(Quick note to my e-mail subscribers. Due to technical difficulties, the notifications for the past two blog posts went awry. So you’ve missed my post introducing Creativity and my post about creative fears. Hopefully I’ve fixed the snafu and we’re back to original broadcast quality!)

I’m returning to a creative routine after years of life upsets. Or at least I’m trying to return to a routine.

After learning about the routines of several successful writers, I decided to imitate them and tried setting my goal at 2,000 words a day.

That didn’t happen.

I changed it to 1,000 words a day.

Some days I got there, other days I didn’t even write a single word.

Finally I set my goal to 250 words a day.

A crazily small amount.

But, it made a difference!

I’m finally writing almost every day. Not massive amounts, but it’s a good start. And often, once I make my 250, I continue to 500, and then maybe 1,000.

Stretching to Goals vs Getting to the Page

One best-selling writer I read about suggested choosing a word count you could meet for the week and then adding 10% to keep you focused.

If you haven’t tried that for your writing, or sketching, or painting, or photography, it’s definitely worth a go. I may go back to that myself once I’m in a better routine.

But I think there’s lots to be said for the goal that is almost too small, just large enough to feel like it matters. Its purpose is not to push you, it’s to pull you. It gets you to the page, or the easel, or the sketchbook, or the piano with the promise that you only need to do something small. Tiny even. And once you’re there, well maybe you can do a little more. And then a little more. But if you only do that one small thing, it’s still a success. You’ve made it for the day. Well done!

Creative Blocks to Goals

What’s a goal like for your creative voice inside your head? I’ll hand over to my Creativity to prove a glimpse.

So, there are days I like goals, and there are days I don’t like goals. Rather like the fact that there are days I like chicken nuggets and days I wouldn’t touch them with a ten foot high-jump pole (are they ten foot? Must make a note for Jessica to do her research thingy and figure out why I’m wrong. Again!)

Gah. Where was I?

Yes, goals!

So I’m not a big goal person. I’m a massive play person. If setting a goal for a certain number of words means I get to play for that long, then I’m all for it! But if the goal means my person and I need to sit staring into nothingness for an interminable and torturous (which possibly means the same thing, but hey, I’m not a stickler for the dictionary myself) amount of time, then me and goals are not on speaking terms.

So the heading says “Creative Blocks to Goals” and I would take issue with that! I would say “When Goals Cause Creative Blocks.” Or, more punchily (which is a word, no matter what spell check says), “When Goals Murder a Perfectly Good Creative Luncheon.” Don’t know where the luncheon comes from, but I’m sure it’s involved somehow. I’m already thinking about chicken nuggets and can’t remember why.

My point being, if the goal you set isn’t a play goal but a work goal, then it’s just never going to bring your Creativity to the party. If it’s a goal to aspire to, or rather inspire to (don’t grammar me, I know what I’m saying), and it’s doing something I’m passionate about, then yes! We have liftoff!

If it’s something that’s going to cause drudgery (like, if I’ve finished a chapter and I need some extra imagining time before I give the next word, and then you’re wanting the next 500 words pronto) then me and this goal are not on speaking terms. I ain’t helpin’!

Push Goals vs Pull Goals

From what I can see on the internet, the terms “push goals” and “pull goals” are used with various explanations. If you want to find a definition that works for you, try the Google. For me, I feel that the terms work this way.

A push goal is one that tries to motivate you to reach for success. If you write 1,000 words, you’ve met your goal. If you write 999, you haven’t met your goal. You could view that as a failure, or you could define it as failing to success. You wrote 999 words more than if you hadn’t had that goal in place. Either way, the goal is the measurement achieved.

A pull goal is designed to get you to turn up. It’s so small that you feel like you could just come to the easel, grab your charcoal, spend five minutes (or three minutes, or maybe even one!) sketching, and you’ve achieved your goal. Maybe you stop there. Or maybe you keep going because now you’re at your easel with charcoal in hand remembering how much you do actually enjoy this once you make it this far. The goal is the arrival at your creative space. That is the success. How long you spend there isn’t the issue. It’s getting you there in the right mindset.

Which goal do you need?

I use the term need deliberately. It’s an individual thing at each individual moment.

Do you love your craft and you need something to stretch toward? Set up a push goal.

Do you love your craft once you get there but find yourself avoiding it for some unknown reason at other times? Are you really busy and feel you only have a few minutes a day to do something creative? Instead of setting a goal that is just daunting and too easy to brush off the To Do List, try a pull goal—something that will draw you to your creative space and let you at least start. No judgement. Just start.

I’m interested to know your thoughts. What kind of goals work for you? What kind of goals don’t work for you?

