Catching the Wave of Creativity
You Gotta Grab it When It's There
This is not a post about the discipline of creativity. It’s not a post about being at your desk at 9am to make sure you’re typing.
This is a post about catching a creative wave.
About knowing how to receive the signals when it’s time to pick up the paint brush.
The first thing you should know, is that no creative wave lasts forever.
You ever look back at a brilliant short story you wrote when you were 16, and wonder how you ever managed it?
It’s easy to get lost in a sea of nostalgia, wishing you could still write that way.
You can’t write that way.
You’re a better artist now, you’re more experienced, you know more things — but you can’t capture the thoughts and feelings you had at 16.
Rather than trying to recapture a lost essence, you can find the gold in where you are now, today.
Your brain is giving you signals to focus on something. Maybe you’re obsessed with reading about airplanes. Maybe you’ve developed an obsession with ancient Iznik Pottery. Maybe you’re crushing on one writer’s blog.
Whatever it is, it’s happening for a reason. You’re locking on to something that’s calling out to you.
What You Create Today, You Won’t Create Tomorrow. What’s for today, is what you need to focus on. It’s why so many bands have terrible follow up albums. They try to recreate what worked the first time.
The first album they were IN THE MOMENT, the second album they’re TRYING TO FIND THE MAGIC AGAIN.
Below is a short film that I created, which captured a moment in my life, a feeling, but I wouldn’t be capable of it today. I’m glad I made it because— it exists.
The truth about magic, is that it is not always magic. If you’re truly you, truly in the moment—- so much of your creative output will SUCK! Or at the very least, it’ll be ordinary.
But truthful ordinariness is better that forced, repeated brilliance.
Who you are right now is trying to express something.
Embrace where you’re at.
Embrace who you are.
And publish your work.
Because come tomorrow, you’ll never be able to capture the juice you had today.
Very nice short film!
Immediately this piece hit home for me—I’ve grown so much since I wrote my first story at 14. Lost a bunch of skills, gained new ones. Now, my strength is editing and helping shape creativity that other people have to make a good story, not coming up with my own creativity. You’ve touched on a very important thought here. We were just having a discussion with the artists on our team yesterday about whether someone should write a story “for the trends of the time” or whether they can be successful writing whatever they want to. We came to the conclusion that if you write from your true passion, your story will be honest. If your story is honest, then it matters. And if it matters, it will endure time.