Captain’s log entry 95124, following the last update, Pods have burst at an alarming rate. Spores released appear to do no harm. The bloom is strong with this one:
I feel the alien invasion about to kick off. If I should be taken, please remember to feed the dogs.
The reality of becoming focused and creative is that you have to push other things to the side and stay attached to the important task at hand.
A big part of this is choosing what and who you listen to and stopping what doesn’t work.
For me, what works is podcasts and newsletters from interesting, creative people. For me, what works is stopping social networks from using me, and starting to use them for my own purposes instead (I really had to think about this and make a strategy – basically I only engage with Facebook, and I curate this actively every time I log on. I use Twitter as purely a feed for this blog. I use Linkedin purey as a CV for my day job. No other social networking for me.) I need good music in my life and I need to look forward to things that inspire me like family and friends and home.
Lastly and most importantly, I need to use time available to me. Life fill up the hours without much effort. When I get time to write, I take it actively. Adequate time spent writing, and adequate repetition of the writing process will make me a good writer.
What do you need to surround yourself with to become creative?
It’s strange how some things stick and others fall by the wayside. Creativity is hampered by the half-baked efforts which lead nowhere.
If the end goal of a perfect novel or song is not reached from the start we can lose confidence.
If space is not made for creative efforts, we will never have the time.
However, if we can be patient, and have faith and keep trying for just a little more each day, doing something creative over and over, we will get better. I have seen it happen with my own eyes with an artist friend of mine. We will get confident and we will get creative and we will get good.
To those of you who don’t know, I’m a chimp who likes to listen to music while I write. The Bantam civilisation implanted a chip into my brain when they invaded Old Earth. The chip allows us animals to understand human language. While I still can’t talk with the humans (as some of the other animals are able to do) I can understand what they say. This means I have to listen to people as they quibble and argue all over the place. It also means that a huge back catalogue of human music is now accessible to me. A regular old chimp with modifications, I am now a blogger and a music junkie.
On the cans this morning is the De La Soul album from 2016. This is a wonderful sound. Beats to jump up and down to, guest appearances all over the place to make me screech and grin my wide chimpanzee grin. I love a good album and the fact that this was funded in part by a Kickstarter campaign makes it even more satisfying for some reason.
Variety of voices from Usher to David Byrne keeps this album interesting. Lyrics and rhymes mixed with audio scenery give it depth.
A most pleasant listening experience for this chimp. Now it’s time for me to find some bananas for breakfast.
When the Shepherd Trolls came to Old Earth, they wept like babies. The Trolls snuck in through a small portal left open by the Bantam civilization. Expecting easy spoils, what they found was full scale warfare which had turned Old Earth into a frightening place. Before they could retreat back through the portal, it had already closed. A Shepherd Troll is not brave, and when it is in tears it sounds like a howling monkey. Hiding for months, once the humans evacuated and Bantam rule was established the Trolls could move more freely. Collecting spells, treasures and goats as they travelled, the Sodom of Trolls grew to a healthy size and Lughar proved himself the most canny and ruthless of the group. It was his idea to take Robert Johnson from the circus.
As the storm of the century stopped, sensing that something was not right, Lughar made his way underground. Using a large stick with a green flame as a torch, Lughar stepped through uneven corridors and rickety structures down into the abandoned mine which had been turned into a Troll cave. Walking steadily deeper underground, faint music started to fill the air.
“Gotta keep moving, Gotta keep moving
hellhound on my trail. Mmmhmmm, hellhound on my trail”
The corridor flattened out and after three more right turns, Lughar stopped at a small wooden door and pulled a big iron key out of his pocket. The song was clearly emanating from behind the door, vocals of a tortured soul rising up through the cave. Lughar smiled viciously, turned the big lock and opened up the door. The music stopped suddenly.
Lughar stepped into the dark, cold cell and grinned at the sad scene in front of him, “Mr Johnson, you missed quite a storm up there. But don’t worry, we’ll make sure you stay nice and wet down here”
A trembling voice came out the darkness, along with the distinctive clink of chains, “Oh s…sorry boss, I’m s…. s …so …sorry boss….was i too l….l….loud with the singing boss?”
