Saturday, May 28, 2011

Creative anxiety

I've been fretting a bit to be honest - wondering if I'll have time and energy to be creative.

Questions like, what is a day's worth of creativity? What is the penalty for missing a day or underachieving? It took me on to thinking if Brahms was happy when it looked at his weekly output and it was all in the bin?, did Caravaggio ever have a bad day when the folds in the material just didn't look fluid?, how did Dickens cope when there was a kiddies birthday party at the house and he just couldn't think of a stupid name for a tradesman? Eternal questions of creativity - and the anxiety that accompanies it. And yet and yet, Bach produced a new cantata every week, Haydn a new symphony or string quartet, Trollope every morning trotted out 2000 words before heading off to work. Creativity can be made routine and in those three cases at least - almost always glorious.

So I will write about my creative anxiety and fulfil a creative act in the process. My strategy is that I'll just try not to anticipate how I will feel or if I'll be happy with just one photo as an output for a day's creativity. We will see

.

And I think there's an important question here which might be answered: in 30 days I may be able to observe who or what squeezes creativity out of my day. And see how much creativity is intangible - lost because I say stuff - don't record a bit of creative problem solving in the office, the kitchen or just in interactions - the creativity in language creating a better situation from a bad one, soothing a furrowed brow or creating peels of laughter, a grin or just the relaxed shoulders of a friend.

Creativity it seems needs to be watched: 30 days of observation will do nothing but good I think

No comments:

Post a Comment