Fall In Love With Your Craft Again In February - What Do You Already Love About Your Creative Work?

Welcome to February! I love this month because it's all about, well, love. And chocolate, but mostly love. I always like to expand this notion to go beyond the romantic and encompass love in all its forms, and that includes loving what we do as creators.?

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So, this month I'm going to be sharing ideas on how we can love our craft.

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Now, be honest. When you get down to your creative work, do you think, ugh, here we go again, let's get this over with, or do you approach it with the spirit of , hello my darling, let's have some fun together?

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If your answer isn't the second one, you should be asking yourself why.

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It surprises me when I read posts on writers groups where people are lamenting the fact that they actually have to work on their novel. No you don't. Unless you have a publisher breathing down your neck, you don't have to work on your novel. I'm pretty sure no one is forcing you to be a writer, especially if you don't like writing.

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Perhaps you used to love everything about your craft but the passion has waned. Maybe it was all new and exciting at first but, over time, there are aspects of it that are more complicated than you thought they would be. Maybe, as the years have gone by and you haven't achieved the success that you were hoping, you've just become weary.?

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I get it. And there are some things you can do to fall in love with your work again.

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I think a first step in this journey towards loving what we do - again or maybe for the first time - is to identify and highlight what we actually do love about it. Because I'm pretty sure those thing still exist.

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If we can pin down those points of passion - don't you just love alliteration? - we can sink into them and, ultimately, bring more of what we love about our work not only into our craft but into our daily lives as well. So, it's really a twofer!

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Trying to get that mountain just right in your painting may be frustrating but do you still love how the colours blend and interplay with each other on the canvas? Focus on that! Explore the swirls, the slight alterations, how the brush strokes magically seem to work their way into representing real things. What an amazing notion and, thinking about it, what a rush it must have been for those in the cubist movement, using thousands of tiny dots to make a gorgeous landscape or portrait!

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Trying to sort our that plot point in your mystery novel getting you down? I'm off-and-on working on my first mystery script and I get it - it's a lot to think about, all of the timelines and details. But can you still enjoy your main character's enthusiasm for solving the case? Can you appreciate the banter between your protagonist and the potential suspect? Focus on that! Play with words. Play with relationships. The plot point just might sort itself out for you.

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I invite you to also make a list of all the things you know you love about engaging with your craft.? If you're a writer, maybe it's finding the perfect words, immersing yourself in the world of your characters, seeing a character grow and evolve.

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If you're a dancer, maybe you love giving a visual context to the music, wearing the costumes - I know that would be a big draw for me - or expressing emotions with just your body and no words.

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List as many things as you can that you love about your craft. Then, look at what you may what to adjust, or ask yourself, what would it be like to only have to deal with x,y, or z aspects of my work?

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I've mentioned this before that sometimes we can work around what we don't particularly like about our jobs, whether it's delegating to someone else or realizing that it can be done another way. I'm a big proponent of not always listening to those who say this is the way something must be done and instead creating the career that works for you.

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I recently had someone tell me that she didn't like the social media aspect of her work and it annoyed her to have to put posts together and all that. I, on the other hand, enjoy it. It's a creative outlet for me and the only downside is the time it can take away from working on my actual projects.

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But as someone? who doesn't like social media, she knows she can delegate the tasks to someone else, or find ways to spread the word about her work without social media at all. Believe it or not, It is possible if you're committed to it.

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So, this is one way you can get back to loving your craft again - figure out what you already love about it. More to come! Until next time, have a chocolate or two on me, feel the love and Happy Creating!

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Tiffany Prochera is a composer, writer, and voice artist with a mission to inspire and entertain through words and music, including the new winter/Holiday sheet music collection, I Don't Like Winter and Other Songs to Celebrate the Sheet Music. Her books and ebooks? can be found on Amazon and Audible. Her sheet music can be found on Sheet Music Plus. And audio tracks for licensing can be found on Pond 5.? Visit www.tiffanyprochera.com to learn more!