I recently came across this quote in a Vanity Fair interview with Greta Gerwig, the director of Barbie and Little Women.

“At some point, the terror of never making anything becomes much bigger than the terror of making something bad.”

It felt especially relevant to me at the moment. I’m trying to return to creating—writing, blogging, a bit of painting, some junk journalling. I need the reminder that there’s a bigger problem than producing something ‘bad.’ And, to be honest, a little terror could be just the fire underneath me that I need to get going.

Terror of Failure

Last week I wrote about how getting to know your Creative Voice can counteract your Inner Critic.

But let’s take this a step further.

Your Inner Critic is (probably) trying to protect you. It’s petrified (and I mean petrified) of failure.

But, what is your definition of failure?

A bad review.

Work back from that.

A bad story/post/painting/anything.

Work back from that.

Creating something that embarrasses me.

Work back from that.

Keep working back until you find the biggest failure.

I might not be a good writer. I might be a fraud.

Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.

Why? Because that last insight leads us to a completely different kind of failure.

Terror of Inaction

I want to be a writer. I’d love to be a writer that other readers love to read. But ultimately, I want to be a writer.

What’s a bigger failure than writing something that isn’t good?

Isn’t it writing nothing at all?

And so, you guessed it, my Creativity has something to say on the topic.

Oh boy, do I!

(By the way, have you read last week’s post about finding your Creativity? If not, you really should. I’m sure they’re amazing and quirky and inspiring and very well-dressed and you’re missing out if you don’t know them.)

Usually when we talk about fears, we think about the Inner Critic (who, as I write this, is still spats-less even though I’ve told him it’s the in thing for critics the world over. Back me up here!) and we think about the many fears that hold us back from creating.

But did you know that Creativities fear too?

We don’t fear making mistakes (there are ‘no such things as mistakes, only happy accidents’ as one famous creative said). We don’t fear what other people say (we have ideas that must exist! They simply must, no matter what!). They fear…

…never being heard.

They fear never creating anything.

They fear weasels in hot dog buns. Why? Well, don’t you now that I’ve put the idea in your head?

They fear ideas that are dead on arrival because they’ve spent too long in limbo.

They don’t fear never having the ideas (because ideas fly in like…oh, what are they called? Some particle that flies through space and just passes right through you…you know the one, don’t you? Quarks? I want to say quarks. But I think that’s because it’s fun to say quarks. Try it with me! QUARKS!).

Where was I?

Yes! Your Creativity doesn’t fear never having the ideas. They fear never fulfilling ideas. They fear never being heard. By you. By people beyond you. By anyone.

Imagine living your life without ever being heard.

Now do you understand a Creativity’s fear?

It’s not a crippling fear. It’s not debilitating. It’s heartbreaking. If you ever see a Creativity cry, it’s because some grand idea was ignored or never expanded upon.

“What if it’s bad?” is never a worry from your Creativity (though it’s one of your Inner Critic’s favourite objections). What if it never lives is the fear that gets to our core.

So, what’s the solution?

You first need to recognise that your Creativity has a fear. Then you need to find a way to let that fear motivate you. Make your Creativity’s fear your fear too. Make it bigger and louder than your Inner Critic. Put it into words, write those words in massive purple (or blue, or red, but really, purple is better) letters, and stick them up where you can see them.

“What if it never lives?” That’s my fear right there.

Make it your fear too. Make the terror of never making anything your motivation.

One best-selling writer put it this way: make your fear of writing something bad the size of a mouse and make the fear of writing nothing at all the size of an elephant.

That can be extended to anything from painting to piano playing to pottery. What’s worse than the possibility (and it is only a possibility) that something might not turn out how you hoped? Isn’t it worse to have never done anything?

The obvious point is that one can never improve if one does not practice (as true of writing as it is of learning the tin whistle). Each time you create something or do something, you give yourself the opportunity to get better. But really, that’s a point for another day. Today’s thought: what if it never lives?

What if that idea never makes it into the world?

What if your Creativity is just bursting with excitement about an idea and you stop it because it might not be any good? Isn’t that the greater loss?

Isn’t “what could have been” the sadder thought than “what if no one likes this”?

There is so much potential in an idea, not just in what that particular idea could be, but also what it could lead to, what it could teach you, what audience it could reach. As creatives, that potential is what we live for. It’s what we breathe.

So take a deep breath, get your pencil or easel or banjo out, and bring something to life.

Keep the terror of never creating burning inside you. Your Creativity will thank you.

Now tell me, what’s the idea your Creativity is most afraid of losing?

