Reawaken Your Creativity

Writing Can Reawaken Creativity

It is my passion to help people reawaken and rediscover their creative side.  This is one of the best gifts we can give to ourselves.  I call it a creativity reboot.  Most of us get caught up with life and feel as though we have no connection to our creative side.  Creativity is denied in our culture, and marginalized in the educational system,  I believe we feel a hunger that we can mistakenly try to fill by consuming things.  James Hillman, the founder of archetypal psychology , believed that creativity was an innate drive just like the drive to eat.  This means the satisfaction of creativity can be viewed as a requirement of life.

Stephen Spielberg said in a documentary that film making was his therapy.  Stephen King and many other writers have expressed a similar view.  We all have the need to fulfill this creative drive.  What we can all use is a mentor.  Good mentors answer questions we may not even know to ask.  They lead us through the journey so that we don’t have to struggle alone to come up with a novel idea or polish the one we already have.

Mentors help us find our writing voice and create memorable characters.  They help us learn the crafts of dialogue, description, plotting, conflict and tension.  All that goes into finishing our story whether it is a novel, screenplay or a story that lends itself to a TV pilot.  By having a mentor,  a writer will become better at the craft of writing than any of us ever knew we were capable of.  This is what I provide in the Creative Writer’s Way Workshops .

We all Have Stories

I believe there are stories waiting to be told in each of us.  Going through the process of learning how to tell our story can be transformational.  It all starts with this core belief: there is nothing I can buy, achieve, own or rent that can fill up that hunger inside me that is longing for fulfillment and wonder that I find trough creative expression.  In my experience, reengaging our creative side can be very fulfilling.  Perhaps it can even give us what we have been searching for: peace, meaning and enlivenment.  Doing this is time that is well spent.

 

Here are Some Thoughts of How we Reawaken Our Creativity

 

1. Have a conversation with your internal critic.

There is a part of our self that says, “I don’t need to create.  I should just lie here”.  We all have a part of ourselves that sees the road ahead and thinks, “Nah.  I’m good”.  Recognize that this is normal.  We all have doubts and we all experience a lack of motivation sometimes.  When we recognize the inner critic, it is more likely that we will start to see this voice as part of the creative process.  In fact, that voice is welcome to come along for the ride.  It may even be surprised.

2. Try something you don’t think you’re very good at.

We’re forced to try all sorts of subjects, sports and extracurricular activities when we’re children.  Chances are, we weren’t excellent at every single one of them.  Trying something that we will never become an expert in can be frustrating or it can be an opportunity to grow and play.  Same language; different story.

3. Prompt yourself.

I have found that The Hero’s Journey model that I adapted for novel writing, along with provocative creative exercises, can give us prompts to inspire the story.  We should stay on the lookout for things that inspire us.  Whether it is a quote or a picture, we can use someone else’s art to help our own creativity flow. I tell writers, the next time you see a quote, painting, photo or anything that moves you, pause and meditate on it.  Then do some free writing and reflection to see what emerges.

4. Go with the flow and find the fire.

Whether we are cleaning our closets or making a birthday card, focusing on the end goal or product can bring out our perfectionist side.  Allow the process to evolve.  Allow things to unfold.  Taking a break can be just what we need to bring us inspiration when we are stuck.  We talk to our Muse and see how the inspiration can emerge.  When we give our muse a chance to express itself it can speak to us.  At the end of the day the creative process is fueled by what some have called fire.  This is a good metaphor to describe the creative tension, magic and or heat that is generated when we focus on a project intently.

5. Do it because you love it.

I encourage you to love the process of creating.  Love the fact that you are on a journey too.  Mary Oliver wrote a series of essays in a book called Upstream.  In it she stressed the importance of concentration.  It is what I call the fire and purpose, commitment to the project.  That is when we tap into the wellspring of the creative process and it takes on a life of its own.  Oliver also said, “the most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time”.  Trust the process. It is rarely linear but is always, always worth it because it is an expression of you.  What we find is that writing creatively can be what I call a form of narrative therapy.

Writing helps us to learn more about who we are.  We are drawn to write about things we care about.  That comes from the challenges that we and other people face, our fears, hopes, dreams, all of which is universal.  I think you will find if you are either in the water or want to get in.  Writing creativity can provide a means to enhance our personal development in a way that also touches other people who need and want to hear our stories.  Writing our stories doesn’t have to be an unattainable dream or a struggle.  It can be a chance to let your mind play and explore new and different ideas.  There is a joy to taking yourself out of the world as it is and dropping into another one where you write the script.