Forcing Creativity

Forcing Creativity. Is it actually possible? There is something that just says no matter what you are not going to feel ready. You're not going to think you have the skills, the software, the hardware to make something great.

The way we picture something in our heads about some grandiose epiphany or some glorified breakthrough happens that spawns a creative moment of clarity that can enable a symphony. It is bullshit. Something your mind makes up to keep you from the grind of actually getting things done. It is always excuses if you just sit and listen. It is likely your mind playing fear. You are not as good as X person. You don't have the right experience. You are not smart enough. You have no ambition. You have nothing to say. It has all been done before.

It is all nonsense and it is to be treated as all fear and doubt in your mind. As passing thoughts. Leaves in the river that float by. Unattached and without substance. Observe them, refocus and continue.

Being creative or even spotting creativity is a process. In my experience an arduous one. You need to just output as much as you can no matter what you are feeling. Even if you don't feel like it, or you think it is crap, or you think it is great you must get it out.

Michelangelo used to look at a hunk of marble and see a statue in it and his process was to simply remove the excess around it to reveal the statue. It is an interesting way to look at the world but one that I don't necessarily resonate with. I more look at it that there is a river of flowing water and most of it is just simply water, nothing more, nothing less, but every once in a while you find gold with that water flowing. The more water you have the more you can uncover. The last thing you want to do is stop the water flowing.

So can you actually force it every day? One thing is for sure it will not feel good while you are doing it and that is something that you must get used to and pursue. Knowing that what you might be making is garbage and is something that just has to be done to get to something that is acceptable.

What does this mean in practice? Here are some things I do to spur me into motion.

Constraint! — Completely limit yourself. I will speak in terms of music production as it is primarily where all my creative endeavours lead. I have hundreds of plugins, synthesizers, and studio tools. In fact so many paths that I could take is almost paralyzing. Constrain them. Timebox 30 minutes and open one synth or audio tool and make something with it in that 30 minutes. Use nothing else.

Push for an output. Any output. Really this is just around the "Just do it" slogan. Stop overthinking everything and just start making a mess. Do not think about what you are doing... start stacking, start creating, start playing. You can edit things and clean up later if need be. The point is you are going to have to go through a river of nonsense before you find something interesting. It should be expected that most of what you are doing is making a mess in the mud.

Developing the skill of forcing output is something that needs to be done. It is discipline that will drive that. Forcing output which you can edit and modify later is just something that needs to be done. Like looking for that needle in a haystack. That is the skill really finding something creative in the bulk of work you have laid down.

Knowing when to abandon something. This is really a judgment call when you are editing things. Sometimes the idea was just nonsense to begin with. Sometimes it is just crap and will stay crap no matter what you do or how much time you spend refining it. The wonderful thing about this is it is out of your system... a road to not go down. You have eliminated yet another dead end street. Rejoice!

The fear and doubt will always be there, floating past like leaves on the water. Your job isn't to clear the river — it's to keep panning through it. Don't stop. The gold comes to those who keep their hands in the water.

The river doesn't stop flowing just because the water is muddy. Neither should you. Keep sifting. The gold is in the volume.