren’t creative what they are really saying is that although they are creative, since they are human, they aren’t as creative as they wish they were.  This is the same as when people say they don’t have any muscle, they are saying that although they have muscle in their body, they don’t have as much as they’d like.

The answer to both is the same.  Exercise.  Practice.  And to start where you are.  Just as bodybuilders hit the gym every day creatives and aspiring creatives need to hit the studio every day.  And for some of us who are lucky enough to have highly portable creative practices that really eliminates excuses.

Stephen King wrong his first novel in the laundry room and in his book On Writing he says that even though he now writes in a big fancy office with a door he doesn’t consider the change in environment to have improved his writing.

Hemingway wrote in coffee shops and hotel rooms.

The key is daily practice.

I’m far from perfect.  And part of this post is to share just how easy it is to fall off the wagon.

I looked yesterday at my own calendar.  It has been 25 days since I have done any meaningful practice that wasn’t directly work related.  Meaning I’ve been doing my job but not doing the extra that constitutes my daily practice to actually improve my skills.

25 days.

That is a lot and it coincides with my when I was asked to speak at my grandmother’s funeral.  But 25 days.  And the rational knowledge that if I got back to work I’d feel better.  It’s like that some time.

So remember as important as it is to get in your daily practice there are times when life knocks you for a loop and you stumble.  Forgive yourself, acknowledge that you were knocked for a loop, and get back up and back to work.

You deserve the skills and abilities that you are building.

So for me it’s back to writing & illustrating myself a trip to Paris which will come in the form of a few courses written for a university and a few children’s books written for me.