For the Love of Creativity, Step Away

Wake-Up Call #11

It was about 75-minutes into a conversation between two creative icons, acclaimed musician, Neil Young, and legendary music producer, Rick Rubin.

They were talking about where the music comes from.

Neil:

“I have to get away to get back. Can’t just always be there waiting. I gotta be distracted by something…. You gotta get away from it, cuz it’ll come to you when it’s ready. I mean people think they’re in charge. You’re not in charge. Forget it. All we have to be is ready. Ready, recognize, do, finish, out. You gotta be able to drop anything that’s happening at any time, and say ‘I’ll be back in a while..there’s something that can’t wait.’” 

It’s similar to the way

Elizabeth Gilbert

, in her acclaimed 2009 TED Talk, described how the poet, Ruth Stone’s, creative process worked:

…growing up in rural Virginia, she would be out working in the fields, and she said she would feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape. And she said it was like a thunderous train of air. And it would come barreling down at her over the landscape…. She knew that she had only one thing to do at that point, and that was to, in her words, "run like hell"…. to get to a piece of paper and a pencil fast enough so that when it thundered through her, she could collect it and grab it on the page.

So, often, when we drop into conversations about the creative impulse, we focus on things like the location of the Muse. Inside job, or divine intervention?

Surely, it’s outside of us. Our job is walk around with our antennas tilted toward possibility, notice when the signal starts crackling through, then figure out what to do with it.

No, no, comes the retort, it lies within us. Our work is to tease it out of our minds and souls, like placing a little square of creative cheese on the mousetrap of invention, luring an idea out of the caverns of our minds and into captivity.

It’s a fun conversation, with no winners.

But, there’s something that so often gets lost in the exploration of creation. It’s the opening thought in both of the above quotes.

What if stepping away was our greatest a creative act?

Neil’s, “I have to get away to get back. Can’t just be there waiting.”

Ruth’s work in the fields, away from any intentional act of poetic inception.

There’s a lot of advice that says creation only happens when you lock yourself into a daily routine. Same days, same hours, same food, same music, same lighting, same room, same coffee, same pen, pencil, notebook or computer. Then, don’t let yourself stop until you’ve either written X number of words, put in Y hours at the easel, or Z number of canvases or sketches.

You’ve got to prove your worthiness to the Muse by showing up this way, day-after-day, week-after-week, month-after-month. That’s what real artists do.

Except, they don’t.

I mean, sure, some do.

And, if that works for you, great.

But, many, including a huge number of those considered the greatest in their fields for generations, don’t. They do what Ruth and Neil, and countless others do. Not only do they remove themselves from this sort of contractual commitment to show up no matter what, they actually do everything they can to avoid this SOP-driven approach to creation.

Instead, they create space for their bodies to move, and their minds to wander. No same, same, same, but rather, new, flow, different. Then, they pay attention. They trust. And when they catch a whiff of the Muse arriving, they know how sacred that moment is. Everything else stops. They rush to get it down. Before it goes away.

Does that mean potentially unsettlingly long periods where the Muse seems to lie fallow? Yup. And, if you’re writing or producing or creating to deadline, this more fluid approach to the creative process can invite pressure, and stress. As someone who has written, produced, and built on very tight, near-mandatory timelines, I get the practicality of the mechanized approach to creation, especially when you “must” deliver at a time certain.

I also get it’s brutality, especially for those wired for a different relationship with the Muse. I have learned to function and deliver within rigid structures that let me generate consistent, quality work on time. But, if you ask me, “is that truly your best work?” Rarely. At times, not even close. And the high of hitting a deadline is always countered by the reality that so much of what I knew I was capable of remained unexpressed.

Of course, no matter how the opening act arrives, there’s a time to drop into do-the-work mode. Once the seed of something lands, nearly every maker will find themselves spending seemingly irrational amounts of time obsessively turning capture into incubation, then dreck into thing. Maybe, even, thing of beauty. Once anointed with an idea, seat-in-ass is often a great call, no matter the mechanism of the Muse’s arrival.

But…

The notion that the only way to go from blank white anything to sucky first something is by dogged, ritualized devotion to showing up within the confines of some robotic, productivity-driven structure, um, no. That works for some, but for others, it’s the equivalent of idea jail.

For them, there is no greater creative act that doing anything other than trying to create. At least in the domain to which they’ve given themselves, or allowed to take the lead.

Why do you care?

Because, whether you consider yourself an artist, a maker, a creative, or not, your greatest potential work of art is your life.

In that regard, we are all in the business of creation. We are all makers. And, having a sense for how the ideas that hold the potential to transform, to change, to connect, and elevate arrive, that matters.

Do not buy into someone else’s dogma.

Run the experiments.

Try stepping into an ideation process in a rigid, ritualized, and committed way. Give yourself time. Paint, write, journal, code, whatever. Same thing, same way, over and over and over. And see what happens. If it works for you, rock on with your bad, habitual self.

If not, try stepping away. Do something entirely different, something that lets your body and mind wander and move. Be dogged about building the window to disconnect from a rigid creative process into your schedule, but once in that space, enter without expectation. Make it intentionally free from intention. And, again, see what happens.

Over time, answers will be revealed.

The act of creating your life is too precious to surrender to the unforgiving mandates of anyone who is not you.

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Wake-Up Call #11: Find your ideation mode.

Run the above two experiments.

Take as long as you need.

Your preference might reveal itself quickly, or it may unfold over a season of exploration. You may already know it.

Either is okay.

Remember, we’re talking about the way you come up with ideas that will guide the creation of not just a productive and expressive work, but also the very way you step into and shape your life.

And, if you already have a sense for what works for you, love to hear more in the comments!