Looking back to get unstuck
I’m feeling stuck. It’s Tuesday evening and I need to write a blog post for Wednesday, my arbitrary, self-imposed deadline. I really don’t want to miss a week and yet I can’t think what to write. The last couple of weeks have been a bit of a struggle in terms of work/life/creative me balance. Events in my personal life are derailing most of my attempts to get work done and as for creative things… well, they’ve ground to a halt. The creative well is dry and no amount of scraping around at the bottom, hoping for something miraculous, is going to help me right now, to write this now. I need a quick fix.
I am fully aware that this is not an ideal situation. I know that I should have been topping up my creative stores with inspiring and nourishing activities, feeding my curiosity and paying attention to the little things. But we are all flawed humans, none of us is perfect, and despite knowing what we ‘should’ do, we often don’t manage it. I have a note in my diary to remind me to be kind to myself, so no berating today. Instead, what small act can I do to help? How do I unstick myself when there isn’t time to gently revive my flagging creativity? I look back.
What is my creative practice?
Like many people, I’m using this quiet space at the beginning of the year to consider the state of things, to reflect on what went on in 2017 and to start putting together a very loose plan for 2018. I’ve been steadily working through guides and documents sent to me by people who advise and support creatives for a living, and having put together my own Creative Practice MOT course (which twenty lovely people are currently using) my head is filled with questions. Questions like ‘how do you feel about your creative practice?’ or ‘which of your services were most profitable in 2017?’ questions which may have definite answers or may lead to a vast place of unknowing…