Writing a book is a transformative experience – terrifying and thrilling at the same time – like exploring a jungle or climbing a mountain. The process can take many twists and turns and you never know where you’ll end up. With that in mind, this series will explore the creative process and map out some… Continue reading A Writer’s Guide to the Creative Process
So we come to the end and it’s time to stop. To be creative means to recognise when you’re not being creative, and be able to do something to rectify that situation. To change and move forward you must stop whatever it is you’re doing (or not doing) that doesn’t serve either you or your… Continue reading Being Creative in a Mad World: Stopping
To be creative means to be open to life and curious about what’s going on and why. If you want to create something meaningful you must educate yourself: demand to know everything there is to know, whether about the world around you or the world inside you. Don’t rely on the establishment or status quo… Continue reading Being Creative in a Mad World: Learning
To be creative you must pay attention to the world around you. Creativity is born out of an interest in life and other people. Turn your gaze outward. Search out the telling detail, ready for the moment the mask drops and the truth is revealed. People watching is a favourite inspiration, but sometimes depressing. You… Continue reading Being Creative in a Mad World: Looking
True creativity happens right on the edge of rebellion, on the edge of chaos. This is where life functions at its best: at a point of dynamic equilibrium. Always changing, always transforming into something else. It is impossible to be alive and avoid transformation. Life always seeks to renew and expand, spread out and master… Continue reading Being Creative in a Mad World: Rebelling
Living creatively means being you. Who else are you going to be, if not yourself? Whose life are you going to live, if not your own? Affirming means saying yes to being here and being alive. To be creative you must make manifest who you are through your creativity, and you do that by giving… Continue reading Being Creative in a Mad World: Affirming
To be creative you must act. Creativity is meaningless if it isn’t acted upon and made real. If you do nothing, you’ve got nothing. You become what you do. In the face of the immensity of the universe and overwhelmed by your own smallness, it’s easy to believe you are insignificant. You work to create… Continue reading Being Creative in a Mad World: Acting
Encountering means confronting life and yourself. This isn’t an aggressive confrontation with lots of bared teeth and frowning. It is non-demanding – more like an embrace. But not clinging, not a death grip. It’s about giving your creativity space to breathe, holding it in your mind and letting it be. You do without doing. In… Continue reading Being Creative in a Mad World: Encountering
Committing to living creatively means you care. It’s an investment in yourself, in your future, in the process of creating, and in others. You are entangled with your inspiration and passions, like two quarks linked across time and space, pulsing with the dance of life. Failure to commit is a refusal to live consciously or… Continue reading Being Creative in a Mad World: Committing
If you are creative then you’re paying attention to the world around you and exploring your inner world looking for inspiration and passion. But the more you look, the more you will doubt. You can’t take anything at face value. You must penetrate the surface of life to find the truth. Like a good scientist,… Continue reading Being Creative in a Mad World: Doubting
What is the meaning of life? We all have our favourite answers to this question, but it’s a mistake to think meaning exists out there in the world somewhere, just waiting for you to discover it. Of course, you can take your sense of meaning from outside yourself, in family, career or accomplishment, but this… Continue reading Being Creative in a Mad World: Meaning
Sartre said we are condemned to be free. But you could say we are condemned to choose. Having big brains frees us from being driven by instinct, but our consciousness only makes it possible for us to be free. We are only free if we act on it and make a choice. It is impossible… Continue reading Being Creative in a Mad World: Choosing
Jessica Davidson 