Lughar thrust his torch of fire into the cell, illuminating the head, arms and chains in front of him. “Stop your snivelling!”
Robert Johnson was a 75 kilo orangutan. He was Lughar’s most valuable treasure.
I see how great sci-fi books take inspiration from everyday events. It’s a whacky world we live in.
Take this alien looking plant for example. From a few saggy leaves it is now in bloom and has pods exploding every few days:
Expect a public service announcement that the invasion has started. Started in my kitchen.
I heard a New York Times podcast yesterday all about A Tribe Called Quest’s latest album. Interviews with the band revealed a nugget of creativity wisdom. A kernel of truthiness to get the creative juices-a-flowing, a rough rock from where you may extract sparkling creative jewels, a …you get the point.
Q Tip – philosopher that he is – offered something along the lines of the following statement: “An idea inside your head is just a thought until you act on it.”
I like this. Ideas are fantastic, important, a vital starting point for creating something. But until some sort of action (writing, painting, dancing, rapping) occurs – there is no art, and it’s just a ghost in your head. Nobody would know about it. Nobody cares. Nothing happens.
So we must do. And that is the scary part because it means others may bear witness to the doing. And others may not like the doing.
On the other hand, they may like it very much. It might just work.
On any given day, the number of forces which can undermine your creative efforts is vast.
A woman’s day can be made miserable by a sore back.
A friend can spoil your mood.
A previous engagement can fill your time so that nothing else is possible.
A baby can keep you awake all night.
Politics and news headlines can depress you right back into bed.
Most of these however, are fixable. Investing time and money and effort into steering your life towards a creative space requires a bit of a plan. A plan that is repeated and refined eventually becomes the norm. Norms eventually become bulletproof to interruption. (That’s my plan anyways…in a nutshell).
Van Gogh managed a masterpiece with one ear missing – how bad can your obstruction of creativity really be?
I gave up coffee for four days because I was convinced there would be huge benefits. Instead my life just got more boring and difficult. Each morning felt like it was on half powered batteries. My sleep was no better or worse. Abstinence Shmabstinence.
It got me thinking though – for creativity and good work to happen, energy is the number one component that needs to be checked off. Don’t try and write a novel on a half empty stomach, or record an album on 3 hours sleep. Go to the gym or for a walk. Being energetic in other areas will probably flow over into your work too. That’s my theory anyways – take it or leave it 🙂
And in case you were wondering, from my limited experience coffee is a very good thing. Don’t deny yourself the good things.
By definition, creativity is required to make art. To write something interesting needs a creative process behind it. This fact has led to some of the most seductive thinking of the modern era. Specifically, we tell ourselves stories that not everyone is able to be creative, therefore not everyone is able to make art. Many believe that the artist’s life is only available to a select few, that the left brain needs to over-rule the right for optimal creative conditions. The story bends even further. Even when optimal conditions are met and a person is ‘an artist’, their output can be slowed by external factors too – writer’s block sets in.
We would have ourselves believe that most, if not all of the creative process is out of our control. As I have written before, I don’t believe this at all. Unfortunately life is not so simple. Although creativity shows up in the brain in certain ways, “contrary to the “left-brain, right-brain” myth, creativity doesn’t just involve a single brain region or even a single side of the brain. Instead, the creative process draws on the whole brain. It’s a dynamic interplay of many different brain regions, emotions, and our unconscious and conscious processing systems”(quoted from an interesting article on the brain and creativity which can be found here).
Rather than the ‘artist’s life’ only being available to a select few, the truth is that we decide our fate. And how do we do that? Why, with our memories of course.
Events in our lives are either held onto as memories which become narratives affecting our behaviour, or they are forgotten.
For a crude example: Twin girls are told to write a story for homework. The one gets frustrated during the writing and gets a bad mark. She decides she is never going to try hard to write again. She blocks it from her brain. The other also gets frustrated and gets a bad mark, but decides she is creative and will find a way to improve the mark next time. These decisions lead to chains of other decisions which reinforce our own narratives. From that moment on the first girl focusses on science, the other on literature. Two different lives are born.
The kicker in all of this is that you can decide which memories to hold on to and which to let go of. Which memories will become a narrative and which fade to black? You can tell yourself a different story and you can become more creative.
Chimpwithcans 