I can’t count the number of times someone has said to me that they’d like to write a book or a song, shoot a movie, build a castle…but just can’t get started. OK, maybe not the last one, but you get the idea.
We all have the creative impulse – in fact, we are the creative impulse in motion. That’s really the key to understanding how to undertake any creative endeavor.
The imagination is a limitless supply of ideas & impulses that, when tapped, provide all the fuel any of us needs to sustain a creative life. The problem is that many people have either lost the ability to tap into it or they are paralyzed by the endless stream of ideas to be found.
A man in his late twenties recently told me he believes he is part of the “lost generation”. He says he has been given so much freedom to create that he can’t lock in on what to create. So, he finds himself in the same predicament as the person who has lost touch with his imagination. Neither is accomplishing anything that satisfies the soul.
If you’ve been hangin’ around my campfire for any length of time, you know that Freedom is a key element here. A vital piece for laying claim to your creative freedom, however, is structure. It may seem counterintuitive, but when you talk to most “high-performers”, you’ll find they have a certain structure or method to their creative madness. When I wrote my novel, Heaven, I took Stephen King’s suggestion & committed to a structure of 1000 words per day, minimum. Some days, my characters woke me from sleep ready to jump into their next activity. Other days, I circled the blank page like a vulture, waiting. Those are the days we take our creative impulse for granted, thinking it is up to us, alone, to make it happen. This is not the truth. And buying into this illusion can be paralyzing.
That blank canvas, page or screen is merely waiting for us to sit down & settle in so it can show us what it wants to become! The creative impulse eagerly seeks the vessel through which it will take form. You will do something different with it than I would. That’s the beauty & the importance of each of us expressing the Life Force energy in our own unique ways. If you want to bring your creative work to fruition, you must choose a structure & make the commitment. It will bring you joy & great fulfillment on your creative journey.
What will you choose to express out of the endless stream of imagination today? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.
Do you know you have something that just wants to burst forth & you feel stuck when trying to move it to the next level? Contact me. I’ll show you how to break free.
