Effectively Balanced Creativity and Control

Everything In Life Engages Creativity

Creativity is a fickle mistress. Too much pressure and strain will lock her down like a pouting child refusing one more bite of vegetables. But she locks down as firmly when given too much freedom to go her merry way. Too much leisure makes her lazy and dull. Finding the happy medium is the real challenge, not only for creative types like writers, painters, and potters but for anyone using creativity in their work or daily lives.

Most activities require a certain degree of creativity, if only to learn something new or solve problems. Following the old tried and true is fine when the problems you encounter are nice and agreeable, willing to stick to the patterns and forms of old. Even in my accounting career, it was rare the problems and roadblocks I ran into were willing to play by anyone’s arbitrary set of rules. As most of those problems fell into one of two categories; computers or people, expecting cooperation, even if it was where, when, and how problems would occur was a fool’s journey.

I learned early on there were times you had to forge your own path, even if it meant creating temporary workarounds until a more permanent solution could be crafted. Computers might be mathematically based, leaning heavily on logic, but it also means there are infinite ways things can, and do go off the rails.

The Path of Most Resistance

People, in my limited experience, can be counted on to take the path of most resistance, or turn

what should be simple cattywampus for their own ends, which, by the way, they’ll rarely share, and will change if someone starts to catch on.

Either way, creativity that’s been left lying dormant, either from overwhelm or ennui is no use at all. Somehow or other, you have to keep it locked and loaded; ready for anything at all times, no matter what your chosen vocation, or avocation.

I’m thankful mine doesn’t roll over and die of boredom given the number of times I’ve left it alone to find it’s own amusement. Like a child, creativity needs a certain amount of structure and guidance. Lack of either or both will leave it flapping in the wind like laundry forgotten on the line. Heaven forbid there’s a sudden storm or upheaval. Like the laundry, whatever progress you’ve made could be spoiled, leaving you to start the process from the beginning.

Keeping the Creative Fires Burning

Of late, I’ve fallen into a pattern whereby I leave mine high and dry while I’m coping with areas in my life which, quite frankly, would be far better served by tapping into the creativity that allows me to solve problems to get through some of the hardest times life throws at me.

Instead, I’ve chosen the worst path possible; curling up into a ball, refusing to write, or even put fingers on keys, or pick up a pen, and wait for feelings and frustrations to pass. Let me say right now, it doesn’t work that way—not ever. I should know better after all the years I’ve spent wading through decades and generations of trials and tribulations, wounds that weren’t allowed to scar over, and beliefs that had gone out of vogue long before I or most of my ancestors was a glimmer in anyone’s eye.

Times of trouble or trauma are exactly when I should engage my creativity, allow feelings to flow onto the page without restriction or guidance, and walk bravely into the storm. Waiting for it to pass while doing nothing is like waiting for a forest fire to run out of fuel. It might happen eventually, but not before it’s left excessive amounts of death and destruction in its wake. Heaven knows we’ve had numerous examples in recent years in California alone, not to mention Colorado and Australia. And those fires were actively being fought, not allowed to burn at will.

Honoring Personal Commitments

The blessing in sitting back and letting my own creative fires burn down nearly to embers is the brutal realization I’ve left myself without a safety net, and must quickly find the balance between too much and too little before I’m completely exposed, and am paddling hard just to stay afloat.

What all these references to nature’s might translate into in my world is a blog queue that’s barely running a week ahead. It may not seem like much to most people, but for me, it’s a frightening state of affairs.

The cushion I’d established was sufficient to get me through one crisis, but a second one would put me back to square one, when I wrote my posts the day they were supposed to be published. I’ve learned I do my best work when I have the time and space to let what I’ve written “cure” for at least a few hours before I edit and format. Publishing without that time and space leaves too much room for blatant errors and ugly holes in my content.

Not only has my blog queue been unconscionably neglected, but any other writing I might have done, any planned edits I had scheduled have been allowed to languish. The ground I’d gained in honoring commitments to myself has been lost in the space of about 4 weeks.

Getting the Team Back In Action

It isn’t that I can’t regain it, and have, in fact made significant inroads in the last couple of days to do so. It’s the frustration of having to go over the same old ground one more time. It’s a lot like my weight releasing goals. I gain and release the same 5 pounds over and over again instead of holding a path aimed steadily downward.

If I kept to my 3-4 weeks ahead blog schedule, I’d only have to write 3 posts a week to stay on schedule, leaving untold hours for creating fiction, editing current projects, and maybe even learning new skills!

I could spend another week or two beating myself up for failing to honor my commitments, but it would only put me further behind, more annoyed, and less productive. So I grab the reigns I dropped, give my neglected creativity a clear but well-defined space to play, and make it clear rest time is over, and it’s time to get her head back in the game. In other words, she brings the ideas, and I put them together into something resembling sense.

We are a team, me, my creativity, and my critic, but everyone depends on me showing up. When I don’t, we’re a rudderless boat drifting downstream and eventually getting stuck on a sandbar, which is where we are right now. It’s going to take some maneuvering, and a lot of perseverance to get us out of the shallows and on the move again. It all comes down to making a choice, setting a course, and easing off on the wheel. Too much control will stop our forward momentum as surely as that sand bar. Another lesson I’ve learned the hard way.

 

About the Author

Sheri Conaway is a Holistic Ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats and mental health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income.

If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author.

Be sure to watch this space for news of the upcoming releases of ” Rebuilding After Suicide” and “Sasha’s Journey”.