A friend of mine recently asked me to write a post about how to get your creative groove on after a looooong hiatus.
When I met him in high school he played the guitar a lot, we were in a band together, and he later went on to do some electronica that sounded pretty sweet.
Then he decided to become a doctor. A traditional chinese medicine/acupuncture/herbalist kind of doctor. And he’s pretty good at it. Unfortunately (or whatever… life is life & that’s the way it goes sometimes), he left behind the music and composing that he was so enamored with before.
And now he wants it back. But the mojo’s just beyond reach.
What do you do when the creativity just doesn’t flow? And it hasn’t for months/years?
Start by forgiving yourself.
You’re not flawed, broken, bad, ugly or stupid. You are still creative. That spark is still inside of you, but it shrunk a little.
Like a shark kept in a tank—it’ll only grow as big as the space it lives in. You just sorta boxed your creativity in for a while and for whatever reason, it’s all OK.
But now it needs some room to grow…
Reacquaint yourself with what inspires you.
Go to a museum or concert or art supply store. Get back in touch with what turned your creative self on back in the day. Flip through inspiring magazines or watch that one movie that inspired you to make your own. Re-read that one novel that you’ve read seventeen gazillion times already that makes your heart flutter at the first words.
Do something. Anything.
The act of doing, even the smallest act of doing, can unleash that mojo. Put pen to paper. Write for 10 minutes straight. Strum a few chords on your guitar. Grab your favorite color paint and squoosh a blob on to a clean canvas. And see where it goes. If it’s just a few minutes of playing with your materials or one song, then that’s fine. You did something.
Do something else tomorrow. And the next day. Lots of small actions add up to really big stuff.
Keep your creative space open.
Getting a little metaphysical here. I don’t mean physical space, although it’s helpful to keep your tools of creativity easily accessible. Your creative space in this sense is the space inside you and in your life that you hold for your creative stuff.
Keeping your creative space open means making creative habits, protecting your time, saying no (to people and things that threaten that space), and getting quiet once in a while.
If you’re like me your brain is constantly yammering. It shuts up rarely. All other times it sounds like those martians from Sesame Street.
I’m doing fine if I can get a couple minutes of quiet a day. But I make it happen. My sketchbook is always with me. Even if my studio is a disaster area, I can still doodle, sketch & glue stuff in my sketchbook. That’s when the quiet happens and the martians stop. That is me opening up my creative space.
And the more room you give your creative mojo, the more it’ll grow. Just like that sharklet.
Have you ever come out of a really long creative dry spell? How did you manage to get it back? How do you maintain your creative space? Please leave your comment below. I’d love to hear from you!
photo credit: livingonimpulse
Left foot, right foot, repeat. Seriously. Just start. It might be crap at first, but so what. It’ll come back.
The first step….he seems to have already taken, acknowledge that you wish to bring the creative flow back into your life. Then, do one small thing each day that supports that joy.
What do you think?
+1 to that. Gradually getting my swerve back. It really does remind me of what it’s like when you’ve played a sport and are away for a long time then start up again. Gotta rebuild muscle memory, gotta get the muscles up to capacity, gotta get mental reflexes re-calibrated, etc. So far so good though. Music may be, well, kind of frivolous in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a quality of life issue for me. If I don’t do it, I’m a bitter bitter soul. If I do, life is better.
I’m definitely a big believer in surrounding yourself with what inspires you before, during and after your creative work. It’s so nice to be able to see/hear something awesome and dream up something new in response.
There’s a truly awesome movie about exactly this and I can’t recommend it enough. It’s called The Legend of Bagger Vance, and it’s all about a rising star golfer who loses his swing after returning from WWI and needs to find it again. It’s actually a modern day re-telling of the Bhagavad Gita (hence the name Bagger Vance).
At one point Bagger, the caddy, says to Junah, the golfer, “you think you gonna jus’ sashay out onto that field and pick up where you lef’ off. Don’ work dat way, is all.”
The rest of the story is about a new kind of deep presence with “the field” that helps him get it back and the healing inside that happens along the way.
Tell him to rent it. Soon.
Good post, Alexia. Waaaaayyyyyy back when, I won’t disclose the number of years! I was a film student and was accepted to CalArts in the film program. Only 5 new director students were accepted and I ended up as one of them but my parents couldn’t afford to send me. It was a sad and tragic thing. Now, recently, all these years later I was watching an interview with a female director and thinking…”wow, I don’t even think I could be that creative anymore”.
After so much time passes it seems so far away. I ended up in business school… but your post has inspired me to find something creative to do again. Something that doesn’t involve guns or cars! HA.
Everyone: let me introduce the inspiration behind this post: G. Michael Reynolds. Wave to the people Mike. You’re famous!
And art is never frivolous. It feeds the soul.
@Stacey: exactly
the first step is the hardest.
@organicseyes: absolutely. I’m a big fan of the small step thing!
@misty: yes!! It’s always a good thing to surround yourself with what you love. I have art all over my office and studio – not only mine, but others as well.
@susanj: my husband just watched that movie earlier this week – because he’s just getting into golf. I’ll have to check it out.
@yolanda: thanks
and I didn’t know that about you! and go do it! I want to see what you come up with 
Alexia,
This was right on time.
I’m feeling inspired to create a drawing…and it’s been YEARS since I’ve really created anything–a drawing, a poem, a greeting card–anything.
As soon as I tried to start the drawing, I felt like a kid trying to learn how to ride a bike. Where do I START???
Your suggestion to go to the places that once inspired you got me thinking. It’s been awhile–ages–since I sat in a coffee house and wrote poetry or drew. So that’s where I need to go.
Anyway, just wanted to say thanks.
:Waving: Yep. That’s me.
I didn’t know that’s what Bagger Vance was about. Now I have to watch it.
Carrie: My moment like that was sitting at a mixing desk in the Pro Audio section of my local Guitar Center, playing around with a piece of gear that I’m interested in. I could hear someone playing bass one room over and not doing a terrible job at it. I was sitting there surrounded by thousands of dollars of really interesting gear and I thought to myself, “how on earth did I ever convince myself that I didn’t like and enjoy music and making music? I feel absolutely comfortable and at home here.” I could probably write a small book on the reasons behind the mental lockdown, but I think that was a pretty valuable moment.
Very sound advice. I love this line especially: “Lots of small actions add up to really big stuff.”
So important to just get going, even if it’s a tiny little step, it’s a step, it’s motion, it becomes momentum.
A little bit each day, like you say, can add up to a huge amount of creating, and more than that it helps you rediscover that regular flow, physically, and of ideas in your mind.
Thanks for the great reminder.
I’m a big fan of tiny steps.
It’s the only way I can get myself to do stuff most of the time.
Alexia, thanks for posting this. This came at the perfect time for me, as someone who is looking to get her creative juices flowing again.
Hey Lisa – I’m glad this helped!
The Tale of Bagger Vance is tuly awesome and golf really does reflect a lot of lifes learning curves. Small steps are what count – being in the moment and allowing yourself to feel free is what opens up your creativity. In golf you often hear someone say that just focus on the process of each shot and the results will speak for themselves; the same is true of life.