Make it happen: The Creative Habit

“Writing a book is like a long trek through unfamiliar wilderness. It doesn’t take long before you feel lost, disoriented, hungry, ready to give up, lie down, eat your hands, and let the book die on the ground next to you like a gut-shot coyote.”

– Chuck Wendig; 500 Ways To Write Harder

I love the idea of having a creative routine. I’m just not very good at it.

It’s quite romantic to have a creative ritual that you do every day to call down the Muse to inspire you and show off how professional you are about the creative work that you do.

I love buying in to that idea.

That doesn’t work for my reality, though.

Instead, I just put in on my calendar and do my best to make it happen.

I’ve got WRITE scheduled for 2 hours every day. Some days I do it first thing in the morning, some days it gets pushed back and pushed back until I squeeze in 45 minutes before going to bed. On Friday, I actually wrote about 300 words by hand while I was hanging out with Andrew at his recording session.

But I really do try to write every day. Most days it’s crap. That’s the nature of first drafts if nothing else. A handful of magical days it just flows like I’m reading it instead of writing it. But either way, creating every single day makes the next day even easier. Writing three days in a row makes the fourth day easier. And every day I am that much closer to having a final and completed piece of creative work.

So … I may not have the whole regular ritual thing down, but just making it happen goes a long way to creating decent work on a regular basis.

I just have to remind myself EVERY DAY to make it happen.

We’ve been reading The Creative Habit for the L&R Book Club (in May and June). It’s a bit fluffier than I expected. Megan pointed out that it’s really just personal anecdotes, half of which don’t even have attribution.

The book is full of exercises (I think a couple at the end of each chapter), which I really appreciate. It lends a practical, useful point of view to the anecdotes, showing precisely how Tharp uses the info she is talking about.

If you’re interested in reading books on creativity, small business, and living your best life, and discussing these ideas with other readers, I’d love if you joined the L&R Book Club.

To join the L&R Book Club:

• Get this month’s book. Amazon, library, local book store. Wherever.
• Join the Facebook Group
• Discuss

How to you maintain your creativity consistently?

Make it happen: The Creative Habit is a post from: Lemon and Raspberry | Amy T Schubert

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