Have you ever encountered the fear of creating something bad? That voice within you that says your idea is rubbish? That it’s just not worth putting the effort into even trying? Or if you have tried, maybe you’re thinking it’s better not to put your creation out into the world?

It seems to me that the fear of making something bad is almost ubiquitous. And we might think that those who aren’t afraid of making something bad probably should be.

A bad poem.

A bad painting.

A bad story.

A bad performance.

We likely feel we’ve seen those.

We don’t want what we produce to be bad.

And so we do what we feel avoids the chance of making something bad.

We obsess over the details of our creation until we freeze into inactivity.

Or we just never start.

We never create, feeling it’s better to create nothing than to create something bad. And so we become blocked.

How do we combat this insidious problem?

The Inner Critic Voice

That voice in our head that tells us we can’t create something bad is our Inner Critic (or Censor, Critical Voice, or resistance, it goes by many names). It’s a very active voice. It is, in many ways, a protective voice. It’s a familiar voice.

It tells us not to try new things because they might go wrong. It tells us not to send our stuff out into the world because someone might not like it. It tells us not to start something because we don’t know how it ends.

That’s what my Inner Critic says. Take a moment and think about your Inner Critic. What does it say to you? How does it stop you from starting, or continuing, or finishing, or sharing your creative project?

Can you hear those blocks as something separate from your Creative Voice? Can you see ways that your Inner Critic is perhaps trying to protect you?

You can’t get upset if no one gives you feedback on what you’ve created. You can’t fail if you don’t start. The voice wants you to think a little bit longer on this project before we start to make sure we’ve considered every angle, then we know it will be good… But just in case it’s not good, maybe we shouldn’t start… It smothers any ounce of creative initiative you might have and undermines every idea before it blossoms, all in the name of fear.

I’m sure you’re very familiar with this voice. And it may be more nasty than what I’ve provided above.

But are you familiar with your Creativity’s voice?

The Creative Voice

The Inner Critic is very vocal. Our Creativity on the other hand may be much harder to hear. Did you know your Creativity has a voice?

Let me demonstrate by introducing you to my Creativity. She’s a little girl with multi-coloured pigtails and very strong opinions.

Would you like to meet her?

Hi! So! Where to start? I’m so nervous. Are you nervous? No, you wouldn’t be nervous, would you? You’re not introducing yourself. I am!

I’m Creativity. Specifically, Jessica’s Creativity. You have your own Creativity, whether you know it or not. And your Creativity has a voice all their own.

How can you hear them?

Well, you kinda got to listen…And you gotta somehow shut up the Inner Critic. Blah! Don’t get me started on HIM! Jessica’s Inner Critic is smelly and old and wears spats! Or rather, he should wear spats. Spats would improve him no end. I have suggested it. He didn’t go for it.

BUT! I’m not here to talk about him. I’m here to talk about you!

You’ve got to shut up your Inner Critic, and often the easiest way to do that is with a mallet and chloroform and—no, actually, scrap that. If you have a mallet you don’t need the chloroform—

Wait! Jessica says we’re suggesting violence, which isn’t okay, and we’re getting off topic. I would disagree with the latter but there you go.

To hear your Creativity, a wonderful exercise is speed writing. (This exercise works even if you’re not a writer! It works for actors, crocheters, and professional ski jumpers. Well, okay, I’m guessing at that last one, but I don’t see why it shouldn’t.)

Get a piece of paper or a computer document (with spell check turned off because those wiggly red and blue or green lines—I can’t remember which colour they are—are VERY distracting and mess up the activity) and set a timer. Pick five to ten minutes, longer if you wish, and just start writing.

Write something like, “Hello, Creativity. Tell me about yourself.” And then just write whatever comes to you. The crazier the better!
You might not hear their voice right away, but the more you allow yourself to just write whatever spontaneous thing that comes into your head, the more likely you’ll come face-to-pen with your Creativity.

As you go, try to find out what your Creativity likes, how your Creativity feels, what excites your Creativity, what depresses them. The more information you can gather, the better.

Try doing this exercise regularly so you can befriend your Creative Voice. And remember, write quickly and without judgement (and with your daughter’s butterfly rainbow pencil if she has one). If you stop and ponder, your Inner Critic can pounce in an instant and you’re back into that dastardly headspace with ol’ smelly you-know-who!

Voices in Your Head

Okay, maybe the idea of a crazy, random voice in your head sounds like a whole lot more trouble than it’s worth. The truth is, you already have a voice in your head—your Inner Critic. That can be a debilitating and soul-destroying voice. Don’t you want someone fun and encouraging and—Creativity says I should write effervescent, but I don’t think it means what she thinks it means—well, creative?

In my experience, everyone has some kind of Creativity inside them. And their Creativities are as unique as the person who finds them.

