My Ideal Yet Practical Creative Life Scenario
Here’s my response to this week’s reflective journaling prompt: What conditions help you feel creative? Keep reading, then let me know if you can relate to what I wrote in the chat or comments.
August Theme: The Creative Life
Big Question: How do we build a creative life that works for us?
Week 1: Making Space
What I wrote below is based on the following reflective writing prompt included in Saturday’s Writing Prompts for Making Space in Your Creative Life post.
Prompt: Your Creative Conditions
What conditions help you feel creative?
Why did I choose it?
I chose this prompt because it’s rare for me to reflect on my own creative environment… until the millisecond it suddenly becomes too loud, too bright, too disorganized, or inexplicably hot. Which is also around the same time I start fantasizing about all the conditions those writers and other creators seem to have in movies, then start comparing my own situation to theirs.
You know the movie-like situations I’m talking about. The ‘dump’ of an apartment that a twenty-something fresh out of college rents out that still somehow has an immaculate view of Central Park. That picturesque Parisian café that somehow always has the same cozy seat available. The giant bohemian art studio loft that has astronomically high ceilings and its own private elevator. The lake house that that struggling writer is somehow miraculously able to rent out with the handsome local living next door, even after their electricity back home is shut off… And on and on it goes… Until the absurd romantic logic of such conditions starts to make me laugh maniacally because that’s not real life. Not for me anyway. Not for most other creative people out there either, I imagine. And certainly not for most writers. Seriously, in this economy, as AI looms everywhere? psshh
Long story short, I thought it would be a good idea to take a minute to explore this topic while we’re discussing how to build the creative lives we want this week because while I think it’s important to dream about your ideal writing conditions (especially if it’s a long-term motivator), I also see the practical value behind genuinely taking a beat to ensure your writing conditions are as ideal as they possibly can be at this exact moment, based on your current situation in life right now.
I know I’ve written about my ideal writing spot a lot. Hence, Sunday’s post: A Day Alive in the Lakeside Library. And maybe one day I’ll work in that lakeside library, or even build it myself, literally. But maybe I won’t. And that’s okay. Because after writing today’s post, I hope to understand my ideal creative conditions within the context of my everyday life as it is right now a little better.
My Response: My Ideal Yet Practical Creative Life Scenario
I wrote then deleted the first sentence of this response five times already, so that’s telling me there might be some internal conflict worth exploring here. And that I need to begin moving away from the ‘ideal’ lakeside library scenario I have in my head, which is too dreamlike right now, while simultaneously refusing to sacrifice what I absolutely need to be creative in my current everyday real-life scenario.
Right off the bat, my response to this question (What conditions help you feel creative?) seems simple and obvious. What helps me feel creative? Silence.
Yep… that’s pretty much it.
More than I need a gentle breeze and natural settings surrounding a surreal sunroom library, what I really need to feel creative is silence.
Without regular stints of silence when I write, I can’t organize a plot or post that I won’t eventually delete or intensely revise, I can’t conduct thorough research that actually moves my projects forward without getting distracted by random online rabbit holes, and I certainly can’t hear the voices in my own head (the mostly fictional ones) telling me what they want and need to do next.
For me, when it’s quiet, I can focus better. And when I can focus better, I’m more creative. It doesn’t get much simpler than this: Without distractions around me, I don’t get distracted. Which means my mind will only wander to exactly where it needs to be.
But silence is not easy to come by in a world that can’t seem to shut up. At least, not when you don’t have millions to buy that silence via a lakeside getaway or country retreat whenever you want at a moment’s notice. Sure, I can rent a lakeside getaway for a weekend, but it won’t be my long-term writing spot, or something I can do at any time that’s convenient for me without needing to worry about everyday schedules and availability.
Over the past few years, I have finally learned how to listen to white noise on my headphones when I need to work in public places due to travel, appointments, etc. And I have learned to rise before dawn to write before everyone else in the neighborhood starts waking up to exercise and mow their lawns and work and play outdoors. But training myself to do these things was a decade-long struggle because I used to be a night owl who wrote from nine or ten at night until dawn when I was younger, precisely because I loved the creativity that would come in the middle of the night when the rest of the world around me was fast asleep.
Sure, there would be those neighbors who occasionally liked to party late when I was trying to write. But now there are home-related responsibilities to deal with every morning before I get to work, even if I wake up at 4AM. And finding places outside the home to work can be a complete nightmare when you need silence, or at least some semblance of stillness, to create. My local library, which I support and adore, still has an indoor playground for children (like, a big one), for example. And coffee shops are filled with noise and distractions, regardless of when you visit them.
Ensuring I get the quiet I need, in other words, has always been another entirely separate albeit related endeavor to writing for me, which is where my mixed feelings about this topic come in…
I know I’m in a much better position than most at this stage in my life when it comes to designing stable writing conditions that I can mostly control, as I have my own home office and live in the suburbs of a mid-sized town that isn’t all that noisy compared to major metropolitan areas. And I know not everyone has the luxury of a (mostly) silent and private place to create like I do, or the option to frequent coffee shops and libraries if they so choose.
But even in spaces that include conditions of my own intricate and intentional designs, which I used to dream about, I still sometimes struggle to focus and create which, I’m starting to realize, is simply part of most writers’ lives nowadays, regardless of their immediate environments— that ongoing struggle between noticing oneself and the always-on world, while deciding where to focus one’s creative attention, all at once.
Essentially, what this writing exercise is allowing me to see is that I already know my ideal yet practical creative life scenario, and that I’m already living it, based on the limitations of my everyday life and my ongoing struggles with those limitations. And that it is because of those struggles and limitations that I’m able to be creative at all, ironically enough.
Things aren’t perfect, but achieving perfection is an ever-elusive goal, and a futile one if you’re trying to live a creative life. Because the longer I reflect, the more I’m able to see how sometimes those interruptions and daily bouts of chaos and noise I try my best to avoid or subdue end up providing as much inspiration for the creative work I’m doing as they do distractions from it. And that is such a beautifully frustrating paradox for me to consider.
That noisy patron I overhear at a coffee shop could influence my next character arc. The kids screaming in the playground in the background could offer the ambiance I need in a future scene. The noise of the garbage truck doing its rounds could offer me a new perspective. The smell of arabica beans and pastries could spur memories and dialogue. A muted sunrise peeking through the office window could influence the mood of my next piece. And so on.
So, while I will still maintain my early morning writing routine to maximize those quiet hours I need, to write as often as I can before the world wakes up, I will now also try to make it a point to listen to that world as often as I can as soon as it starts to wake up around me…
Join the Conversation
What’s your response to this question, or any of the other prompts in this week’s Writing Prompts for Making Space in Your Creative Life post?
Leave a comment or join this week’s Drafters Workshop chat or Dialoguers chat, where we’re still discussing the best ways to make creative space for the creative lives we truly want for the rest of the week, before we move on to discussing Creative Habits next week.
Whether you leave a comment or join one of the chats to share your responses, ask questions, or connect with other writers and support their work, we can’t wait to see what you contribute!
Please don’t forget to like and share this post with your network so others can see it too. Thanks in advance. I hope to see you in the comments or chat threads sometime soon!
Continue Exploring The Creative Life (August Series)
This week’s Posts: Making Space
Writing Prompts for Making Space in Your Creative Life
A Day Alive in the Lakeside Library
Do writers need to protect creative time like an appointment?
Reading Notes: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Go more in depth with this month’s theme with The Creative Life Writing Collection
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