Pop quiz: What is the number one excuse for not doing more of that creative thing which, probably even now, you are feeling a twinge of guilt at neglecting? (beep) The answer is: time. I would like to take my photography to another level, but I just don’t have the time.
If you have said those words, I know how you feel. After going back to school, graduating, moving, looking for a new job, and dealing with the normal issues of everyday life, it seems like there is no room for anything but the essentials. Of course, creativity falls to the bottom of the list, because all those other things are obviously more important. Aren’t they?
I’m not saying that paying the bills isn’t a very crucial thing, and it ought to keep a high priority spot on that list. However, your wellbeing and peace of mind shouldn’t come last. And so, I am formulating a plan of scheduled creativity to allow everything a time slot of its own.
It seems counterintuitive to schedule creativity. I’ll be creative when the mood strikes, right? But then you’re running late for work, and there’s that appointment you forgot about, and you’re out of milk. The mood can’t strike even if it wanted to. Inspiration needs somewhere to land.
Of course, we’d all like to be independently wealthy with the time to devote ourselves wholly to our craft, whatever that might be. Unfortunately reality often has other ideas. However, there is a solution, and I think it lies in priorities.
If creativity is a priority to you, there are ways to fit it in. Can you bring a small camera with you to work, and enjoy a short walk over lunch? Can you walk to or from work in good weather, or get off the bus one stop sooner? Maybe a voice-recording app could help capture those fleeting story ideas that always escape before you can write them down.
Julia Cameron assigns a weekly task she calls an Artist Date in her book on creativity The Artist’s Way. It is just what it sounds like: one hour once a week—or more!—in which you take yourself on a date, just you and your inner artist. No one else is allowed to tag along, and you must go somewhere outside of your routine.
Do something fun and impractical, something which you’d never otherwise take the time for. Let your inner child out to play. Then see what kind of inspiration shakes loose, thanks to this new experience.
Is there a quirky shop that you pass in a hurry, always intending to stop in one day but never having the time? Or a side street you’ve been meaning to wander along, a café whose world-famous scones you haven’t yet tasted? Add it to the list.
Did you once have a passion for something, which has since faded? Why not give those embers a poke? Drag that guitar out of the closet and tune it up. Find twenty minutes and a quiet place to outline a sketch or write down that idea that showed up out of the blue. Stop into an empty church on a weekday and belt out your favorite song, feeling how the notes resonate and return.
Even more importantly, simply pay attention.
Attention is every artist’s true medium, whatever the tools of his trade might be. Take a look around at those things that have grown so familiar. How long has it been since you took note of the architecture you pass on the way to work? Do you notice when the first tiny flowers appear in the springtime snow? How about that busker on the street corner, pouring his heart out to an indifferent and shifting sea of faces, with the hope that someone may be listening? Can you take five minutes and be the person who actually does? Even if you have no spare change to donate, your attention is a gift all on its own. Maybe ask him for a quick snapshot, one artist to another? You don’t know what such a simple exchange might mean to him, or in fact to you.
Your choice doesn’t even have to be related to your chosen art form, or to any art form. Sometimes it can be entirely irrational and a seeming waste of time. The only caveat is this—to have fun and to open your soul to new experiences. Julia Cameron calls it “filling the well.” Creativity draws upon the pool of images and experiences we accumulate, consciously or not. If we expect our creativity to churn out new masterpieces without feeding it the raw material it needs, the “well” will run dry.
Creativity is a sending-out, but it should also be a taking-in. It can give you fuel to get through the everyday, and the inspiration to make something unexpected out of ordinary ingredients. It just needs some nurturing, and a little time to run free.
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