“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” Pablo Picasso
“My family is very creative,” I would tell people. “My Dad's a printmaker, my Mum paints, my sister is a textiles designer and my brother's a fashion designer. But I'm just not gifted in that way.”
I've always loved books and learning and I did well in exams, so I went down an academic route, giving up art for ancient Greek (!!), and taking English Literature so very seriously so that I became stunted by what should be written, rather than even considering that I could write what I loved to read.
As Sir Ken Robinson said in his fantastic TED talk, “We are educating people out of their creativity.”
That certainly happened to me.
I certainly don't regret my business career, as the skills I learned are valuable now as I run my own creative business, but I was miserable inside for many years, wondering why I didn't enjoy my work and why I felt so empty.
Then I started writing my first book and my life changed.
Ten years later, I make a full-time living with my writing and my company is called The Creative Penn. I decided to ‘own' the word that I had rejected for so long.
So if you're someone who feels that they're ‘just not creative,' what can you do about it?
Antidote
Change your mindset
I knew I wanted to become more creative, but initially I didn’t really know how to make a change in my life. I started to read self-help books and write notes in copious Moleskine journals. I listened to a lot of podcasts as well as buying audiobooks and programs to help me shift my mindset.
We cannot learn everything at once, and often I would listen to a whole audio program on my long commute and maybe only grasp one thing. But then I would listen again and another penny would drop.
Over time, my knowledge about creativity grew. Listening to interviews can be inspiring because it helps you see that other people have made this shift, too. No one becomes successful on day one and we all start with nothing. This is partly why I started The Creative Penn podcast, because I wanted to help others on the journey too.
It helped me decide what I really wanted and encouraged me to start saying an affirmation, “I am creative, I am an author”, even though at that point in 2006 I didn't feel creative and I certainly wasn't an author!
It seems incredible now but I couldn’t even say those words out loud at first. Maybe because they meant so much. I just wrote them in my journal and on a card I kept in my wallet.
But over time, I began to whisper them on my walk home from the day job. Saying the words out loud articulated what I wanted to be, but also helped me gain confidence that I could achieve my goal.
It took about 18 months from that affirmation to my first non-fiction book making it out into the world. A year after that, I started my website, TheCreativePenn.com and three years later, I left my day job to make a full-time living from my writing. That transition all began with a mindset shift.
“Creativity is not a talent. It's a way of operating.” John Cleese
Follow, and trust, your curiosity
Don't write what you know, write what you're interested in, and you will never run out of ideas. If you have a curious mind, then you will always be learning, always be experiencing and then you can use that as the basis for your books.
If I want to learn about something new, I generally write a book about it, because I work out what I think while I'm writing. It clarifies and codifies the world into black and white and in the process of creating, I discover something new about myself.
This is why much of my fiction has an edge of the supernatural and even the divine, because I'm still working out what I believe in. And my non-fiction is written based on what I need at the time, e.g. I wrote Business for Authors: How to be an Author Entrepreneur when I wanted to understand the way a creative business works and help others through the process.
Trusting your curiosity is also important. Before the Internet, it might have been hard to find other fans of the weird things that fascinate us, but now, you can always find others like you online.
I never used to admit this in public because I was worried that people might think I'm strange, but once I did talk about it, I discovered a whole new community. Now when I share photos on Pinterest of graveyards I visit on my travels, or beautiful sculptures or architecture that I find fascinating, those pictures resonate with others with the same interests, and when I put them into my books, they find the right audience.
Fill the creative well
You can’t create from nothing. You can't sit down and expect to write without putting stuff into your brain first. You need material inside you to create from and that material has to come from somewhere.
When I started, I had no ideas at all. I didn’t know what to create, let alone how. Then I started going on what Julia Cameron described as ‘the artist's date,' and that made all the difference.
Basically, you set aside some time to do something for your creative self. That might be going to an art gallery, or joining a creative class, or walking somewhere inspirational, or just reading for pleasure and not feeling guilty about all the other things you might be doing instead.
I write down anything that comes to mind, often one-liners, or even just one word.
Here are some of my recent notes:
- Ancient Chinese potters would write words in the mud before they made the mud into pots
- Bones don't bleed
- Secret patisserie chefs working in restaurants for people you will never hear of, in rooms you will never enter
- Monarch butterflies are called lost children as they arrive for Mexican Day of the Dead
- “Born into a myth called Prague” Kafka
I have many thousands of these little notes now. I scroll through them if I am considering a book idea, or just for fun. I often find that I've used the ideas in my writing without consciously finding them again. The brain is a marvelous thing indeed!
Of course, if any of the ideas above spark something in you, please feel free to use them. Ideas are nothing, execution is everything!
Balance consumption with creation
Then, you need to take what you put into your brain and turn it into something else. This is the balance between consumption and creation, which needs to be kept in equilibrium.
If you consume too much, you won't have time to create. (If you're struggling to find time to write, count the hours you spend watching TV!)
If you create too much without filling your creative well, you may end up burned out because you're empty.
Start small and learn along the way
Years later when I tried again I spent a lot of time learning and started writing non-fiction first, as it has a shorter learning curve than fiction. I also kept my day job and wrote in my spare time, so there was no time or income pressure.
Learn to play
Stop being so serious about your writing. Be more like a child in your attitude toward creation. Enjoy the process. Maybe even smile or laugh sometimes, rather than furrowing your brow at the screen all the time.
Sure, you need to get the book done and whatever's in your heart onto the page, but is it really so important?
Start before you know what you're doing
At some point, you have to stop reading books about creativity and writing, and actually create something and write! Of course, it's much safer just to keep learning but that won't help you reach your goal. You'll never know everything and you'll never exhaust the number of books or classes out there. So get started and learn on the journey. It's what the rest of us are doing!
“You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it.” Neil Gaiman