With a Creativity inside, you have a voice that combats criticism, a voice that encourages you to protect your creative need instead of warding off possible ‘bad’ results. You have a voice you can work together with to create things that have never existed before—your creative projects.

So tell me, what’s your Creativity like? I’d love to meet them.

I have often heard the phrase “what’s past is prologue” but until recently had never stopped to consider it’s meaning. I didn’t even know it was Shakespeare. I also didn’t know the murderous intention of the character who spoke it.

I definitely knew what a prologue was.

In my early writing life, I was very ready to add a prologue to anything I was writing—whether it needed one or not! It would be dramatic and foreshadow while providing a good smattering of backstory. All the things that probably make people hate prologues.

I’d grown out of them by the time I started writing in earnest, sometime in 2014. But one day a prologue came to me. A fantasy prologue that hinted at all sorts of amazing things to happen in the story. I was completely taken in and wrote and wrote and wrote.

180,000 words later I had myself a story I loved.

The only problem was…the prologue no longer fit.

I had to throw it out.

(The story is currently with beta readers and will hopefully come out sometime next year. The current title is Soundless and it’s a fantasy with a deaf protagonist.)

The prologue had done it’s job though. It had spurred me on to write everything that came after it.

And it was as that prologue came to mind the other day that I thought of the phrase “what’s past is prologue.”

You see, I’m recovering from a…what’s the right word? Rut isn’t it. I prefer the term best-selling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch uses. A life roll.

I started publishing a decade ago. Goodness, time doth fly. In that time I have published two novels, one novella, almost twenty short stories, and three short story collections. I have a backlog of short stories that haven’t been published as well as a romance science-fiction story called Be All My Futures Remembered that is on the cusp of being ready to send out in the world. And I’ve got Soundless which was a mammoth task on its own.

But, to be honest, I’m not where I want to be. And that’s all to do with my life roll.

I won’t go into all the details. Goodness knows there are plenty of them. The highlights (or more probably the low points) were two breakdowns and a cancer diagnosis.

I’m cancer free. This month is my five year anniversary. I still have no idea how I got it, neither do the specialists and even the geneticists. I have no history of it in my family. It was just one day—boom—there.

But in the five years since, I’ve been struggling to write, to publish, to blog, even to read anything with enjoyment. My synapses had fried, and it has taken me a long time to recover them.

Thusly why I like the term life roll.

But the other day the phrase “what’s past is prologue” came to mind and I suddenly understood what it meant.

The phrase comes from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Two characters are discussing what they are about to do—commit murder—and part of the rationalization is “what’s past is prologue.” Does it mean that the characters are fated to do the dastedly deed because of what has gone before? Or does it mean that everything that has gone before has set the stage for them to “make their own destinies” as Wikipedia says? That seems to be a topic ripe for discussion, as much of Shakespeare is.

In my case I have no intention of murdering anyone (even my ‘darlings’ as the writing phrase goes, which I apparently should be doing more of). What clicked with me is the idea that whatever has gone before can inform and provide foundation for the success you can build atop it.

I’ve had a rough few years. But what did it teach me? What experiences did it provide me so I can write with more depth and emotion?

I hadn’t understood cancer before (even though I’ve written a supposed cure for cancer in Be All My Futures Remembered). Do I understand it now? Not really, but I know what stages mean and the different treatment options, and the pressure to choose the right options because suddenly your life is involved. I understand when you lose your hair. (I thought it was radiation. It’s not, it’s chemo. Thankfully, I didn’t lose my hair…) I understand that getting a margin is only the beginning. I understand what sentinel nodes are and how they’re found. And I understand the camaraderie you feel when you find you’re talking to a fellow cancer survivor.

Does that help my writing? It surely must. How can it do anything but?

The only thing stopping that from happening is me trying to recover my brain cells and, to a certain extent, my personality.

I used to write like I breathed—constantly and with a comforting flow. Now… Now I’m starting to recover the beginnings of that.
I used to blog over at Creativity’s Workshop on all things creativity. Now I know what it’s like to struggle to produce any kind of creativity. To sit on a couch and have no compulsion to do anything but continue to sit there. To lie in bed and be perfectly happy in a warm little ball and have no interest in getting up early to make progress on a story.

I’m a recovering creative. And I feel like that’s a worthy story to tell. I finally feel ready to start blogging again—to start documenting a process that could (I dearly hope) help others who want to create something but don’t know what’s stopping them. Who want to grow and thrive creatively. If that’s you, let’s go on a journey together! I promise to turn up each week and I would love to hear your comment on how you’re progressing. Tell me what you’re struggling with and let’s work through it together.