Guilt-free creativity
Hello,
I’m off on holiday at the weekend. A proper summer holiday for the first time in years that doesn’t involve a tent, a field, and packing our house in the car. I cannot wait. So there will be no Thursday Brew next week.
I’ll be back in two weeks, full of ideas because I’ve stared at some Italian art, eaten too much and not had any routine.
Guilt-free creativity
We live in a world of extremes. We no longer separate the artist from the art and there is a lack of nuance and understanding for most public debates. Okay, that might be a big sweeping statement but it often feels like that, peeking in through the windows of the internet and watching how we split everything into a dichotomy of good and evil, us versus them.
When it comes to creativity, it seems we have an equally worrying approach. We are either encouraged to make every last drop of our day productive or, to combat this, aim for lazy girl jobs. I do wonder where the lazy boy jobs are. Or are we accepting that any job a man does is important and therefore not lazy, even when it is mindless?
The problem with both these extremes (and they are extremes) is that it ignores a normal healthy balance.
As someone who temped in many, many “lazy girl jobs” after graduating, I can attest that as lovely as it may be to get a decent pay cheque for doing not very much and certainly no pressure, it is also extremely boring.
I know someone who took a very slow receptionist job so she could write a book during work time and afterwards. It was published but she still struggled to do mindless work. As much as we may not want to admit it, work that challenges us also gives us a sense of meaning.
Spending your day doing something you don’t particularly enjoy, however much you can regain your time afterwards, will eventually start to make you restless for more.
On the flip side, the drive to make every waking hour productive is a creativity killer. The idea that we should be doing something with every minute of our time to bring us closer to our goals is equally as damaging.
Let me give you a personal example here.
Every year the Mslexia novel competition rolls around and every year I really want to enter. But I don’t. Not because I’m scared of rejection or anything like that. It’s because I’ve not put in enough time into my novel to make it submission worthy.
And so every year as the deadline passes I think: “That’s okay, I’ve got until next September to really perfect it this time”.
Except, I never do.
Even while I know with full certainty that all writing is worthy, I can still struggle to put my creative time first. There’s a little voice in my head that says: “This time could be better spent doing work”. As though any writing is not honing my skills.
That little voice likes to tell me it’s a waste of time. Time that could be better spent growing my business or doing that next client job. And so most years that deadline rolls on because I need to make every moment of child-free time matter.
Change your outlook
So how do we find a happy balance?
Firstly, we need to understand how the value of being creative for creativity’s sake is hugely important to our whole selves. Everything I’ve put into learning how to get better at creative writing has also helped me get better at work writing.
You might not write for a living but I am damn sure it’s a big part of your day. You need to send emails, give instructions, and make notes no matter what you do for a living.
But you’re reading this newsletter, so I’m going to guess you also need to write blog posts, social media copy, and maybe even newsletters or adverts.
Being good at writing so that you don’t have to hire someone like me can save a lot of money in a business. It can also bring a lot of satisfaction as well.
If you’ve been a long-time reader, you’ll definitely have heard me say that if you want to get better at writing you need to read a lot and write a lot. But that doesn’t mean only reading the forms of writing that you need to use. It means reading everything you can possibly get your hands on and understanding how it all works.
I know copywriters who use poetry to improve their persuasive copy. The two could not be further from each other in style but what you learn from one can be applied to another.
Like with creative writing. Rather than write out a stream of consciousness, I want to understand narrative form, structure, and character development. So while I’m unlikely to ever need a short story for my work, I do still need to know these foundations because they help in all forms of writing.
Protect your creative time
Now, if we did everything for the potential it could bring our work then we’re slipping back into that “every moment must be productive” mode. Everyone needs creative time and that time should be protected.
Writing because you enjoy it (or whatever creative act you choose), will do you far more good if you’re not thinking about how it could help you be a better person. Instead, protecting time where you get lost in the act of doing and not feeling guilty about is essential.
But how do you protect this time when you have so many other demands on your time?
Over the years of missing that writing competition deadline, I’ve come up with some tricks that help.
1. Be part of a group
When you do things with other people, it helps you protect that time because you can’t waste theirs. Whether that’s a writing group, a co-working session or getting someone to hold you to account, working with others makes it easier to make creativity a significant part of your life and not just something you do if you have the time.
2. Schedule it in
One of the differences I’ve made this year is making the first hour of each day the time I work on my projects. Some days are harder than others depending on the pressure. But a little is better than none.
3. Pay for it
There is nothing quite like investing money to make you do something. I’ve bought writing software to help. Now I’ve spent hard-earned money on it, I don’t want to waste it. And it’s fun to play around with a new toy.
4. Deal with the guilt
You could do all of the above but if you’re still feeling guilty about wasting your time then it’s never going to happen. This newsletter started as a creative outlet. I needed somewhere to write about writing and creativity that was nothing to do with my business.
By making it about you and your need for a creative outlet then it’s less likely to make you feel guilty because you can feel so energised and full of ideas after doing something for yourself.
And remember that we don’t really live within extremes. Our worlds are rich and complex. A drive for continual productivity and self-improvement is no more healthy than apathy. And neither help you protect that creative time which we all need.
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And I’ll see you in two weeks!
Fiona