5 things I've learned about creativity over the years.

July 2021 will mark 10 years to the beginning of my career and I thought the appropriate way to celebrate the decade would be to jot down 10 things I learnt about creativity and life over the years.

10 years, 10 things, clean simple and appropriate, that was the plan …

My point is 10 is an arbitrary no. and that fickle thing being creativity stopped me at no. 5 where it saw fit.

So without much ado here are 5 marvellous things I’ve learnt about creativity and life in general.

1.      Erasers/ Ctrl + Z or backspaces are wonderful.

Apart from writing, I am also into art and while drawing I use construction lines. Construction lines are like scaffolding, I put them on a page to temporarily hold an object, project or a form I intend to draw.

I erase them later. Because I use construction lines I erase a lot.

 I used to think erasers are for mistakes and the less I use them more of a “real artist” I was. I felt guilty using Ctrl + Z on my computer because I thought the real artists or writers got it right the first time and possessed some arcane ability that I did not.

After working for so many years, there’s something that has become very clear to me. An eraser is nothing to be ashamed of, it isn’t the highlighter of mistakes it is a TOOL. I don’t get into each project thinking exactly where each aspect is going to fit or every line is going to connect. The process is explorative and iterative.

I’d like to extend this philosophy far beyond illustration; it can be applied to writing, music or life in general.

There’s a lot of shame associated with backpedalling and things like quitting your job or divorce even something like simply starting over.

But forward isn’t always progress and backwards isn’t always regress.

Thing’s going down the wrong path isn’t a mistake; they’re simply construction lines...

2.      Pivot and Breathe.

A friend once told me creativity is like breathing, when you make stuff you are exhaling. This is why I try to read books, this is why I try to write, and this is why I pivot from project to project.

All of these things I consider breathing, and they make me better at what I do, these are what make me love my job. Sometimes I like to take a break for week’s maybe months at a time, this doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m abandoning something or being lazy. All I’m doing is just trying to breathe.

3.      Do not keep “petting” your work

I was taking painting classes when I first started art. I was working on a painting which I had nearly finished. However, I was still slathering it on with paint, covering old brush strokes with new ones and petting the canvas. I was layering things up without actually making the painting any better.

My instructor stopped me and said, “stop petting your painting”.

She was referring to the bad habit of continuing long after the painting had finished. She was referring to “OVERWORKING” it.

And she imparted a much valuable lesson “Sometimes good enough is so much better than perfect.”

I apply this to anything I do now, whether writing, working on a project or just doing anything. If I find myself mired in details I ask myself am I petting the painting?

4.      Killing your darlings

There’s an adage “killing your darlings” that is you must be willing to let go of your work sometimes even after you’ve sunk a significant amount of time and energy into it.

Instead of putting a lot of energy into one idea I sometimes like to put a little effort into a lot of ideas and bless each one with an ounce of charm. In this way I know I am willing to let go of the torment of a lot of destructive criticism.

Sometimes investing your time and energy into different things rather than just one can be more than fulfilling.

5.      Brainstorming doesn’t necessarily give good ideas; chances are it’s all about bad ideas.

The term brainstorming was popularized in the 1950s in a book called Applied Imagination since then it has become as ubiquitous and generic as “google” or “duct tape”.

We don’t question it, as it’s become an activity that is fundamental to the creative process. Sometimes the “storms of the brains” do become just the whooshes of the mind. I believe it’s a great way to jostle things up and break up a fixed way of thinking. It is a great way of raising questions and a mostly not such a good way of finding answers. It’s a place where you have really exciting conversations about frosting a cake without actually baking a cake.  Brainstorming is not where you expect to solve huge monumental problems and is certainly NOT a required activity.

Lastly, I must concede, I love, love, being in a room full of people caffeinated and drunk in the notion that we’re all hurtling towards a creative breakthrough together.

But I also know that nothing much or substantial is going to be solved in that room. It’s going to be cracked by some talented soul sitting alone in their headspace.

** All in good humour