Being Mindful of the Creative Process

     Yesterday afternoon was the first time in awhile that I was inspired to run back inside my house, grab my camera, and wander around outside taking pictures in my neighborhood.  Intrigued by the reflections created in the windows of my car from the clouds and the sun, I snapped a few shots.  Noticing that the sky was ideal for taking reflection pictures-- a gradation of cloud tones from white to light gray to darker gray with some sunlight against a blue background-- I thought it would be neat to take a series of reflection pictures within the windows of cars in my neighborhood.

     Walking towards a car parked along the sidewalk in front of my house, I noticed something interesting.  In approaching the car, I saw an intriguing reflection.

Simply moving several steps in a different direction, the reflection was no longer there.  The magic had disappeared-- all I could see was the inside of the car.

     Suddenly, it occurred to me that this phenomenon of the reflections appearing and disappearing, with the slightest change of angle and lighting, is much like the creative process itself.  Thoughts rapidly fired in my brain as I became inspired to write this blog entry about mindfulness, for the first time in almost three months...

     Three months without blogging about mindfulness...The first month made sense.  It was June-- the last month of a crazy, hectic-busy, stressful school year.  I could understand my lack of time, lack of motivation, lack of inspiration.  I looked forward to taking pictures and blogging during the summer.

     But then July came and went.  No new blog entries, no nature photography.  I had a list, which seemed like excuses rather than valid reasons of why.  I was busy taking 10 credits worth of classes-- both in person and online, took several trips, participated in four different summer work projects at school, and attended a technology conference.  There were also several stressors that occupied much of my brain space as well.  Still, I thought that during the school year I was often very busy and very stressed and blogging about mindfulness was a great way to relax.  So why wasn't that happening now?

     Next, I attributed my lack of blogging to not having the right container.  During the school year, at times I was inspired to blog about teaching and learning, but realized that what I wanted to blog about did not fit into the theme of this blog.  So I decided to create a new blog, one more specifically targeted about teaching.  I thought, "Now I'll be inspired to write."  Now, three weeks since I created my new blog and I still haven't posted my first entry.  This has been a little bit frustrating and  disappointing for me-- eager to start up my blog and create a readership.

     It's not that I haven't been prolific this summer-- actually quite the opposite.  In fact, I've written significant portions of three different blog entries for my new blog-- I just haven't finished any of them.  I've been somewhat hard on myself about not being able to complete any of these entries.  But then something clicked in my head when I saw the sunlight creating reflections in the car windows, which would suddenly disappear when I walked a few steps, changing my angle, or when the sun ducked behind the clouds.

     Just like reflections, creativity can not be forced.  I can put myself in certain situations or to go some of my favorite places like Spy Pond, but I'm not going to feel inspired every single time.  Creativity is not just about will power, about wanting to be creative.  It's also about unexpectedness, about intangible feelings, about something that sparks the mind to think in a different way than it has before.  Like reflections, creativity can be fleeting.  There can be a glimpse of a creative idea that starts me off on a project but then may duck away for a time, like the sun behind the clouds, causing the reflection, or the spark to disappear.

     When I thought about my three unfinished blog entries in this way, it occurred to me that some of my best writing is created when I am mindful and respectful of my creative process.  Sure, there have been occasions when the creative bug bites me and I am flooded with inspiration, causing me to to write a poem or a short essay in a burst of energy.  However, more often, I write in stages, in drafts, with time spent apart from my writing so that I can come back to it with fresh eyes.

      It can help to have time in between writing the ending of a piece of writing and the main part--this can be days, weeks, sometimes even months.  Time allows me to come up with ideas when I don't even realize that I am doing it, helping me to formulate my thoughts.  Giving ideas time to percolate in my head can help me overcome writer's block.   Maybe this is what is happening with all of my unfinished blog entries.

     Being mindful of my own creative process, I will stop being so hard on myself for not finishing my blog entries.  And trust that with time, the creative bug will come back, allowing me to complete them.  And most of the time, when the creative bug comes back, the piece ends in a way that I never would have originally anticipated it would.  Just like I never predicted the neat warps and contours that would be created in this reflection simply by walking a few steps over...

Managing the Frustrations of the Creative Process: The “Michelangelo” Approach

Writing can be a very liberating and exciting experience when the inspiration is abundant and the ideas are flowing.  On the other hand, it can be very challenging when it is difficult to think of ideas or the ideas are there but not quite connecting in the right way.  In the past, becoming “stuck” in my writing was a very frustrating experience, especially when I had already committed many ideas and words to the page.  Even more exasperating was when several sections of a piece of writing had been written well but for some reason or another did not connect, affecting the entire flow and overall meaning. For a school assignment, this might mean completely starting over and when writing a short story or a poem for fun, it might mean abandoning the piece and not pursuing a writing activity for quite a time afterward.

This summer, my friend Grace’s comment on my blog entry, “The Power of Cropping and Mentors” inspired me to think about the act of writing in a new way—revolutionizing the way that I have approached and thought about the revision process.  She compared the act of cropping photographs to the act of writing. “With photography, it can be analogous to writing -- what are the important parts of your story. The same for photographs, what is the important feature of your photo?” 

This started the wheels in my head turning, and I wrote this in response:  “I really like this idea of comparing writing to photography. Interesting to think about revising in a different way. Instead of taking away the "bad parts" or what does not work, revision can be thought of as taking away words to enhance or highlight the most important parts. This way, the reader can focus on the most interesting parts of the writing. In reading your comment, I immediately thought of what Michaelangelo said when asked how he made his statue of David. "I just chipped away the stone that didn't look like David."

This new philosophy about revision has really come in handy the past few days.  Wanting to write and post a blog entry for the past week, I was excited when an idea began percolating in my head, inspired by a comment that once again, Grace had made.  She spoke of enjoying having people to “bounce” with as she teaches.   Suddenly, a flurry of neurons were fired in my brain, furiously brainstorming the different ways that the word bounce can be used:  “bounce” or body with hair, “bouncing” with the ball chairs in the classroom, ideas “bouncing” rapidly in someone’s head like pinballs in a pinball machine, and “bouncing” ideas off of someone as a sounding board or in collaborating on ideas.  Using these various definitions of the word “bounce” I began thinking about how they are related to Parker Palmer’s idea of holding the tension of paradoxes in the classroom, especially that a teaching and learning space should be both bounded and open.

When I started my piece, I thought I was really onto something and in fact, many of the points that I made in my still unfinished blog entry are interesting and thought provoking.  Unfortunately, the paragraphs read better separately paragraphs than as one united piece.  Finally, I decided that as a blog entry, it was just not working.  In the past, I would have become completely frustrated, giving up on writing the piece and writing altogether for a period of time. 

However, now I am thinking that I may have created pieces of what will eventually become parts of different masterpieces, presenting themselves to me at some later point in the future.  I also feel better because I no longer feel disappointed about not writing a blog post.  Realizing that this blog is about teaching, learning, and the creative process—I realized that it is just as worthwhile to write about the challenges of the artistic process, as it is the successes.  Having accomplished my goal of writing a blog entry, I am now once again motivated and inspired to keep on writing.


Questions to Ponder:
How do you deal with the frustrations and challenges of the artistic process?  How do you help your students manage their frustrations?