Comments on: The Unbearable Lightness of Creativity.

By: craftivista

craftivista — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 02:43:21 +0000

"How do you over come the too many ideas?"

If I had this answer, Katie, I would be a bajillion times richer than
I am now. So take (although afraid it's cold) comfort in knowing that
you aren't alone!

I will say, however, that things started to take more shape once I
realized that I had to start looking at all my ideas and figuring out
what they had in common. For example, I realized that the too many
ideas thing is okay, as long as I work in consecutive projects instead
of running out guns blazing. :) And once you have the commonalities,
things might began to become clearer?

Recently some told me a wonderful adage, "In order to find where you
need to go, you first need to set your course and sail out on a path.
Only then can [God*] blow you to where you need to be." Or close to
that. I like the idea that running with one idea will eventually lead
you to where you want to be, you just need to start.

Good luck!

x
betsy

*Re: God, it was someone who used to be a minister who told me this,
feel free to substitute whatever.

By: Kim Werker

Kim Werker — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:31:42 +0000

I close my eyes and focus on the things that make me the most excited. The
others can swim around forever in my head, but if I don't just pick
something I feel really good about, I end up miserable.

By: Katie

Katie — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:07:50 +0000

How do you over come the too many ideas? I am trying to apply to the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, MI but I can't settle on anything to send in. I just keep coming up with ideas that I never get started. It seems like you have something you go to that reminds you to get back on track.

Thanks.. glad I found your blog today!

By: Heather

Heather — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:31:53 +0000

Sometimes the audience is important to me, and sometimes it's not - I have several blogs, and they all go through rotation of high traffic time (i.e. me posting) and low traffic time. My blogging is also dependent on how much time I spend in front of a computer. At the moment, I am only online at work (where blogging is not in my job description!), so I'm accomplishing more at home in my free time, but it doesn't make it to the computer. I certainly fight with the dilemma of having many ideas and little time, many desires and fewer current outlets. But as time passes, I think that my focus will be more on the creative life and less on the life that exists only to make a dollar.

I really appreciated the poem you posted in Craftivism, linked in one of the comments here. It was very timely for my work situation, reassuring, and reminded me not only that focusing on my creative life is important, but so is living in whichever moment I am in, including that job that brings in the paycheck.

As for this blog, I am enjoying it as is, and I don't think blogging quotas should be placed on people unless they do it as a FT job. Each blog has a different personality, quality and frequency figuring in to that. I have noticed among some blogs that I follow a tendency to really want to churn out material. I don't need to see each centimeter of a sock as it progresses, or different angles, though I admit that sometimes I'm in an eye candy mood and other times I love to read what the blogger has to say about his/her creative life and process. But with technology like Twitter and Bloglines, I don't necessarily need the frequency to remind me to visit. I vote for quality.

By: johnathanelopez

johnathanelopez — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:13:28 +0000

That’s fascinating! I’ve never heard that before….thanks so much for passing this along. Keep posting.
CG tutorial

By: Lisa

Lisa — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:20:55 +0000

My creative life? I used to try to create as much as possible. There was knitting, blogging, and store stash to create. At some point it all became work, every bit as stressful as my corporate days. I let things fall and I felt guilty. These days, I have revamped my blog and store. I post on my blog what and when the I feel like it. I list items for sale as I finish them. I take no orders, nor am I doing any contract/sample knitting. Oddly, enough, I am getting so much more done now. I am even blogging more than I used to when I had myself on a schedule.
Give yourself a break. It you are like me, you will become more productive and relaxed when you stop trying so hard. (((hugs)))

By: craftivista

craftivista — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:27:03 +0000

Huzzah for embracing the “slowness” you need in order to do your best
work!

By: theredwitch

theredwitch — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:46:23 +0000

My Creative Life? Oh God. Where to begin...

My creative life is a mix of improving my jewelry art, secretly wishing I could sew, knit and crochet, admiring those who can,laying my hands on whatever tutorials I can find, drooling over cool leather work tools and vintage sewing machines...scavenging for cool bits and pieces and whatnots....having a myriad of ideas but all of them somehow too elusive to put on paper, sketch, or plan. Or having 1 or 2 crystal clear ideas that I immediately put into action.
The online/offline dilemma? There is no dilemma-you can't have a cool online life if your real life is crap. So yes, any excuse to shut that damn PC down and go for a stroll in the park is fine by me. And you will give that tired PC of yours a well deserved rest! :p
The urge to please your readers with regular blog posts? I don't have it. I do want a blog audience, sure, all of us here do, BUT! do we have to start writing 4-5 not-so-creative blog posts a day? Wouldn't that be too big a compromise? I personally feel that IF I have something to write about that is exciting to me-then I write. I don't write because I start feeling guilty that"Oh my, it's been 4-5 days, and I still haven't published anything!"
When you don't feel inspired to write a blog post, the next best thing is to devote some time to promoting your art, I think. This doesn't require that much imagination, and it's always helpful.
Like craftivista, I am also a bit slow in my work, and I've discovered it works best for me .

By: Lindsey

Lindsey — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:17:20 +0000

I try to blog post once a day and keep up with promoting for my etsy store and stuff pretty much daily, but I tend to take the weekends for myself and my creative or relationship life. Sometimes I post on Monday if I did something that might interest, but not always.

For example, yesterday I went to see the Jack o Lantern Spectacular in RI and i'll def be posting photos on Monday because it was creative and interesting and inspiring.

It's a nice mix of working during the week and having the weekends off, just like if it was a regular 9-5 job. I do think I should try to get my views up a little more on the weekends, but I don't plan on taking away from my life too much to do that. Maybe an hour or two on a Saturday morning or something...

By: craftivista

craftivista — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:40:47 +0000

Yeah, the whole timing thing is weird to me. Why should we apologize
for taking some time away offline? Long ago I realized that it doesn't
suit me to be overly prolific because when I am whatever I want to say
is diluted and not fully formed. That doesn't mean I discount or think
less of anyone who works in a different manner... we're just
differently wired. And I know that b/c I'm wired to be slower it does
bite me in the ass sometimes. But discovering how you work best is so
liberating...finding the balance as you say is hard... but I'm
inspired when others say that they're working towards having a more
balanced life, so thank you! :)

And moving to new places! What a lovely adventure!