Creative Process Step 2: Play Time!

Play: The Heart of Creative Process

In this series on Creative Process, we now arrive at the step that can be either the easiest or the hardest, depending on your personality: Play.

I’m a firm believer that life should revolve around play, and never the other way around (unless you’re in a crisis). Play is the most essential action in creativity.

What do I mean by “Play”? Isn’t it just work?

It would be easy to over-complicate this topic, but, put simply, every idea needs some “noodling around” time. Noodling begins in the imagination and spills out into tangible reality. The two then overlap, creating a dreamy, quasi-reality where you’re locked into the idea and brainstorming as you improvise your way to its inevitable, surprising conclusion.

You might need several fishing and playing sessions to get there, depending on the project.

For some, this is the easiest part, because play comes naturally. You catch a glimpse of a talking fish with a microphone, and instinctively, you run out to get a fish puppet from a toy store, set it next to your desktop mic, and start doing silly voices. The game expands: maybe you start interviewing famous historical characters from a fish’s POV, and suddenly, you have a sketch idea. You grab your notebook, jot down a few jokes, sit at your Casio, knock out a melody, and before you know it, you’re singing a fishy song that you just made up. You call a few friends who bring their ocean-themed puppets, order a pizza, set up a camera, and magic happens. You laugh and play for hours, and the next day, you edit the footage down to a few minutes. Now, you either have a solid video or a good proof of concept to play with more later (preferably with your own original puppets; another fun chance to play with your creative friends ??).

For others, you catch a glimpse of a talking fish, grab your notebook, and stare at the blank page until you’re overwhelmed with anxiety. Then, you order a pizza, eat the entire thing yourself, call that friend who you share your fears with (i.e. mom), and cry into the phone, afraid that you’re untalented.

And for others still, maybe you have a deadline and need to deliver a funny new sketch. You procrastinate until the last day, now desperate. You try to catch something and get a talking fish. From there, it can go in any direction...

So, clearly, playtime is important. How does it work, really?

As with Step 1, the easiest way is to clear your mind of noise and judgment and be entirely present. Let your imagination go wherever it wants. As Patricia Ryan Madson says in her excellent book Improv Wisdom, “Start anywhere.” Do whatever comes to you first. There are no wrong answers (except for the obvious ones, like “don’t hurt anyone”).

If anything fun or interesting emerges, the rule of thumb then becomes “yes, and,” just like in improv. Start wherever you are, with whatever the idea requires to get started.

In your creative space, make sure you have the tools and props you need for whatever you’re likely to create most often. In my studio, I have painting supplies, sketchbooks, puppets, puppet-making tools and supplies, musical instruments, my laptop, microphones, a mixer, and a bunch of other weird little oddball things. And I always keep colored pens and paper with me.

But you don’t need a space or gear. Just playing with your imagination is plenty. When it feels like you’re a kid again, playing pretend, you know you’re doing it well. But you don’t even need that. I’m a native lucid dreamer and often fish for ideas and play in my dreams. Any good progress there, and I wake myself up and write it down. Like with fishing, always write down the good stuff.

As mentioned with Step 1, you can catch ideas anywhere, anytime. You can get great ideas while playing. This is what people sometimes call “the zone” or “peak flow.” When you’re locked in playing and complementary ideas simply flow with whatever you’re doing. The absolute best moments are when the idea itself seems to be guiding you, and it feels like you’re barely there at all. This happens often when I paint, but the first time it happened was magical, and I’ll always remember it.

If you feel anxiety about letting yourself play, loose and free with your imagination; or if you feel intimidated by the blank page/canvas/whatever; it might mean you’re trying to motivate yourself through pressure. There are many answers to this, and it varies from person to person. Everyone’s process is different and progresses differently. For me, I used to struggle with harsh judgment and trying to edit before I even had the idea.

The answer to the problem of harshness was to take active steps in my life to improve my mental health. I attributed this “block” to ‘struggling with creativity’ when it was, in reality, ‘struggling with old, unresolved traumas.’

The ‘always editing’ issue was simply a matter of learning to accept the step I was taking and not rushing the process. Improving my writing helped with this as most successful authors recognize that before the rewrites and edits, there’s brainstorming, outlining, and making a rough draft. Simply practicing moving step-by-step, I learned to finish the rough draft before moving on to rewrites and finishing rewriting before attempting to edit.

Most of us are so accustomed to trying to live in the past or future that we don’t notice we’re doing it unless we pay close attention to just how present we are. Anxiety is typically a symptom of trying to live in the future. Depression and arrogance are often symptoms of trying to live in the past. There are many root causes of these conditions beyond the scope of this discussion (mental health and wellbeing are important, don't ignore them), but learning to be here now really helped me to overcome all three.

Speaking of our brains creating imaginary problems, our poor primate brains sometimes (often) want to put ego into our creativity and make it about us, but we have to ignore that urge. I think we all experience it. And it’s a poisonous well to draw from.

When ego takes over and tries to make it about us, it can be easier to make mediocre work and occasionally get lucky and make something ‘good’ (and this level of ease ca be intoxicating). Especially if we really happen to have interesting or wacky lives. The danger here is that it places ‘great’ out of reach, except for extremely rare accidents. “I was painting something that shows my thoughts and my feelings about myself, and then I tripped over a bucket of ink, it splattered all over the canvas, and that’s how I made the only piece anyone likes. I don’t know how to make another one.”

Great creative work is not about the Artist. It’s about the idea. The best ideas spark others’ imaginations and resonate with them, often in ways they can’t quite put a finger on. It’s like magic. Maybe it is magic.

The Artist’s job is interpreting the idea and making it real. In the playtime of interpreting the idea and translating it to reality, the Artist is present and will always be reflected in the work in some way. If ego is absent in the process, the Artist’s life can serve as part of the palette. But it’s not the point, focus, or purpose.

When I make something and it’s “about what I think,” I know immediately that it’s crap.

But when I find myself “in the zone,” playing with a pure idea that has life, I know that it has the potential to be great. How yummy!

If you have devoted yourself to Creative Process, then you know that Play is the power that gets you there. And if you forget, you have a reminder to help you get back on track.

Imagination is the door.