When Your Inclinations Imprison Your Creativity
All you need is a gentle shift to get motivated again
“There is no such thing as being done with an artistic life. Frustrations and rewards exist at all levels on the path.”
Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way
Creativity is the writer’s wand — which inspires us to live within a world of our choice and play with ideas.
But we writers have had those instances when it feels like something has cursed this wand — when we feel no creative spark — when it seems too difficult to write.
When I went through this stage, it seemed difficulty is a part of a creative life, but that wasn’t the case. I noticed that writing wasn’t tough for me. Instead, I was too hard on myself.
The rules I had made for myself to judge the worth of every idea, to discard ideas that fall out of my niche without even entertaining them, were imprisoning my creativity.
And, the last thing creativity wants is permission. So my inclinations took me into a creative drought state— where there were ideas and time to write — but there was no desire or motivation to write.
I hated to admit it, but it felt like I had no appetite to write again.
Writing is a journey in which we grow in baby steps. Growth follows a slow process, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. If it is, it’s not growth; it’s a drastic change that ends in confusion.
We as writers are curious souls and are well aware of ourselves, but oftentimes we mistake our creative stages. We misunderstand the reasons that lead us to demotivation and lack of inspiration for writing or so I learned from my creative drought.
I found the inclinations that had helped me to write till now are on the verge of crossing the line — the line that separates growth from drastic changes. And, the result was no appetite for writing — an endeavor that had been my heart before.
Linking the images of all the creative stages I went through in my writing journey, I reviewed how little by little our writing inclinations shift in a direction that robs us of motivation for writing.
Writing more helps us to write well, and writing well, in turn, fuels our desire for more writing.
In an attempt to quench this thirst, we schedule to write more and well by creating more time and more ways to add spices to writing — at the expense of our and our creativity’s relaxation. We strictly analyze our ideas and writings for a consistent writing style.
At that stage, it seems,
“Every blade of grass has the Angel that bends over it and whispers, ‘Grow, grow’.” The Talmud
We hope that it would be a perpetual cycle of motivation and creativity, but it turns out to be a demotivator for our writing — to haunt our nightmares.
And soon enough we lose enthusiasm and momentum in our writing life.
The writing activities that seem easy and therapeutic become burdensome and even though we write, it lacks creative sparks as per my experience with creative drought.
What I want to say is that writing is a world of our choice, but a forced attitude takes us to the blind alley where we cannot decide whether to choose writing or continue dangling off the end of our writing’s rope. We get into a perplexing situation.
However, artists don’t have a choice to abandon their art. If we have had, we wouldn’t be trying to gain momentum.
We’d have given up long ago considering that there are better things to do than to stare at a blank screen — with a blank mind.
Still, we can choose growth as growth or growth as drought. It’s only our choice.
Growth as a writer is a blessing, but it turns into a drought when we choose growth at the expense of our joy; when we attempt to train our subconscious mind (which has more writing to do than our conscious mind).
Creativity gleams in freedom.
When we confine ourselves to rules that have roots in our passionate inclinations, creativity, instead of flowing easily, bounces back from confined walls.
Creativity needs space. It craves to lead our souls rather than being lead by us.
So if you are feeling like you are in a drought state where there’s little inspiration and no motivation, free yourself from your prison.
Rebel against your inclined thoughts. Forget your rules. Just flow with creative sparks. Write the way words find your way.
Since there are no rules to master creative skills, we have to write without forethought — without an inclination.
Takeaway:
On days when you can’t approach creative flow, shift your inclinations for creative flow to approach and lead you.
"Art is the imagination at play in the field of time. Let yourself play." - Julia Cameron
